It snowed again in Reno last Monday night, an unnecessary reminder that this season might never end. But while skiing in these parts continues unabated, it’s time for Realskiers to wrap up the current year with a recap of all the Revelations and podcasts I’ve recently created for the collective edification of my Dear Readers and Listeners.
In the lyrics of the Grateful Dead, what a long, strange trip it’s been. Half the country got no snow to speak of, while the other half experienced what it’s like to get too much snow; in some instances, way too much snow. In the equipment domain, a lot of what was new this year happened outside the mainstream: most fresh faces fell into the Big Mountain genre, the province more of dreamers than pragmatists. The arena with the most new product families was Alpine Touring, as America’s infatuation with backcountry skiing continued to inspire new sub-sets of skiers who plan to climb uphill a little, a little more or all the time. What was once a niche is now broad enough to house several baby niches within its ever-expanding confines.
While the ski world is somewhat cocooned in its own realm, it is not immune to outside influences. The ski trade has changed a lot in the last 50 years, but there hasn’t been a single innovation introduced to the sport that can compare with the disruptive force of the Internet. Now Artificial Intelligence, the new darling of the tech sector, will further erode the credibility of information sources. For starters, are you certain what you’re reading now isn’t the product of AI? How about the next article you read, after this one’s contents have been digested by the omnivorous appetite of AI? When will the last shred of credibility go up in smoke? I explore the probability that AI will be the next great destructive juggernaut to deform the ski marketplace in ChatGPT AI Has Ski Patter Down Cold.
Not that ski media needs much help in finding the basement. The ski world’s iconic print titles, and the brilliant editors who led them, are long gone. So is one of the fundamental principles of journalism, the separation of the functions of editing and publishing. The commercial side of the Internet is effing fueled by eliminating this crucial divide. Why bother writing a well-reasoned product profile (or at least the pretense of one) without a link to somewhere the subject under review can be purchased immediately? The inanity of “Top Ten” lists is underscored by their skinny, 4-sentence “reviews” and ubiquitous BUY NOW buttons.
BTW, if you think ANY of the Top Ten lists generated by what’s left of ski media have any validity whatsoever, your brain is suffering from acute malnutrition. To illustrate just how depraved and blatantly dishonest such a “Best of…” list can be, I dissected an odious example in The Bottom of the Barrel.
Fraudulent Top Ten lists are the perfect vehicle for influencing public opinion, which is helpful for brands that cut corners, cheapen product quality and substitute overnight gimmickry for the long and costly slog of R&D. I’d love to tell you that things are going to get better soon, that the market will somehow self-correct when it has no incentive to do so, but the reality is quite the opposite.
I hope you’ll take a moment and visit one of the 26 2022/23 Revelations you may have missed, or listen to any of the 40 podcasts of Realskiers with Jackson Hogen. As you peruse my most recent content, bear in mind that what you are reading – or listening to – is rare and endangered. If you’d like to help ski journalism worthy of the term to survive, we have a Tip Jar on the Realskiers home page…
See you next season.
22/23 Season Revelations:
When Shopping for a Deal, To Thine Own Self Be True
2023 Ski Market Preview: The Golden Age of Incrementalism
How to Read Ski Data: Mining Ski Stats for Behavioral Clues
Fear of Flying
The Ski Price Matrix Explained
The End is Nigh: An Optimist Looks at America’s Skiing’s Future
On Taking What the Mountain Gives You or the Many Shades of Perfect
Readers Respond to Revelation On Fear of High Lifts
Another Brilliant Idea I Don’t Like
Are You Ready?
How It’s Supposed to Work
Seven Skis That Transcend Their Genres
Enlightened Self-Interest Explained
Skier, Know Thy Feet
On Being Early
Another Reason to Get New Boots
Stymied
Seven Things We Think You Know
ChatGPT AI Has Ski Patter Down Cold
Reflections of a Ski Tester on Trade Fair Eve
The Bottom of the Barrel
Ski Luminaries Explain Why You Should Listen to Jackson
The Extraordinarily Gifted Athlete Who Created the Modern Ski Boot
The Things We Do for Love
A Fresh Perspective on How to Buy in a Maturing Ski Market
Groundhog Year
22/23 Season Podcasts of Realskiers with Jackson Hogen
[Note that all Podcasts use the same url.]
