Author: Caldwell Sport

Apparently everybody loves Noah. We always get a positive response when we post stuff about him. Well, we’re pushing the boundaries here with two videos totaling 25 minutes and 51 seconds of the Hoff. Think you can take it?

Our first video is a compilation of ski technique video shot over the three days of Noah’s last technique block here in Putney. We made this video to give him a record of what he’s working on technically, and what he needs to focus on in terms of race execution. So, this includes a bunch  of narrative and observation by me, some messages directly from Noah, and plenty of imagery of Noah at (or near) his best on rollerskis.

The second video is the much-anticipated full edit of Gunnar’s interview with Noah on the day of his departure for Europe. The videography is terrible, and the audio is weak, but the interview is quite enlightening. Noah is a complicated guy and his attitude and motivation are a bit unexpected. We started shooting this to be a follow-up to the fun video we made of Gunnar and his Madshus skis – I envisioned sort of a star-struck kid asking questions about skis, and Noah showing off all his best Madshus stuff. But Gunnar wasn’t playing star-struck, and he apparently had some other questions in mind. And Noah appeared to be up for some honest answers and a good discussion. We just let the whole thing run, and it came out differently than what I planned, but way, way better.

Chris Osgood showing off the potato we gave him for his birthday. Four-Corners Farm German Butterballs are scarce this year, so it’s really a pretty good present.

Today was Chris Osgood’s birthday. More than any other single person, Chris is responsible for my involvement in skiing. And now – over thirty years later, he’s still my favorite person to ski with. Happy birthday Oz!

In the past 17 or so years working in the ski industry I’ve had plenty of opportunity to reflect on what ignited my passion for the sport. The easy guess would be family – I’ve got the name for it. Caldwells involved in skiing are a dime a dozen. But the skiing Caldwells are Uncle John, my amazing cousins, and their even more amazing kids – and I was stuck between generations with parents who weren’t skiers. Uncle John has been one of the most important and influential people in my life, but he didn’t get me started.

Chris was my 8th grade science teacher and my first ski coach. He coached the Putney BKL group along with his wife Mary for years – but it wasn’t the BKL stuff I remember. It was skiing with Chris, or with both Chris and Mary, and feeling like a grown-up. I was a tiny little kid, and couldn’t have been too fast. But going skiing with Chris was never a grown-up taking a kid for a ski; it wasn’t coaching or mentoring; it wasn’t cajoling or solicitous. It was just us going skiing, and it legitimized my interest. I felt like Chris took my interest seriously, and accepted me as a fellow-skier. That was it – he identified me as a skier, so I identified myself as a skier. He gave me permission and showed me the path. What a gift!

A sunrise ski with Oz on the Dusty Ridge trails.

And what a lesson as well. I have made it a goal to take everybody seriously, whatever they bring to the table, because I know what a big difference it can make. It also helps sell skis. No – seriously! When you take people seriously and you affirm the legitimacy of their interest, you give them permission to follow the path they’ve sketched out for themselves. You also make friends. You can take that one to the bank – I learned it from Chris Osgood.

This is just one small example of the lessons that sport offers life, and the importance of treating people well. To this day, skiing with Chris is an affirmation of my choices, and I look forward to every opportunity to enjoy his company on and off the trails. But mostly on the trails, provided he’s done a good job with the grooming. Thanks Oz, and happy birthday!

This year Gunnar asked for Madshus skis. Why Madshus? Because that’s what Noah Hoffman skis on, and Noah is the second best classic skier in the world (silver medal at U23 World Champs makes you the second best in Gunnar’s world). Apparently these athlete sponsorships work. All a company needs to do in order to sell a pair of junior skis is sponsor an athlete, and then send that athlete to spend a lot of days, including Christmas, with a family with a young child. We had Noah on our family pool membership this year, just in case he wanted to go swimming with a bunch of kids. The criteria from the pool were “anybody who spends a lot of time at your house”. Check.

Last Spring Dan Josephson sent me some skis for grinding, including a pair of Nikki Caulfield’s skis. There was also an email making note of some gouges on Nikki’s skis, and a note saying “Don’t worry about these too much, they were made by a hatchet.” Well, I had to ask for the story behind that, and what follows is Nikki’s account of her experience at the Norwegian Birkebeiner.

But before Nikki’s story, I’ll make add a brief note: This gets pretty grim, and honestly it doesn’t sound too fun! I think that Cross Country skiers are set-apart from other people by their response to adversity. Suffering is just suffering. Staying with it, and coming back for more is what characterizes our population. With few exceptions, cross country skiers are the people you want with you when you do something really challenging. Thanks for sharing this Nikki!

