incoming incomingJuly 18, 2015
Most people think the life of a bootfitter is gravy. Making bank like a Seatac parking valet minus the tips, touching sweaty feet and listening to people tell you how they know their boots are the wrong size because their toenails are turning black during the winter, then kicking it at the beach all summer sipping Mojitos and getting towed around behind $90,000 boats, right?
Not so fast, bro.
Sure, the lifestyle's awesome, but we also work hard all season long perfecting our craft. Case in point was this week's SIDAS bootfitting clinic in scenic Oregon, where the combined staff of the Seattle and Portland evo stores convened for a bit of intensive informational exchange on the topics of footbeds, alignment and shell choice. US tech rep for SIDAS Pete Iverson flew out from Salt Lake City and our Atomic and SIDAS rep for the Northwest Barry saw to the instructional duties and supplied footbed blanks for the crew, letting each attendee mold a colleague's feet and then switching places. We did the same for shell fits and then alignment, building on what we'd already seen and done.
We picked on the junior member of the team to demonstrate balance mechanics
Vacuum packed for freshness
It wasn't all work. When you spend a couple days in the hipster brewpub and coffeehouse capitol of the country you can't ever be far from a decent craft beer or espresso. Some gastronomic highlights were the People's Pig for smoke-smoke-smokey BBQ and cocktails (yes even the drinks were smoked), Hop Works Bike Bar where the beer was excellent and commuter bikes outnumbered cars on the street, and Rontoms just down the street on Burnside for apres ski drinks and happy hour eats.
Smokin' Barbeque at the People's Pig
Day two was an on-snow day at Timberline to put the classroom session into perspective and test what we've been trying to achieve through the bootfitting and footbed process, as well as testing various combinations of tongue and cuff shims and medial and lateral shims to alter knee mass alignment. With only the upper half of the Palmer snowfield actually covered by snow and only a single "freeride" lane open, this took some time, as Pete was shooting video of each of us using each setup.
Sand. It's kinda like snow but dirtier. Check out my orange 65.5mm waisted GS skis.
Patrick analyzes Barry's alignment
Previous Incoming Pages:
China: Wandering in the Middle Kingdom
"Incoming" covers developments that have personal interest to me (ie. gear I might consider acquiring, or events I feel may impact the sport of skiing) - it is by no means meant to be a comprehensive enumeration of gear or events in the ski world at large. Feel free to contact me via the randosaigai.com link below with news or images that may be of interest . . .
© 2018 Gregory C. Louie