It Pays To Spend A Little Extra Effort On Your Gear. Here’s How. [Editor Note: Don Burch’s article on storing your gear was published last year around this time. We are reprising it to help remind you that a little care for your stuff goes a long way.] Hopefully your ski equipment has taken good care of you all winter,[Read More…]
Season’s Over; Isn’t It About Time You Get That Puffy Back To Clean? Not only are your season-dirty down jackets, vests, and even sleeping bag dirty and smelly, if you left them that way, they would lose their heat-insulating properties. It is easy to destroy your down gear if you don’t follow some basic rules when washing them at home.[Read More…]
History Suggests That Designing A New Boot Is A Multi-Million Dollar Gamble. Just the molds for a plastic shell boot cost a million dollars, and that doesn’t include engineering costs and other expenses. Then there is the need to make it profitable when annual manufacturing runs are in the thousands, not hundreds of thousands or millions. These and other factors[Read More…]
As a SeniorsSkiing.com reader, you may remember how much plastic inserts increased the lateral stiffness of your boots. Back in those days, if you were really cool, your boots were further stiffened when wrapped with a six-foot long thong. Then the plastic boot shell arrived, along with innovative designs from Rosemount, Scott and Hanson. The[Read More…]
‘Shoes Have Come A Long Way. Have You Looked Lately? Back in 1971, when I transferred winter affections from downhill to Nordic skiing (due to a spectacular fall in Austria that racked up one knee and stripped off my ski suit—but that’s another story), I also tried snowshoeing. After all, cross-country skis and snowshoes were both made of wood and[Read More…]
Guidelines For What To Choose And Why. [Editor Note: Thanks to Roger Lohr, publisher of XCSkiResorts.com, for this review of the latest in XC skiwear that was printed first on that site.] I’ve often wondered why there isn’t more hoopla about cross country skiwear. I’m not talking about the suction suits worn by cross country ski racers; rather, I mean[Read More…]
Finding a comfortable and good-fitting ski boot is an elusive goal for many older skiers. Finding a comfortable and good-fitting ski boot is an elusive goal for many older skiers. According to responses to our reader surveys, 25% of you plan to purchase new boots in any given season. Reading the comments is revealing: “Want to find a painfree pair.”[Read More…]
One Might Say You Can Never Have Enough Skis. My wife disagrees. She skis on a relatively old pair that she loves. They’re relatively soft in shovel and heel. For her, one pair is enough. Mine is a completely different story; too long to get into at the moment. Jackson Hogen, publisher of the ski review site realskiers.com, has been[Read More…]
We Took The Challenge And Wore Them For Five Days. Here’s What Happened. We love buffalo, the distinctly American creature who has been denizen of the Great Plains since pre-history, who was deified by native Americans, who has captured our imagination in countless legends, songs, stories, novels, and movies, who has shown up in hamburgers, (bison burgers) and who now[Read More…]
Other Than A Book, A Bottle, Or Some Meaningless Gewgaw, It’s Not Easy To Find A Reasonably Priced And Relevant Gift For The Older Skier. DeBooter solves that dilemma. It’s a clever ski boot jack that makes boot removal fast and easy. SeniorsSkiing.com readers can purchase DeBooter for less than $32, a 20% discount from the $39.95 retail. (Enter SeniorsSkiing[Read More…]
The Amazing Device We’ve All Been Waiting For. You’ve probably had this experience. You are rushing out the door, late for something or other, and you’ve grabbed everything except…wait a minute…”Where are my keys? (wallet, glasses, etc?)” And the frantic search begins, characterized by looking in several of the same places more than once (a sure sign of insanity) and[Read More…]
Tongue-In-Cheek Tips For Dusting Off All Your Stuff…And You. You know it’s time to get ready for skiing when leaves are falling and there have been snow flurries in the mountains. You’ve started having ski dreams, and everyday you check SeniorSkiing .com (and your other favorite ski sites) for new postings. Here’s what you need to do: Get in shape.[Read More…]
Things You Can Do To Show How Much You Love Your Equipment. [Editor Note: We received several comments about last week’s article by Don Burch about putting your skis away. So, we asked retail expert and SeniorsSkiing.com correspondent Val E. offer some more advice. Here you go.] Ski Cleaning All ski bases are made out of polyethylene which is a[Read More…]
Nine Steps For Maintaining Your XC Equipment. [Editor Note: SeniorsSkiing.com thanks Roger Lohr of XCSkiResorts.com and Andy Gerlach of SkiPost.com and StartSkiWax for this article.] The winter and snow cover are leaving us, so what do we do with your xc ski equipment? 1) Cleaning: Use wax remover and Fiber wipe, a chamois-like cloth, to clean the kick zone and[Read More…]
This article completes the list of “iconic all-mountain” skis published last week. One reader comment on last week’s list stated that better options are available today. In the interest of clarification, skis listed last week and in this article weren’t necessarily the most innovative or game changing. But, at the time they were introduced, they were the best at handling[Read More…]