Nikki’s Adventure:
First off, I’d just like to say this was really quite an experience. 14,500 skiers is a LOT of skiers. Each wave had about 700+ people in it, and as Dan very aptly observed “The first 3 kilometers were deafening with the sound of swishing skis”. It’s at about the 3 kilometer mark that the four Detroit Lakes skiers stories start to vary. Dr. Bob (Koshnick) who went out in Wave One reported great snow conditions that stayed relatively constant for his whole race. Dan was in Wave 8, which went out one hour and forty minutes later in significantly warmer temps (we started out around freezing that morning and just got warmer from there). I went out in Wave 14 (4,200 skiers later) and Dr. Jonasson was in Wave 16- (or about 1,400 skiers later).

The course winds up and over two mountains, with fairly significant elevation changes- which means that temps and snow conditions were constantly changing during the race making for some *cough cough* super fun waxing conditions. Too cold and you would get no kick, too warm and you’ll ice up.

For the first 3k everyone reported pretty good trails and proper waxing, but after that it started to fall apart. I had my first “ice up” at about 3.5 -4k. I had great kick and glide before that, but all of the sudden (literally in a matter of seconds) the snow changed and it felt like my skis each weighed 80 kilos and my glide came to a dead halt. I got off the track and pulled my skis off- to find about 2-3” of solid ice on my kick zone. Having never seen this before I didn’t really know what to do with it, so I pulled my pole off and used it to chip the ice off the bottom of my ski. Having gotten most of it off I set off again… only to ice up again within about .5 k. Talk about frustrating! I found some other wax and put a little on which helped for a bit… until the trails went to mush. There wasn’t much for tracks left for a bit when the trail narrowed, so it felt a little more like back country skiing. Oh, and have I mentioned the trail hasn’t gone DOWN yet? It’s almost 15k of up… and not so steep that you have to herringbone, you just have to stride the entire thing without stopping. The funny thing is you’d think you were at the top because you couldn’t see anything higher, then you’d round a corner and magically be going up again!

So, I FINALLY got to the first feed station about 12k in. I thought I’d never get there, and quite frankly was NOT having a good time at that point. But it was only 3 more kilometers of up and then it was down. (Seriously, I would have ditched the baby by now.)

And the first downhill you get (15k in) is a killer. Fairly steep, I think all 4 of us DL folks crashed on it. The other three had someone step in front of them and chose to fall rather than hit them and I iced up (again!) going down the hill. The tracks are also about 4-6” wide at this point so your skis would wobble in them and clatter all the way down. I’ve got some good bruises from this tumble. A ski patroller helped me de-ice… with a hatchet. I about peed my pants when he whipped out a hatchet and used it to scrape snow from my skis- turns out it’s pretty effective.

Then there were some nice long gradual kilometers of down- a nice break. But the snow conditions completely changed yet again going down and I lost any kick that I had. (Yep, from iced up to no kick at all). But at least I could double pole so I was still moving. Then it flattened out between the mountains… and it was completely flat for what seemed like forever. Until it was up again. Up up up up and away – much steeper this time to the second peak. The Swix wax guys never did much to help, and when I asked what I should do with my wax I got a blank look. The best people who helped were some Norwegians who came out to watch the race and were sitting on the side- they asked if I needed help so I said yes. Immediately they started running out of their little snow dugout thing where they were sitting with wax, klister, scrapers … and an 8” knife, which was used to peel the layers of incorrect wax off my skis. They did their best to get me on my way and offered me some doughnuts… but first I had to take a picture with them (The picture below is one they emailed to me) Amazing how different the spectators are in Norway from the American race.

Here is where my adventure splits from everyone else’s. I started icing up again pretty badly going up (I couldn’t win…it was ice or nothing), and a ski patroller stopped me and said I shouldn’t keep going with my skis as bad as they were because I was going to get hurt. No no, I insisted I was OK and I was going to finish. (Stubborn Nikki, my alter-ego, made an appearance). Well, turns out the ski patroller was right. At about 35k I iced up on a hill and couldn’t get down the other side. While trying to go down with ice on my skis I came to a dead halt, flipped over backwards and popped my left shoulder out of it’s socket. (Don’t get alarmed, this happens a lot.) Due to the pack I had on and my pole and possibly a slightly worse dislocation than normal (ha ha) I had to have help to put it back in. But again… I wasn’t going to quit. I could just use my right pole and I was going to be fine.

