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Post by meput on Dec 19, 2013 6:30:24 GMT -7
Jim,
My journey with Dodge boots has been much kinder to me than to Smack (or else I have a much higher pain tolerance ;-) ). Harald has taken one boot to the shop to punch it out over the styloid process. I will have to ski in them more to finally decide whether they ski better for me than my Dobies.
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Post by JimRatliff on Dec 19, 2013 6:46:12 GMT -7
Jim, My journey with Dodge boots has been much kinder to me than to Smack (or else I have a much higher pain tolerance ;-) ). Harald has taken one boot to the shop to punch it out over the styloid process. I will have to ski in them more to finally decide whether they ski better for me than my Dobies. But it clearly isn't night and day where they make you feel like you've forgotten how to ski or where your feet are attached? Enjoy your day, I am enjoying camp vicariously through "the Peak Skier cool guys". Honestly, I can't even begin to comprehend going from a 10 1/2 to a 25. I was pleased when I went down from a 27 to a 26 (9 1/2 shoe).
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Post by meput on Dec 19, 2013 19:45:02 GMT -7
Day 4: weather slightly colder ~ 30 at base. Clouds rolled in during the day. Wind was up so definitely colder up top.
Coach change for all the groups. My group did change to Maria. "just met a girl named Maria " oh that's right, I'm no allowed to sing in public. Where Harald had decided the focus of our group was to learn the brushed carve, Maria continued with the focus but came at it from a totally different direction. She made sure we each could find our little toe edge, then onto "the pig" along with Jay Peterson's "epiphany spot". Then turns with stance foot not allowed to tip (what PMTS with no tipping?). We were then allowed to get minimal stance foot tipping. And voila, brushed carve. From there several runs playing with stance foot tip from minimal to equal to free foot tipping - edge locked carve. Spent afternoon playing with the range of brushing up to edge locked. Way cool.
Last day tomorrow. So far very pleased.
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Post by JimRatliff on Dec 19, 2013 20:18:34 GMT -7
"just met a girl named Maria " oh that's right, I'm not allowed to sing in public. Got video??
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Post by meput on Dec 19, 2013 20:51:15 GMT -7
HSS has video. Of which some is not pretty.
Oops, you must mean of my singing. That would be terrible. I already mentioned I am not allowed to sing in public. I'm not even allowed to sing in church. In church, music is joyfull noise. What comes out of this mouth is NOT joyfull, let alone noise. A video of me singing would be considered a national security threat, no telling the damage to the NSA computers when they review it.
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Post by smackboy1 on Dec 19, 2013 21:27:07 GMT -7
Today was another fantastic sunny day. Despite the weatherman's report, there was not a snowflake to be seen. Geoffda showed up at the briefing this morning and I also shared a lift ride with him. Believe it or not, me, Meput, HighAngles and Geoffda, all 4 of us from Peak Skier Zone at A Basin this week all wore bright orange jackets. Uncanny! I hereby nominate orange as the official color of the Peak Skier Zone. Do I have a second?
It's too early to tell about the Dodges. I spent 4 days so far getting them dialed in and even today, the 5th day, Harald took them back to HSS to change the canting on one boot. Chris Brown says the Dodges are great boots if your feet can fit in them. They also can require a little bit more tweaking than other boots to get optimized. Compared to my Nordica Speedmachine 14s the Dodges are much stiffer, tighter fitting, and lighter. The weight reduction makes them really easy to move my feet around for tipping or pulling the feet together. In order to more fully evaluate them I will need more time to ski them without pain and with the alignment optimized. But so far I like them a lot. As Lotus Cars founder Colin Chapman was fond of saying, "Adding power makes you faster on the straights. Subtracting weight makes you faster everywhere." I think this sort of applies to the Dodges.
Today we changed coaches. The first run we actually skied with Diana's group while Harald was troubleshooting someone's equipment. Our first shake down run with Harald was a bit of a dog's breakfast so he fixed it for us by letting us know that the double pole drag is not a drill, but the way a PMTS skier should always ski, always. That is until Harald himself sent us a letter expressly authorizing us to do otherwise, and that we should not go home and stand by the mailbox waiting for it to come any time soon. We then worked on tipping, counterbalancing, counteracting, and pole use in transition. Basically he took the Youtube slant board lessons and implemented it on the snow. At one point he even handed out sticks to some of us and we all did drills holding a stick or one of our ski poles between our hands as we skied. The PMTS stick is a really great tool. By the end of the day Harald had taken all the hard prep work we had done tipping and counterbalancing and pig riding with Maria the last 3 days and assembled it into some pretty respectable PMTS skiing. It was kind of like watching a master chef turning raw ingredients into an elegant dish.
