One Good Ride

A full post from our trip to Beaver Creek will follow by Katherine because she will do the trip better justice, but here's a preview.

I like to ski, even though I ski infrequently (at this stage of life, every other year it seems). I would ski every week if I could. Furthermore, when I ski, I like to ski well, even if it is only for 4 days. I am lucky because Katherine is such a great skier. I can usually convince her to ski anything with me including double blacks and tree runs, which she usually gets down first.

On my first few ski trips growing up, I usually just took what I got, meaning the basic "sport package", which amounted to smelly worn-out boots that made my shins feel numb after two runs and skis that were like 2x4's. As I have gotten older and somewhat wiser, I have become more discriminating when it comes to ski equipment so much so that a couple of years ago, we splurged for custom foam-injected Surefoot ski boots. The price won't be mentioned here, but they have been worth their weight in gold. That took care of the boot issue once and for all, but the ski problem remained.

To Katherine's shagrin as a financial consultant and someone who is more "cost-conscious", I have always "upgraded" my skis from the sport package to the premium package and sometimes beyond. I have found that historically a 12-pack of Heineken works well in this maneuver. This year I guess I made a good impression on the Christy's manager because he hooked me up with some new Volkl demo skis for the price of the "performance" skis. No beer exchanged hands. I thought I was in heaven, but as I skied on them, something wasn't quite right. Make no mistake, they were nice, but not perfect. It was then I realized that demo skis are not all created equal.

While getting ready to ride up the main lift on the last day, we saw a pop up tent, literally in the process of being popped up, which peaked my curiosity because just the day before riding up a lift I had mentioned how awesome it would be to demo several different kinds of skis to compare different feels. Before clicking into our skis we walked over. It turned out to be none other than a demo ski tent, although it was a company I had never heard of before called Liberty. We started talking to the guy and came to find out Liberty is a local company in Avon (the town below Beaver Creek) that makes high performance, environmentally-friendly skis. The secret ingredient is a bamboo core that is super strong and flexible. After talking for a few minutes he put me on a pair of Helix skis (an ode to Watson and Crick and kind of appropo given my medical training). From that first turn, they were unlike anything I had ever skied on, and I will never ski on anything else! I also convinced Katherine to try a pair in the afternoon, which she reluctantly did. Now, the process of convincing the financial consultant begins...

http://www.libertyskis.com/skis