At this point I felt like I was reenacting the “Bring Out Your Dead” scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail with the ski patrollers. “But I don’t want to go on the cart!” “”Nonsense, you’ll be dead in a moment.” “I feel happy… I feel happy…”

But at 40k they said no more and put me on a snowmobile to be hauled in. (The guy who picked me up was also the one who helped me fix my arm… he said I had more heart than he had ever seen out there, which I guess was some small consolation, but it doesn’t replace being allowed to finish.) So they brought me to a feed station… and dropped me off.

The lady who dropped me off said “there’s a bus waiting and the driver knows you’re coming so he’s waiting for you. It’s over there” This was followed by some vague pointing down a hill. So I picked up my stuff and started walking down a slippery road down a hill…. Right into a residential area. (Only fell once, thankfully didn’t get hurt again…) Only to find no bus. Thankfully some friendly (too friendly?) drunk Norwegians pointed me in the right direction. So I found the bus stop… and there’s no bus. It’s now about 5:30 PM and I was apparently the last person pulled from the course.

Again, thankfully Norwegians are the nicest people ever and I made a friend at the bus stop. He (I feel terrible, I couldn’t pronounce his name and I have no idea how it would be spelled… so we’ll call him Bus Friend.) helped me get my jacket on since it was starting to get cold, and then got me onto a city bus by sweet talking the bus driver into letting me ride. Now, this was not the bus I was supposed to take but after waiting 20 minute I didn’t think there would be another one and being stranded on the mountain above Lillehammer didn’t sound fun.

Anyways Bus Friend was great- and we had a good laugh at my predicament. No phone, didn’t know Martha’s phone number, no money and don’t speak Norwegian. (Really, at that point what else can you do but laugh?) He also skied so told me how my skis should have been waxed. He really wanted to try and call Martha to let her know where I was, but I had no idea what her number was. “Well” he said with a shrug “Shit happens”. Either way, he got me to Lillehammer’s city bus stop which was a lot better than being stranded in some village on the mountain.

He then pointed me up to Haakon’s Hall and off I went, only to find Dan and Martha weren’t there and there were no buses up to the finish line area a few kilometers away. They were frantically looking for me (it’s almost 8 PM by this point) at the Birkebeiner Stadium where injured skiers were brought in or waiting to see if by some miracle I was still skiing and would come across the finish. The medics had no record of who was pulled off the course- and no idea that I wasn’t in because my timing chip was still running. The bus driver who took off without me apparently never let anyone know I hadn’t shown up at the bus stop. (Thankfully I didn’t break a leg on my slip walking there, or I’d have been toast.) So basically no one had any idea where I was, or if I was dead on the side of the trail somewhere. I made another friend at Haakon’s Hall who called all the stations at the Stadium to see if someone was looking for me (they had talked to EVERYONE at the Staduim) but no one said there were two Americans looking for their third. He then went out and looked for our rental car in all the parking lots to no avail. Finally Dan and Martha decided to check Haakon’s Hall back in Lillehammer proper… which I have never been so happy to see anyone in my life.

We all made it… though it was a little tramautic at the end! Dan said the last 14k of downhill was brutal – total mush and the tracks were totally chopped up. Dr. Bob also had issues with his binding coming down… so no one really had the race they wanted to. But either way, the people were wonderful and it is a very different event from the American Birkie. Will I go back? Absoultely! As our host said, I need to have my revenge on the course!

We’ve got a small shipment of scraper sharpeners in the shop. I tend to get excited by simple, high quality tools, and this thing makes the grade. It’s absurdly expensive, at $70, but it’s one of the tools I value most highly. A sharp, clean plastic scraper is the key  good and fast waxing. You can’t make a plastic scraper too sharp – just like you can’t make a chef’s knife too sharp. A sharp plastic scraper won’t damage the ski base unless you take a dive off the edge with it. Don’t do that!

I got so excited that I made a special instructional video on how to use your fancy expensive scraper sharpener.

We’re in full swing here. A good time for a tour of the operation. Video inside.

We have a carefully crafted new website, thanks to Brayton Osgood. We feed him coffee and skis, and good things happen. Well, mostly good things. There are still some glitches to work out. Like every image that was uploaded to the site prior to August 2012. But it will all be in working order soon enough. In the meantime, we trust you’ll cut us a little slack!

Chris and Mary Osgood found this tin of wax behind the cabin at Mary’s parents’ house that Martha Rockwell used to rent. They asked me if I’d ever seen it or heard of it before. I had to confess that I hadn’t. But, let’s see… It’s old and it’s ski wax. I know a guy who might have an idea.

