Ridiculous Skis, and Some That Are Not
May 3rd, 2009Posted in Skiing in Luxo-land
Important update- please read the update I just placed at the end of this post. It seems the Carradan Ski company may be less than it appears to be.
I first read about Carradan Skis last year, rolled my eyes at skis with price tags beyond $10,000.00, and went on about my business enjoying the magical skiing in last winter’s deep and abundant snow on my aging Rossi XXX Bandits which I got as summer time deal from my local ski shop way back in August of 2000 for about $300. 00- amortize that to about $33 a year for 60-100 days of fun per winter! People on the latest fat skis, in all the new flex and sidecut configurations, were not having any more fun than I was and they weren’t getting up or down the mountain any faster them me either, despite the lack of about 15″ of metal edges on my beloved Bandits. As I hear people say about golf, “It’s not the clubs!”
Confession, I did retire the Bandits this summer for a $270.00 deal on some new Nordica Superchargers. The point is, it’s amazing how many happy ski days can be had for so little money for good skis.
Yesterday a Carradan Skis advertisement rolled into view again and I saw that they had added a couple of new limited edition models with ski top surface graphics by the artist Romero Britto. Obviously a steal at the $24,000.00 price. Can’t bear the thought of scratching up your ski surface art? They also offer signed versions (suitable for wall mounting) for $65,000.00! Perhaps realizing that the real money in ski retailing is made in soft goods, Carradan now offers a couple of custom made parkas priced $8000.00 to $12,000.00. No, they’re not mink or sable, just more petroleum based fabrics.
I just check the company’s website and see the Britto skis are gone from it. (Sold out or discontinued?)
Also missing this year, if my memory from checking out their website last year is correct, is the British Olympic skier who used to deliver and demo your new skis as part of the purchase price.
Carradan is based out of Big Sky, MT., just down the hill from the Yellowstone Club. Obviously the intent was/is to market these skis to the millionaire/billionaire crowd. They also have phone numbers to reach them in London, Moscow and Hong Kong so they are casting a wide net for their big fish. Part of Carradan pitch is the skis somehow make it easier for users to become better skiers, and through a patented new technology the skis absorb the leg fatiguing impacts of skiing, so people spending all their days sitting on their butts in boardroom chairs and private jets can last longer on the slopes. Well, the Yellowstone Club members didn’t exactly fall for buying the Brooklyn Bridge, but they did buy into a flawed ski club model, so why not expect them to go for snobby skis that promise miracles?
Real skis for real skiers by real skiers might be a motto for another small ski manufacturer near Big Sky- Seneca Boards, based out of Bozeman, MT. Seneca is on the opposite end of the custom ski manufacturing spectrum. To learn more about Seneca Boards read Oronaut’s account of a visit to their workshop to observe the process of handcrafting their skis. Who wouldn’t want a pair of skis made by guys who built their own ski press using fire-hose technology to save thousands of dollars? Reading Seneca’s blog, it seems they are getting lots of orders. I hope their company succeeds. I don’t know what their skis sell for, but I bet its probably a tenth of Carradan’s lowest priced ski. This past winter was a tough one for major ski makers with ski sales way off. Maybe some of that loss was because of the numerous smaller companies, like Seneca, developing a following among serious skiers.
OK, I cannot resist getting back to Carradan’s off the wall skis. Another part of their pitch is that they freeze their skis edges down to -450 degrees F (almost to absolute zero) to increase the tensile strength, toughness and stability. How many of us are planning on skiing the ice planet of Hoth? The steel used in the skis edges of today’s downhill racers isn’t good enough for weekend hacks cruising the Yellowstone Club’s groomers? (OK, maybe Rossi or Atomic swaps in better steel for their top racers’ skis, but still…) I guess if someone askes why you dropped 20K on a pair of skis you need to wow them with some kind tehcno-gibberish answer.
Here’s another thing that surely must demonstrate my ignorance. Carradan takes into account the Coriolis effect. Remember from science class that the Earth spinning on its axis gets toilets and sinks to drain in spirals all going the same way depending on whether you are in the northern hemisphere or the southern hemisphere. Trees apparrently have their trunks twisted by the Coriolis effect as they grow so northern hemisphere trunks twist one way and southern hemisphere ones go the other way. Carradan uses wood from both hemispheres to balance the twisiting out in the wood they use in their skis. I guess the supper strong steel they froze isn’t strong enough to insure straight skis if they used only wood from one hemisphere! Here’s where my simple mind asks, why not use northern wood and just flip the board over to get the “southern hemisphere’s” directional tendency? Cut out a spiral from a piece of paper and flip it over- see?
Reality check- have you ever noticed your skis, or anyone else’s skis twisting one way or another that wasn’t the result of a significant brute force trauma event?
IMPORTANT UPDATE- I should have Googled Simon Carradan, the man behind his “namesake” skis- although Carradan might not be his real name. This is where finding information in the Internet gets dicey. It appears that Simon Brodie, aka Simon Carradan, might be a con artist. The first Google results show quite a few sites alleging his involvement in previous shady deals.
Llewtrah’s Soapbox was first up with a long and detailed account of Mr. Brodie’s history. Messybeast.com has even more. As I said, the Internet hosts all sorts of dubious content, so I can’t vouch for the information on either of these sites, but I certainly would be skeptical about ordering any Carradan skis.
The Carradan Skis website is a pretty expensive site and the full page ads for the skis in glossy upmarket periodicals were costly, so I wonder how many sales or deposits on orders have been made to offset these costs, assuming the skis aren’t fiction. If this is a ski scam, it is a remarkably elaborate one and a costly one to produce.
Maybe my snark about targeting the gullable investor’s in the Yellowstone Club wasn’t far off the mark!
Mike Murphy commented:
May 3, 2009 and you haven’t researched this guy? Where do you get your news, Rachel Ray ? That’s why he’s suckering the nouveau riche old farts at the Yellowstone Club. They couldn’t spell Google let alone type it (or ski for that matter). What’s interesting about these old schoolers however, is how they react when THEY get burned. Simon Francis Campbell Brodie Carradanski , Self Knighted Prince of Bullshit is toast.