Spend August skiing in New Zealand while your friends and competitors sweat and bake in the heat.  Boulder Nordic Sport's New Zealand camp offers 6- and 10-day sessions with top-level coaching, video analysis and off-snow education. No matter what your ability, it's a fun way to dramatically improve your skiing while exploring one of the most incredible places on the planet.

For more information, see bouldernordic.com or call 720.227.9400.  Don't miss this trip of a lifetime.
 

I'm in the midst of getting organized to head down to Boulder, and then over to Austria with Nathan for this year's ski picking trip. Last year when I went to Austria I knew that the Fischer racing department people were interested in talking to me about doing some testing. We met and came up with an agreement whereby I would test Fischer's racing department grinds, and some special prototype hairies skis, at the Olympic venue. Now I'm heading back over there, and we've got a lot to discuss after a season of testing.

As it has developed, the relationship with Fischer has been mutually rewarding and quite natural. With a lot of help from Erik Nilsson this last winter, we got a ton of speed-trap data on 14 different Fischer racing department grinds. These are "factory" grinds only insomuch as they come out of the factory. They are produced by very skilled technicians (Benni and Andy) on outstanding machinery (two Wintersteiger NC machines and a Mantec World Cup machine), by hand. Those guy grind about 8000 pairs a year (the flattening work gets done in batches of about 200 pairs on the automated factory assembly line), and the work gets used on the World Cup extensively. When Kikkan won a World Cup in '08 she was on one of these grinds. So the opportunity to run a full fleet of proven World Cup quality grinds provides great context for my own work.

 

Incidentally, the fleet of test skis that these grinds are on is from the same production as the test skis I picked for myself last year. The 14 pairs were chosen from an original fleet of 20 pairs that the Fischer guys zero-tested on the Ramsau glacier last summer and fall. They sent along an extra couple of pairs for me to grind in order to compare my work to theirs. I zero-tested those two pairs against my own fleet from the same production, and found that they were very well matched. That has meant that I could put ten of my own structures up against Fischer's fourteen grinds in head to head testing. All winter. Cool. The only limiting concern has been time, and how many times Erik Nilsson was willing to ski up and down the same hill for speed trap testing. 20 pairs of skis for five runs each on a 200 meter track is a lot of skiing.

 

It's not surprising that in some conditions my work was just killing the Fischer grinds. Afterall, I had a full year's head-start in an incredibly specific and demanding environment, and the grinds they sent over were developed for Europe. It's also not surprising that, in some conditions, their work is killing mine. I should say, their work WAS killing mine. This is where the greatest benefit has come out of this relationship for me - in pushing me to be better in conditions where "European" grinds run better than mine. I'm pleased to be able to say that I closed the gap in all the conditions that I was able to test in this year. Most of the concepts that I have employed to deal with the most challenging Whistler conditions grew out of my work from the year before, but I've been able to explore new concepts thanks to the direction I've taken from the Fischer grinds, and I've come up with some great new structures. It's inaccurate to suggest that I've tried to "copy" Fischer structures. Grinding doesn't really work that way - particularly when you're working on a different machine. But I've had occasion to think differently about the kinds of textures I'm looking for, and in fact have really changed my thinking from a concern with "pattern" to a concern with "texture". In the end I don't mind saying that the evolution of my work in the past couple of years has been really strongly influenced by Larry Poroma (former USST head of service, and now back leading the Swedish service team) and by Fischer. The result is exciting, and the new ways of thinking about the work have allowed me to improve the quality of the product even in the areas where I was already ahead.

 

The other part of this collaboration with Fischer has been testing new hairies or "rubb" materials. This past year I had a fleet of seven different matched pairs of classic skis with different inlay materials in the kick zone. This is the kind of thing that really sends a tech-nerd like myself over the moon. It's not really "exclusive" work - the Canadian national team and others have also tested these inlays. But it's just plain fun to work with anything that is clearly non-standard, and not available, even on the World Cup. In the end most of the inlay materials weren't that exciting, and a couple were just plain bad. Mostly the differences just weren't that big. But one of them really did rise to the top, and it's interesting to note that everybody involved in testing these materials found pretty much the same thing, regardless of where they were testing.

 

It's worth noting that the testing is never infallible. The rubberized inlay that is used on Fischer's production zero ski wasn't testing among the fastest bases for me, and at one point in early February I confidently told the Fischer guys that the rubber base would "never" be a World Cup racing base. Then Kris Freeman went out and finished 4^th in the 15K in Liberec on a pair of off-the-rack consumer zeros with rubber bases that I had told him would "never" be a racing ski. Whoops. I'll try to remember not to prognosticate in absolute terms in the future...