Ski Factory Impressions

This summer I was fortunate enough to visit several different ski factories in Europe with Zach. After our first year back in operation as Caldwell Sport, we felt that investing in my understanding of skis from the ground up was important for our business. We’re a small business, and it’s necessary for both of us to have a high level of expertise in all aspects of the operation. There is no better way to learn about skis than to go to the source and handle skis every day for a few weeks with no distractions. I am pretty sure this is Zach’s idea of heaven.

Our first trip of the summer was to Norway. Zach planned the trip so that we could spend a few days skiing on the snow at Sognefjell, about a 3 hour drive north of Lillehammer, with some of the US Ski Team guys that he coaches. Sognefjell is a remote mountainous area located above the Sognefjord. Its elevation is about 4500ft and holds snow well into the summer. There is a hostel-like lodge there that serves five very carbohydrate rich meals a day. They salt and groom a 7km winding loop (with hills and turns) twice a day. When we were there, all of the major ski companies were testing their products along with some of the Norwegian National Team, German Biathlon, United Bakeries Marathon Team and a host of other teams from Norway, Sweden and Finland. Because all of the major ski companies are based out of Europe, this ends up being a relatively close testing area for them. While we were there, we were able to test some prototype products that are really interesting ideas. If all goes well, these products will be brought to market over the next few years. We were able to get a sense of what concepts ski companies were working with and what direction they are headed.

After 15 hours of skiing in 6 sessions at Sognefjell, we headed back to Lillehammer to spend a week picking skis at the Madshus factory in nearby Biri. I have become a bigger and bigger fan of Madshus skis over the past few years, so I was really looking forward to going to the factory. Although any factory setting is far from glamorous, the Madshus factory was a totally impressive facility. They take extreme care selecting all of the materials that go into their skis and have built some of the most exact machines in the industry. They are so exact that they have to make slight adjustments during a production cycle so that not every pair of skis is identical! Anyway, after a week of drinking the Madshus “Kool Aid” and making sure that our Demo fleet had a very good race fleet for me in my size range, I left Madshus feeling even more excited to test their skis this season.

Checking out the Salomon development press with Frise.

After Madshus, the next stop on the ski pilgrimage for me was to the Salomon Headquarters in Annecy, France in August. While Salomon produces their skis in Altenmarkt, Austria; their World Cup service team is based out of Annecy and all their development and prototyping happens there. They actually have a press in Annecy where they can produce a new ski to test without having to halt the whole production line in Austria. It was a great opportunity to spend a little time with Patrice Frisson-Roche, one of the Salomon World Cup service guys, to learn a bit about what skis they have been testing and liking on the World Cup. Over the next two days, which also happened to be a weekend, we spent 10 hours on road bicycles near Annecy biking several of the roads and Cols that the Tour de France often visits. Thanks much to Alex Haas, the Salomon international marketing director, and his good friend who is the marketing director for German soccer for showing us some incredible riding around Annecy. In spite of very sore bums and legs, it was an amazing three days.

From Annecy we went to the Salomon ski factory in Altenmarkt, Austria. Salomon shares a factory with Atomic which are both owned by Amer Sports. It is interesting to see two totally different ski companies working side by side. They have two separate design teams that work independently of one another. Most of the factory workers are working for Amer and not directly for either ski company. Jean-Marc Draeyer works for Salomon and is very involved with ensuring the quality of every pair of Salomon skis.  Overall, my impressions of the Salomon factory were very positive. Although Salomon hasn’t been making skis for all that long compared to the other ski companies out there, they’ve done a good job bringing in some very hard working and knowledgeable people.

We were also very fortunate to have 2 free days in Altenmarkt due to an Austrian holiday and another weekend day. Zach and I took advantage of the nice weather and the Austrian Alps and did 2 fantastic hikes from Ramsau, one of them taking us up and around the Dachstein glacier. Although the Dachstein is used as a summer ski training venue, August tends to be its low point for good skiing during the year so we were happy to be hiking instead of slogging around on dirty, very slow glacier ice.

Also, during our week in Austria, we were able to squeeze in a day visiting the Fischer factory in Ried. Although Ried is unfortunately not located in the beautiful Austrian Alps, it was a great opportunity to get to take a look inside the factory that has been the leader in making cross country skis over the past few decades. The Fischer factory certainly did not disappoint. It is definitely the largest of the factories and it is clear that they continually reinvest in their machines and technology. It was also great to see into the racing department and see a whole bunch of Dario Cologna’s skis get dropped off for grinding. Thanks to Andy Forstner (another World Cup service guy) for showing us around.

