Dave & I are taking DODGE Ski Boots on the road and to the air starting today.
We’re flying out to Reno and will be with Jim Schaffner of Starthaus in Truckee, CA at 6 AM tomorrow. Yeah, you read it right. 6AM! Seems like there are so many people skiing at Sugar Bowl that the racers have what’s called “early load” where they train from 7 AM to 9 AM. And we’ll be there.
As much as I dread getting up at 5 AM, I am looking forward to seeing Jim, who I haven’t seen in over 30 years when he did some Salomon boots for me. Before that, I took care of him with some Rossignol Skis when he was skiing on the regional pro tours. Talk about a small world. And, it gets even smaller.
We also expect to see Hermann Gollner again (gee Hermann, multiple times in a 10 day period after 35 years of not seeing each other) maybe Fritz Vallant and likely Jim Hudson. So, ski in the morning, followed by a little business and definitely an afternoon nap, then working dinner and stay the night in Truckee.
Monday is a wrap-up in Truckee and then drive to Salt Lake City. MapQuest says it’s about 580 miles and 8 hours 20 minutes, so they’re figuring an average speed of 75 MPH. How strict are the cops in Nevada?
Tuesday we had a meeting scheduled with one boot fitter in Park City, but he backed out, apparently not comfortable with working on a carbon boot. It’s better for us as it gives us more time to work with some racers, coaches and the other boot fitters we are scheduled to see. I’m looking forward to seeing Rob Clayton, Jesse Hunt and maybe Mike Kilchenstein. Might even get to make a few turns. Leave there Thursday mid-day and head to Vail.
Vail should be fun, as Aldo Radamus and crew have established an incredible training facility, with injected hills and more. We’ll be seeing a boot fitter Friday morning, then meet up with Aldo and Dan Stripp to test boots in the afternoon. If it’s cold and hard, it will give them a really good test of the Dodge Ski Boot in race conditions. We also expect to meet up with at least one USST member to do some further tests. (Did I mention that we had a bunch of USST guys try the boot at Cochran’s on Wednesday? The boots were flying around so much, we lost track of who had them. I think something like 9 of the first 20 starters have tried the Dodge boot. Kinda fun.)
Saturday we head to Dumont and see Harald Harb. Harald is another long-time (notice I didn’t say old?) acquaintance. We’ll head up to Winter Park for some turns so he can get a first-hand opinion of the boot.
Then it’s off to Denver for the night and flying home on Sunday morning.
Whew!
I’ll try to update via Twitter during the trip.
Bill