PS For those lurking who may not know what all this "riding the pig" is, it's a drill where the skier rides both little toe edges i.e. the skis are tipped up so the bases face each other. The legs are extremely bowed out, hence the name. It's not a feel good moment if your boots are crushing the outside edges of your feet and simultaneously throwing you into the backseat.
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Post by HighAngles on Dec 19, 2013 22:21:24 GMT -7
Sounds like you guys have been getting the full "treatment" - rip it all apart, build new pieces, and put it all back together; hopefully achieving something better than what you started with. I'll be back out tomorrow morning, but with the weather change so does my jacket. I'll be wearing the "sharp lime" just like in my avatar (looks more like a shocking yellow).
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Post by livingproof on Dec 20, 2013 4:15:34 GMT -7
It's too early to tell about the Dodges. I spent 4 days so far getting them dialed in and even today, the 5th day, Harald took them back to HSS to change the canting on one boot. Chris Brown says the Dodges are great boots if your feet can fit in them. They also can require a little bit more tweaking than other boots to get optimized. Compared to my Nordica Speedmachine 14s the Dodges are much stiffer, tighter fitting, and lighter. The weight reduction makes them really easy to move my feet around for tipping or pulling the feet together. In order to more fully evaluate them I will need more time to ski them without pain and with the alignment optimized. But so far I like them a lot. As Lotus Cars founder Colin Chapman was fond of saying, "Adding power makes you faster on the straights. Subtracting weight makes yoeverywhere." I think this sort of applies to the Dodges. Smack, FWIW, my former boots were Nodica Speedmachine 14's, and, they are a much wider boot. very different from the narrow Dodge. I had some fitting done on them by a local boot specialist who is authorized to sell and work on the Dodge. I tried to get into a Dodge that was one size too small, but, it was impossible even with my narrow feet. My fitter stated that adjusting to a Dodge may depend on my ability to withstand pain, as their largest boot size was a very tight length fit for me. I've since bought Atomic Redster 130, which are a narrow race last. I always thought the Speedmachine fit was vague, the Redster fit is spot-on. HOw much it changed my skiing is.....somewhat difficult to quantify....but better. I commend both you and meput for going to a Harb Camp and transitioning to the Dodge boot. I don't think I would be that brave. Thanks for the write ups of the camp.
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Post by livingproof on Dec 20, 2013 4:43:28 GMT -7
As a result of reading about the Dodge boot distribution changes this year, I visited their website, and, yes, you now buy the boot directly through the manufacturer. They provide a PDF print out where you trace the outline of your foot onto the print out, and, they size your boot from that tracing. There is no cost information on the website, you need to get on the phone with them. They give a 30 day buy back guarantee if you do not like the fit. Of interest is the website has a list of Dodge users, with Harald getting many, many mentions...as he no longer skis the boot, I wonder! John Botti is also singled out as one of the first recreational skiers to transition to the boot.
I speculate that Dodge is adopting an Amazon business model. It must be very costly for a specific shop to stock the boot given the very limited number of potential buyers at the price point. Very easy to centralize the warehouse and ship overnight when there is nibble to purchase. It's still difficult to determine the cost, given the comments in this thread about a inadequate liner and local boot fitting. It's a leap of faith to go down that path. I wonder how much the technique of the buyer plays into the ultimate performance experience with the boot. Harald, Max and Helluvaskier have written about the extreme loads placed by them onto the boot and why a high 150 stiffness is beneficial. I don't feel those forces in my skiing where I crush a softer boot. My thinking is that in most equipment oriented sports, very high level athletes require equipment that the average performer cannot benefit from. I know I've been on skis that I cannot bend, Helluva told me never to buy a GS ski as I can't take advantage.
Bottom line, not sure if I would be an investor in Dodge, both as an investor and consumer. There does not seem to be much marketplace enthusiasm, outside of racing circles, plus, Harald has left the bandwagon at least in of what he now chooses to ski on. I wonder if the Dodge business case is to sell their patents to a larger company, or, continue to seek growth via the new sales mode.?
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Post by geoffda on Dec 20, 2013 7:43:50 GMT -7
along with Jay Peterson's "epiphany spot". Actually, that comes from John Clendenin (to give credit where credit is due .
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