In all, I learned a lot about the different ski brands we carry this summer. One of the biggest lessons that I learned was that to be truly knowledgeable with skis, one must be a continuous and eager student of skis. Ski companies are constantly trying to refine their skis and make them lighter and faster. They come up with new concepts, develop them and then test them over and over again. I know one thing that I will do this winter is use every ski as a ski testing opportunity. Knowledge comes with hard work. Fortunately, like all of our customers, I don’t mind this type of “hard work”.

Our summer season is bracketed by two ski picking trips to Europe. Tomorrow we fly to Geneva to kick off our second trip with a visit to Salomon headquarters in Annecy. This second trip has a pretty laid-back schedule with some free days in Annecy, and some time in Ramsau to enjoy life a bit. So it’s almost like a vacation – a good summer extension. But it’s really the last hurrah – the bulk of the skis from our June trip are already in the shop, sorted and racked and ready for grinding. We’ll come home to full-time work. So tomorrow’s flight marks the beginning of the end of Summer.

It also marks the last opportunity to pre-order skis. We select and carry a strong inventory for the season, but after this trip the selection gets smaller with every order. We start our ski picking this trip with work in the Salomon factory on Monday and Tuesday. So you’ll want to submit your ski request form before then!

The beginning of the end is a good time for a little retrospective examination of ski industry life in the off-season (in no particular order).

Brutally hard ski-picking trips…

In addition to skis, we pick blueberries.

We don’t sell bikes so we get to RIDE bikes.

We definitely hobnob with hotshots.

We do a bit of coaching.

We focus on the important things.

Amy and I left home Saturday morning, flew out of JFK in the afternoon, arrived in Oslo Sunday morning, took a train to Lillehammer, picked up a Madshus race service vehicle from Per Wiik, and drove to Sognefjell (about three hours) in time for afternoon training. If you think that sentence was long, just imagine the day/night/day combo involved! It rained for most of our drive from Lillehammer, so we were prepared for bad weather. But we broke out of the bad weather shortly before arriving, and have had phenomenal ski conditions for two sessions now.

Grossi, (Michael Grossegger, Fischer biathlon race service) gesticulating (as normal)

It’s been great meeting up with various industry friends – our timing here is perfect to be able to test some really interesting new products. This morning I skied on the new Alpina skate boot, which was great. This afternoon I’m going back out on some pretty raw looking prototype full-carbon Salomon boots that weigh practically nothing. We’ll also be testing skis up here – Hakan Nordback from Madshus will arrive this afternoon with some more stuff to test.

Frise – Patrice Frison-Roche, Salomon race service

They’re serving five meals a day here – Breakfast, Lunch, late lunch (before afternoon training) Dinner, and Supper. Pretty much nothing to do but ski, eat, and hang-out, and we’ve managed to book three and a half days of this! We’re definitely congratulating ourselves, as long as we keep stealing sunshine from the ever-present chance of rain. Time now for me to go wax up some skis for Noah and Kris (once a wax tech, always a wax tech) in preparation for the afternoon session.

Sognefjell skiing – I don't know who this is, the picture came from Erik Nilsson

We’re in the final stages of planning our June trip to Norway and Austria. This process involves two ski companies, two national teams, a school calendar, three sets of grandparents, at least two siblings, and some as-yet-undetermined vehicles. So it’s taken a little while to get the details ironed out!

The major excitement for us is that Amy will be coming on this trip, which will make it a bit of a working family vacation. Amy’s been to Europe on ski trips plenty, but she hasn’t been to ski factories. Since she figures prominently in all aspects of the business, including selecting skis, it’s important that she get this experience. And as much fun as it is to share a bed with Patrick Moore in Europe, I’d rather share a bed with my wife!

The other major excitement is that the trip will start with several days of skiing at Sognefjell with Kris and Noah. A great chance to test product, get a good technique block with Noah, and add some recreation to the workload.

Kris and Noah have the opportunity to join the Norwegian National Team (by invitation, thanks to Trond Nystad) for an on-snow camp. This fits some of the major off-season objectives for both guys, including contact with other good skiers, and snow-time. For the final few days we’re counting on Madshus connections to hook Noah up with Thomas Alsgaard for some skating technique work. Thomas saw Noah skiing around in Davos the day after the 30K last December. Stian Grønås pointed Noah out to him, and said “he was 31st yesterday”. Thomas replied, “that’s impossible.” Anyway, we’re looking forward to that opportunity.

We’ll also be logging plenty of factory time on this trip. Which reminds me to remind you – now is the time to order skis for next year!

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