Revelations
The State of the Women’s Ski Market II
Solid technical skills translate beautifully to powder, regardless of gender. Photo courtesy of Blizzard. In 1993, there were 25 models of reputedly made-for-women skis entered in the Snow Country Magazine ski test. They were classified as...
The State of the Women’s Ski Market I
Much as I loathe the idea of contributing to the demise of my native tongue, I hereby bow before the Zeitgeist of brevity. For those whose reading habits consist of a diet of small doses, behold the conclusions of my two-part examination of the...
Why We Review Non-FIS Race Skis
I don’t know how many Non-FIS Race skis will be sold during the many Race Nights that will most likely convene sometime this month, but I have a fair idea of how many will move off retail racks during the rest of the season: next to none. Aside...
The Making of a Skier, Part V: Salomon Field Days, Part Deux
My first winter season as a Salomon rep was winding down when our Binding Product Manager, Joe Campisi, asked me to script a promotional video for use on the following year’s certification circuit. I promptly produced a draft that Campisi passed...
The Making of a Skier, Part IV: Salomon Field Days
I was an experiment. Clay Freeman, Salomon’s Western Sales Manager, and Tom Corlett, the Colorado Front Range rep who would soon assume Freeman’s mantle, met me in the United Airlines lounge at Stapleton Airport to offer the newly created position...
The State of the Ski Market, Part II: The Pluses and Problems of Standards
In Part I of my 2020 State of the Ski Market Revelation, I describe how the influence of ski width, deep sidecuts, rockered baselines and tapered tips and tails have dumbed down skis to the point where skills development is treated as optional. The...
The State of the Ski Market: The Origins of Today’s Wacky World
Once upon a time, the Alpine ski market was relatively homogenous. Racing was the sole paradigm of excellence and race ski clones populated every product line. Everyone’s collection put race skis on a pedestal, made lower-cost spin-offs for the...
Why Wide Skis Aren’t Good for Your Knees
In his introduction to an overview of current research on the effects of wide skis, Prof. John Seifert of Montana State University explains two fundamental ways that wide skis expose the knee to injury. (We’ll get into the mysteries of just how...
What’s the Big Deal? Realskiers.com Adds Value Rating
The annual rite of spring known as America’s Best Bootfitters Boot Test attracts some of the world’s top product development talent. Last year I was third fiddle in a conversation between two very highly regarded members of this elite talent pool....
Realskiers.com Returns! or How I Spent My Summer Vacation
On those rare occasions when I leave my writer’s cocoon to engage in some form of social interaction, I’m often introduced as being somehow involved with the ski racket. When asked to clarify my ski connection, I confess to practicing a strange...
What We’ve Learned This Season
While stumbling through the poorly marked corridors of my cortex searching for an idea that would somehow summarize the entire 2018/19 ski season, I realized I wasn’t up to the task. There are too many trends, counter-trends and crosscurrents to...
Shell Games
The September 6, 2016 Revelation is titled, “Two Numbers to Know.” In it I explain that boot suppliers have helpfully put two numbers on every model they make, one to designate the total volume, as indicated by its width in the forefoot, and one to...
Mixed Media Messages
Regular readers of my Revelations know that my primary communication vehicle is the printed word, which I try to conjure and arrange as artfully as I can with the entwined intent of entertaining and educating. While my goals remain the same as...
Origin Story
On March 13, 2009, I died. As the astute reader will instantly sense, something is not quite right about that sentence. The problem is the verb. I write, “I died,” because we have no other word to describe what happened to me that day. Allow me to...
The Winter Divas
This is a story about community and the unique role that specialty ski shops play in helping to knit the family of skiers together. It is also a tale of individual will power and its ability to engage hundreds of enthusiasts in a common cause. Our...
The Movie in Your Mind
A pivotal moment in any ski or boot sale comes when the customer provides a thumbnail portrait of his or her abilities and ambitions. This self-appraisal determines the direction the salesperson is going to take to zero in on the customer’s perfect...
The Making of a Skier Part III: The Breckenridge Years
When I graduated from Yale in June of 1972, I had little idea of who I was and no idea whatsoever how I was supposed to spend the remainder of my time on earth. My degree was in Philosophy, where I sought to untie the knottiest problems. This no...
To Ski Better in All Terrain, Tweak Your Tactics
Before diving headlong into this week’s topic, let me clarify a central point that in a sense renders this Revelation’s irrelevant: technique conquers all. Great skiers can take their game anywhere with no discernable decline in performance. From...
Time to Congregate & Evaluate
If you’re passionate about skiing, going to a trade fair is like attending an orgy or an endless Champagne brunch where everything you’ve ever wanted is there for the asking. Any ski maker who hopes to earn a spot on a retailer’s ski wall will be...
Peter Keelty Steps on a Rainbow
Peter Keelty didn’t just live life, he devoured it. The bright light that drove him to excel would forever wrestle with the darker impulses that arose whenever he indulged his passions, which were many. Before I go any further, I must beg my Dear...
A Moveable Feast
I’m nuts to be writing this. The Snowsports Industries America (SIA) show, now somewhat integrated with the Winter Outdoor Retailer (OR) show, concluded its 3-day run in Denver last Friday. The convenience of having the decision-makers of every...
The Best Skier on the Mountain
When I took my first steps on skis, it was Stein. He was the skier everyone wanted to emulate. “You ski like Stein” was the highest possible compliment one could pay to another member of skiing’s cozy fraternity. Pardon the cliché, but it was a...
What Tomorrow Brings
Last week I dropped by the first regional trade show to retrieve the fresh-off-the-presses 2020 catalogs for most of the mainstream brands. This seemingly sterile exercise gives me an overview of the market that reveals which ski genre is...
Four Ways to Improve Your Quality of Life
People, a category that includes skiers, are creatures of habit. They repeat their routines, time after time, perhaps occasionally questioning their wisdom but almost never altering the patterns of behavior they’ve inculcated after decades of...
The Best Ski Test Team Ever
False modesty does not become me, so I'll just say it: it was the best ski test, ever. Instead of running for barely a week, it churned non-stop for more than three weeks. But it wasn't just long; it was also deep. Just the local talent pool was...
The Great Divide
For nine of the last ten days I’ve been fitting boots and selling skis in the frantic scrum known as holiday shopping. My hands are speckled with not-quite-sealed wounds and my mind is numb from countless counseling sessions with frazzled...
The Making of a Skier, Part II: Shorties and Other Tales
[In fond memory of many joyful Christmas vacations in the home my parents built in the mountains, where they were happiest. Merry Christmas to all my Dear Readers at Realskiers.] It’s no longer regarded as insightful to observe that memories are...
Why Another Buyer’s Guide?
Yesterday morning the 2019 Masterfit Buyer’s Guide was posted on digital platforms across the Internet. A collaboration between Masterfit and Realskiers, the Masterfit Buyer’s Guide blends the instant availability of a digital publication with the...
On Sensuality
As the Pontiff of Powder, I have a sacrosanct duty to bestow spiritual enrichment upon my flock. The spirit guide I have co-authored for this express purpose is Snowbird Secrets, from which On Sensuality has been excerpted. While it is a fallacy to...
The Making of a Skier, Part I
Dear Readers: I subscribe to exactly one blogger, Bob Lefsetz, whose passion is the music scene, but his restless mind and flowing prose are by no means confined to this subject. Lefsetz’s second love is skiing, a topic to which he often strays in...