Apologies to Head for Showing This Photo of Your New Carbonified Boots. Again.

Seem to have caused a bit of a stir with some people at Head when we leaked the photos of their new boots.  I guess people get sort of upset when they spend 1 million designing and developing a new boot, and then someone shows a photo of it before they can set the hype machine in motion.  Sorry about that, but hey, it's only ski racing.  For all of our viewing pleasure, here's the photo again:

Can't wait to ski in them!

Disclosure of sources: For those of you reading from Head GmbH headquarters, it might be pertinent to note that the person who sent the photos in is:  a) European, and b) Not someone we've ever met before.  So stop being grumpy, and start using more cardboard boxes if you don't want people to see things.


-

World Cup Rock Stars

A blog post from Mattias Hargin came across the radar a while back, but we never got around to talking about it.  So here goes:

If you've ever wondered whether it would be cooler to be a Scandinavian World Cup skier than to be the person that you are, the answer is this: It would be cooler to be a Scandinavian World Cup skier.  It's a short blog post, but even the Google translation let's you know that taking a helicopter up to a 4 run Slalom training session is no big deal.  Congratulations Swedish people.  You win.

PS - check out the rest of Hargin's blog, and maybe reconsider how badly you really need to run Slalom on the next powder day.


-

New Boots From Atomic Coming Soon?

A friend emailed us these pictures of some new boots from Atomic.  No word on whether/when they'll be available to you, but they look like a pretty sweet mix of carbon fiber and plastic - and hopefully no plastic disguised as carbon fiber.  Anybody know anything about these?  Looks like the carbon is bonded with the plastic and maybe gets anchored near the sole of the boot?  Also, Redster?  Somebody should help the Austrians with their product names.

-

A Note on Sources and Identity

Greetings readers.  As evidenced by the poll we have running on the site right now, there is considerable angst among the ski racing population about advancement and standing within the USSA/USST system, especially if one chooses to speak out in a way that reflects negatively on that system.  We are concerned because we've been hearing reports and rumors about certain people being affiliated with this site when, in fact, they are not.

So follow this logic:

1. It's written and edited by one person.
2. When discussing potentially sensitive issues with people, I have always come forward and said, "Hey, just so you know, it's me," because I don't want to be a deceitful little rat about this.
3. Nobody has yet come to me and said, "I think it's you."
4. Therefore, if you've gone to someone and said, "I think it's you," then you were wrong; it's not them.

A few more facts:

1. I do not work for any ski club, team, or academy, although I have in the past.
2. Oddly enough, my sources of information and my fact checkers for the Women's Development Team Selection post are personal (not professional) connections that I can trace back to the mid-1990's.  Point being that my past affiliation with any ski club, team, or academy is irrelevant, especially for that piece.

A note on criticism:
There is a difference between criticism and facts.  Criticism is a matter of opinion.  Facts are real events (in this case, put into words).  You can disagree with criticism.  You can't disagree with facts.  Facts can, however, be incorrectly or incompletely stated, in which case we'd like to know when we've done that and we'd like to be corrected.


Thanks for reading.  Please take a minute to cruise around the rest of the site to see what it's all about before passing judgment on what's going on here.  Though the Women's Development Team Selections post has garnered the most attention by far, this site isn't intended to be a forum on one single issue.  If it really is a one trick pony, you won't come back and read more, but we hope to be more than that.  As ski racers, we share a lot in common, but don't share with each other often enough.

Thanks,
-P.C

And we're back...

Took a little break there (as we all should have) to regain perspective on skiing and life.  Spring is a time to try some new things and meet some new people who don't know or care a thing about single pole Slalom, sidecut, canting, or whether or not Vonn paints her old Rossignol boots to look like Heads.  When it's all said and done, you realize that those new people are losers, and that it's time to get back down to business.

Incidentally, our exhaustive research indicates that while she, or more likely her husband, often tapes over the rivets and hinges on her boots, they most likely do not go so far as to put actual paint on them.  Although this Austrian lady actually might have, and if she did, then she did a crappy job.

These are pictures from some of the races in question.  You decide.

Zoom in to see the tape on this one.

Possibly more of a matte finish here?

Meh, probably not:

Photos courtesy of some stalkers in an Epicski.com forum thread entitled "Is anyone else getting pissed/annoyed at Lindsey Vonn, or am I the only one?"  The Pistenchef is not annoyed.  Thomas Vonn is widely regarded as a disciple of the squirrel, but this is probably over the top.  Although, get a load of those plates.  Do yours look like that?