October 21, 2008 ( Squamish, BC) – For a variety of reasons I’ve got a pretty good number of un-skiable skis in the shop. Some of them are warranty returns that I get from the distributor in order to test grinds on “trash” skis before putting final structure on customer’s skis. Others are skis that end up broken in action, or in shipping. And some are skis that just drop-out of use because they’re unsatisfactory – they don’t “make-it” as race skis. I suppose I could sell these to unsuspecting customers, but that doesn’t sit well with me.

As the Atomic rollerski project – posted October 7 – illustrated, I’ve got no objection to getting somewhat creative with some of these skis. I consider this to be “work”. It’s important to get to know these skis (inside and out). During my recent trip back east the elves decided to do a little trash-ski experimentation on a pair of Madshus classic skis that I had picked a couple of years ago for a friend and customer (hi Michael!). UPS managed to snap both tips before he got to ski on the skis. Too bad – this was an excellent pair. Fortunately I was able to replace them with a pair of Atomics that made Michael quite happy. Anyway, Pat decided that it would be good to know how prone to failure an NIS plate might be. After all – some competitors in the marketplace have raised questions about the reliability of the plates.

Pat worked on this ski for a self-reported nine minutes – with tools. A hammer and chisel were involved, along with a heat gun and a fair dose of escalating rage. Pat’s conclusion was that, on this particular ski, any successful effort to remove the plate from the ski while skiing would likely involve also removing your leg from your body.

It is worth noting that the various ski companies utilizing the NIS system all have their own methods of attaching the plates to the skis. When Fischer started working with NIS plates they were able to tune the bond between the plate and the ski so that it would be like a release-binding. They know pretty precisely what kind of forces are required to break a ski, so they considered bonding the plate to release just prior to the point where the ski would break. While this makes all kinds of sense, it would have been a total marketing fiasco. Better to have people breaking skis (and legs) with NIS plates intact than to have skis and legs intact and customers irate over the “failure” of their NIS plates.

Some of the uses we come up with for expired skis are more creative than others. While the Atomic rollerski idea was pretty creative, it was also a pretty natural thought. It amounts to using a ski as a ski. Gunnar’s new bow is somewhat more out-of-bounds use of skis. For all that, Atomic’s Rick Halling offered to replace those rollerski shafts if they failed any place other than the ends, I doubt that Peter Ashley (Fischer) would step-up and cover damages or liability when Gunnar manages to put an arrow through a car window. Or somebody’s head. I’m impressed the kid can pull the thing. It’s pretty strong for a small bow…

Check out this video to see what Zach’s shop looks like.