With 3 new ski models from Fischer, and one each from Rossignol, Salomon, Atomic and Madshus, we've been busy trying to stay on top of the latest developments.  We had the opportunity to ski quite a bit on the World Cup development prototypes at the Whistler World Cup,  the World Championships and the Lahti World Cup, and now that we've seen a few production stock, we're pretty excited about some of the changes.  We will highlighting these products in the next few weeks at bouldernordic.com, but here is a quick peek at what we've been seeing:

Fischer adds a Carbonlite Hole Ski, a soft-track Carbonlite Skate and they move the 902-mold Classic Soft track to the Carbonlite construction from the RCS.  These are big changes and all look promising.  The short story is that Fischer has moved the majority of their race models to Carbonlite and these new options make the Carbonlite much more mainstream, instead of being somewhat of a niche ski.   We'll do a full review of the changes in the coming weeks.

 

Salomon, Atomic, Rossignol and Madshus have all come out with a single new skate model each.  Salomon's changes look promising as the revised lay-up and additional material at the front of the bridge of the ski makes it much livelier, stable and faster than previous models.  The new shape looks quite a bit beefier to the naked eye.  Salomon has also developed a shim plate that mounts underneath the binding and elevates the toe.  This plate has been received very positively on the World Cup and in some of our tests it definitely seems to have a positive effect, helping to lift the tip of the ski and giving a slippery feel.

 

The Atomic World Cup crew had all sorts of crazy stuff going on, but it looks like a change in materials and lay-up are the only significant changes we'll see in production this year.  They are calling this the "featherlight" as it sheds more weight in the front, making an already-light ski feel even lighter. 

 

Finally, Madshus takes their popular 196 SC skate ski and creates the "186" by adding carbon in the core layup to stiffen it, give it higher camber and more pop.  It also has a very low tip profile.  This looks to be a very aggressive ski made for hard tracks and strong racers. 

 

We have an early 12 pairs of Fischer Carbonlite Hole Skis available at the shop.  Feel free to come by and check them out or give us a call if you are interested.

 

We also may have a special opportunity to get a very limited quantity of Rossignol World Cup Race Stock Skis.  I've had the great luck to work with some of the top US Rossi skiers in the past few years on ski selection, grinding and waxing and while I've been able to pick some great skis from production stock, every World Cup ski I've been on has been truly amazing. 

 

The deadline for ordering the Rossignol skis has already passed, so if you are interested please call us as soon as possible so we can try to sneak an order in.  Expect costs to be about $1000/pair.

 

Rollerskis have arrived.  We have the new V2 XL98R and 98SL.  Click here to check them out.  Much lighter and the wheels are much improved.

Alas, the snow is starting to disappear and the bikes are beginning to come out.  Check out our simple tips for putting your skis away for the summer that will make them faster next season.     Click here to read it. 

 

Want us to do the work?  We do a thorough cleaning, then two-stage hot box treatment to put the skis away for the summer for $35.