To Thine Own Self Be True
The End of Authenticity
2023 Ski Market Preview
A Call to Arms!
How to Read Ski Data
Understand the Brand
Fear of Flying
Larry Prosor: Witness to a Golden Age
Understanding Ski Categories
The End is Nigh: An Optimist Looks at America’s Skiing’s Future
Survival of the Fitter
On Taking What the Mountain Gives You
From Fallible to Foolproof and Back
Listeners Respond to Revelation On Fear of High Lifts
Silver Skier Reflections and Selections
The Making of a Skier: Salomon Field Days
Another Brilliant Idea
John Clendenin Podcast
Are You Ready?
Mike Hattrup, From Film Star to Backcountry Guru
How It’s Supposed to Work
Meet a True Real Skier, Tim Petrick
7 Skis That Transcend Their Genres
Enlightened Self-Interest Explained
“The Best Ski Boots of 2022-23”
Skier, Know Thy Feet
Season 67, Day 1
On Being Early
How the Ski Boot Market Works
Another Reason to Get New Boots
Santa is a Skier
Stymied
The Future Looks a Lot Like the Present
ChatGPT AI Has Ski Patter Down Cold
Reflections of a Ski Tester on Trade Fair Eve
The Bottom of the Barrel
Ski Luminaries Explain Why You Should Listen to Jackson
The Things We Do for Love
Groundhog Year
Related Articles
Just How Strange Will the 21/22 Ski Market Be?
To (temporarily) kowtow to the cult of brevity, the short answer is, “not very.”
To elaborate, most major ski brands didn’t derail the introduction of new products that were in the works well before the pandemic dropped the hammer. There’s a rhythm to the product renewal cycle that shifts the spotlight every year to a different model family within any brand’s global collection; that rhythm was largely respected despite the unique obstacles imposed on the process this year. If most of the models appearing in 21/22 catalogs seem similar to what was offered this year, it’s because this is how the line renewal machinery ordinarily operates.
What’s difficult to judge from outside the R&D pipeline is what we’re not seeing. That is, were there more new models or upgrades to existing star products ready to launch that were put on hold to avoid overloading a potentially weakened distribution network? Possibly; what might have been a planned six-model launch may have been trimmed to three or four, for example.
Happily, there’s no real downside to this scenario for the prospective ski buyer. All essential model family refreshing and line extensions will unfold as forecast. If you haven’t bought a ski in three or four years – I believe the average span between new ski purchases is over seven – the entire universe of Alpine skis is new to you. You may spot some names you recognize, but the skis that bear the name will almost assuredly be different.
“How Is It in The Bumps?”
This question is one of the last objections a ski buyer tosses into the flow of the sale just as the salesperson has guided it to the brink of consummation. To keep the impending close on course, the suave salesperson will hedge the issue with some bland reassurance without raising the obvious retort, that no ski can overcome all the many and curious ills that plague the untalented mogul skier.
A great skier can manage bumps no matter what ski he or she is on. That doesn’t mean experts don’t have favorite skis for this spine-rattling condition, but they don’t need to change skis just because they encounter a bump field. They’ll manage, and chances are anyone watching them won’t be able to tell if the ski is helping, hurting or just along for the ride.
To get the subject out of the way, there are such things as mogul skis, but they’re made for competitors, not your everyday, all-terrain skier. Their tiny (61mm-66mm) waists and svelte sidecuts were common 25 years ago, but they’re as rare as bacon at a bar mitzvah today. Unless you’re planning to compete, there’s no reason for you to fish in this pond.
The Savvy Shopper: How to Buy Skis
Let’s begin with a recap of the fundamentals.
Realskiers’ model selection methodology starts by dividing the Alpine ski market into seven categories, using waist width as the organizing principle for three excellent reasons:
1. This dimension is the single best indicator of the ski’s capabilities.
2. Waist width is a hard number, not a fuzzy concept like skier type.
3. Suppliers product lines align with this method, creating models in every category according a coherent pricing logic.
