Page 18 - Dec_13

preseasoN

tuNe-up

GettinG your skis ready for the season with a pro

text and photos by evan johnson

tHe GUNs are ON, the temperatures are dropping and across the
Northeast, skiers and riders are pulling out their gear and getting ready for
opening day or at least the first big Nor’easter. While waiting, it’s important

to make sure your equipment—backcountry or alpine, skis or snowboards
—is ready.
edges need to be removed of rust and that rock you went over in april
might have really done a number to the bottoms of your skis or board.

you can do much of the tuning on your own, or, fortunately, there are
pros to help.
We spoke with dave rowles, a technician at alpine Options near the

base of sugarbush, to get some tips.
rowles knows skis. He’s been tuning them since before he knew how
to ride them. His brother gave him a tuning kit for Christmas when he was
14 and he got a job at a local ski shop two years later. He walked us through

the basics of tuning skis for the midseason, including:
removing burrs and beveling edges
Base grinding, if needed (to flatten your ski)

stone grinding, if needed (to add structure)
Waxing

can boost the performance and life of a removing burrs and
Visit us at clearwatersports.com
ski’s or board’s edges.
GEAR UP! beveling edges
Base edge beveling lifts the edges
off the snow a slight amount (.5°–1.0°) Burrs result when a finely tuned edge on
so they will only engage until the ski is your ski or board gets dinged or worn,
lifted onto an edge. this can be done at resulting in small filaments and protrud-
The Valley’s Outdoor Store Since 1975
ing edges. the first step in tuning is to
the workbench at home using a file and a remove these with a diamond stone and
guide. Guides come in a variety of grades
ranging from the cheap plastic kind to the Telemark Patagonia then with a fine ceramic stone. rowles
ultra-professional, but rowles says the
Backcountry Outdoor Research
key is to bevel the base edge correctly the
first time.
Alpine Merkell
“a hard thing for most people to un- Touring
G3
derstand is the base edge. Once you’ve set
Voile Snowshoes
the bevel at one degree, you can’t change
that unless you re-flatten the whole ski. Garmont
It’s trying to cut a two by four at six feet
Madshus
SAVE UP TO
40 Fischer %

Alpina advises wetting the tools first to make
MSR
them last longer.
2012/13 SKIS
Thule
New skis come with factory edges
and will hold and perform while the skis
AND BOOT
are new. But with wear and tear, edges

SALES • RENTALS • DEMOS • TUNING
inevitably wear down. For carving turns,
edges must be sharp along the entire
length that makes contact with the snow.
therefore, having them re-beveled and
and then trying to go back and cut it at six
and a half. you can’t do it.”
sharpened at the beginning of the season
Now that the bevel is set and the an-
gle is sharp, it’s important to remember to

detune a portion of the edge. If the edges
remain as sharp and defined as you (or the clearwatersports.com
machine) made them, it will be difficult 4147 MAIN STREET, WAITSFIELD, VERMONT • 802-496-2708
to either initiate or come out of a turn.
open every day

18
VtSportS.com
December 2013