November 21, 2014 (Canmore, AB) – The Grinders are Rich Pettit and Geret Coyne. If you have competed on the international Nordic circuit for Canada in the last 25 years, you will likely remember having your skis made faster by them.

Geret Coyne (r) and his partner Rich Pettit

Pettit started on the Nordic scene as a Provincial X-C coach in 1982 for Ontario. His first international experience as a wax technician was in 1985 with the Canadian X-C team at the World Championships. That experience was just the start of an exciting career providing wax technician expertise for National X-C and Biathlon teams at World Cup, World Championship and Olympic events.

Coyne started his experience on the international scene as the lead Biathlon Canada wax technician at the 1994 Olympics. Since that point in time, he has coached junior and senior National teams on the international biathlon circuit. In the fall of 2006 he initiated a Research and Innovation Program for Biathlon Canada.

Geret shows Bruce Millar a tour of the lab © The Grinders

By the fall of 2008, Rich and Geret firmly secured their relationship when Geret took over the Head Coach position leading up to the 2010 Vancouver Olympics and Rich took over the work to complete the top secret projects of the Research and Innovation team.

In 2011 Coyne switched his focus from coaching back to sport science leading the Research and Innovation Lab for the Nordic Ski Disciplines in Canada. Many of these projects were utilized in the 2010 and 2014 Olympics, giving the Canadian Biathlon team international recognition of having the fastest skis on the circuit! The battles between countries are fought out on the ski trails, but the tools for those battles are sweated over in the wax rooms… behind closed doors.

Rich Pettit © The Grinders

Their new ski service lab features a new Tazarri RP23 in the center of their space. It’s the latest version of the grinder they’ve been doing research with for the past eight years and has everything a ski service man could hope for.

You may ask yourself – who needs a ski service man? Ski service is for people who treat skis like an old friend. Skis are an integral part of their equipment to give them the best possible tools to go fast across the snow. The Tazarri RP23 does the basic work of any stone grinder – the flattening of the base and removal of dings from last season’s mistakes. If you’re scraping off your glide wax and find yourself starting to bend that scraper into curves that defy the laws of plastic– those skis need to have a basic grind. We all know that glide wax left on a ski base equals slow skis!

These ski service men can also help you select the right skis. Still squeezing skis for selection? Why not employ state of the art technology to really see how a ski’s flex interfaces with the snow. Geret has adapted pressure mapping technology to create a computerized profile of exactly how your skis respond to varying levels of pressure. If you have a pair of skis that you love, figure out why you love them and maybe you can find more like them!

If you have the right skis – flat and smooth with awesome camber just for you – what’s next? Advanced ski structuring is where the Tazarri RP23 in expert hands really shines. Grinders have developed specific structures to grind into ski bases.

These different structures cause the water film… which is created by sliding friction between the ski and the snow to be as hydrophobic as possible. Hydrophobic: meaning the least static cling possible between that water film and your ski surface. The structure needs to vary with the type of snow and the humidity.

Artificial snow seen at the Canmore Nordic Center has super low humidity and poor crystal formation which acts very differently to the beautiful crystals falling at Silver Star Resort in B.C. that soak your jacket at 0 degrees.

Check out the graph on Rich and Geret’s website here. It takes the variables that affect the coefficients of snow friction and match them with the grinding structure to minimize snow friction.

How will you choose your grind? Well, the first thing to consider is the location of your races. Grinds work within a ballpark range characterized by humidity and snow characteristics. Many racers will re-grind as they approach February or if they are going to a location with very different conditions than their home.

After you’ve got your skis ground – the post grind work involves power tools that buff any micro burrs left from the stone and clean the structure to make it as defined as possible. Need saturation for immediate performance? Their hotbox stands ready for post grind preparation. Quality control? Again; use of industry leading technology is employed to ensure the results off the grinder are up to snuff. Add this to the myriad of other hand tools for preparation and testing and you have the ultimate ski service lab.

The Grinders are ready to provide the latest in ski service not only for elite athletes, but to anyone who is ready to go fast!

Check out our website here for more information. Happy trails!