 

So now it's time to go back to dancing with the Fischer guys as we negotiate the next round of testing and collaboration. Fischer is interested in having access to my grinds at the Olympics, but USST has exclusive rights to the grinds. So Pete and I have had to assess whether we stand to benefit more by protecting the grinds at all cost, or by bartering grinds for access to more or different skis. What we've seen already this year is that closer collaboration with the Fischer racing department has given us a relationship that leads to better skis for our top US athletes. I have some specific requests for special venue-specific skis, and we'll have to put those into the mix as well. All in all, it'll be a fun and interesting discussion.

Fischer has revamped its ski line-up considerably for 2009-2010.  In addition to the Carbonlite Hole Ski, which lightens up the tip by using a new carbon tip that has been milled out, they are using tried and true racing molds with Carbonlite construction to create "soft track" classic and skate skis.  These new models use the Carbonlite construction for the first time with molds that have proven highly effective in previous RCS models.

 

The Fischer STrack Skate is a Carbonlite construction in the 610 mold.  The 610 is the most successful skating mold in recent racing history and it works quite well as an all-around ski that can handle a wide range of conditions.  This ski has looked very promising as an excellent complement to the regular 115-mold Carbonlite, which tends to be a great hard-track ski.  From the 610 Carbonlites we saw on the World Cup last year, we expect that this will replace the 610 RCS as our number one ski in the shop.

 

The 115 mold, which has been used in Carbonlite production for the past two years, tends to work well for hard-track conditions providing great stability and energy. The 115 mold will continue as the regular production Carbonlite and also in the Hole Ski.  The Hole ski is noticeably lighter when moving the ski around, and while we are not convinced that it is a must-have item, Fischer continues to push the envelope of development and better and better skis are the result.

 

Boulder Nordic Junior Racing Team coaches Eric Pepper and Adam St. Pierre are proud to announce PBVilleCamp09. The camp will take place from July 2nd-5th in Leadville, Colorado. The camp is open to juniors 13 and older who are interested in preparing themselves for next Winter's racing season and have significant rollerskiing experience.

This camp will focus on volume and ski specific training, taking advantage of the rollerskiing and trail running opportunities in the famed high altitude locations surrounding Leadville. Camp will be limited at 12-20 athletes, additional coaches will be brought in as numbers allow. To apply for the camp athletes must submit a letter of interest to Eric Pepper at etpepper@gmail.com stating their desire to attend the camp and their goals for summer/fall training.

 

Cost for the camp is $300 and includes coaching fee, 3 nights lodging, Thursday dinner, 3 meals on Friday and Saturday, and breakfast and lunch Sunday.  All transportation is provided once athletes arrive on location. Camp payment is due by Friday June 20th. For more information, full camp description, and questions please contact Eric at etpepper@gmail.com.

Summertime for most skiers means lots of cycling, running, kayaking, hiking and swimming.  Most of our summer activities tend to be heavily focused on the legs and endurance.  Stay in touch with your winter ski fitness by emphasizing upper body and core strength, as well as ski-specific power in the upper body, trunk and legs. 

 

In our experience as coaches, when athletes make a serious effort to improve core and upper body strength over the summer, they transition to snow much more quickly and tend to improve results dramatically.

 

These tips are easy.  Don't make it complicated.  It is more important to do it than make sure you are doing exactly the right exercises.

 

Tip 1: Develop a short, simple core routine and do it 20-30 minutes three times per week.  Get a medicine ball.  Core strength stabilizes your body so you can push harder with your arms & legs and therefore produce more power.  It reduces the probability of injury and improves technique efficiency.  We've posted our guide to strength training on our web site.  It's free - put it in your cart and check out to get an email link to download it.  There are lots of good core exercises there to use as a starting point.

 

Tip 2: Do ski specific upper body work several times per week over the summer.  Rollerskiing, Rollerboard, Ski Walking with poles, Double-Pole Machines, pull-ups and dips are all good ways to maintain and build upper body power and maintain neuromuscular memory.  Double poling on rollerskis is perhaps the most effective use of your time for ski training in the summer.  Yes, we sell rollerskis, so don't take our word for it.  Ask anyone who has rollerskied how dramatic their improvement was after the first summer of rollerskiing.

 

Tip 3: Work on technique and maintain ski imitation movements at least once per week in early summer and increase specificity through the summer and fall.  Now is the time to make technique adjustments as you have time to practice them and build them into habit before you are on snow and in a hurry to ski fast.  Rollerskis, skiing (see New Zealand, above), Ski Walking and rollerskiing without poles are all excellent ways to accomplish this.  Tackle one specific technique element at a time and work on it in bursts.  Like all training, you need to build strength and neural memory to turn technical adaptations into habit.