Blog

Blizzard's Flipcore skis have been some of our tester's favorites over the last few years, and the women's specific skis are no exception. The Blizzard Samba, at 98 underfoot, cuts the same profile as the hugely popular the Blizzard Bonafide - with a few changes to make it a great women's all mountain ski.

Right off the bat, we should say this is not an intermediate ski - but if you've got the skill and the desire to ski a wider all mountain ski, this is one of the absolute best.

Backcountry boots are improving at a rapid pace in today’s market, with several plastic options that allow manufacturers to make boots lighter, and ski better than ever before. Also engineering designs are improving the cuff articulation so the boots are going uphill better than ever before, while also locking down with a more solid connection on the downhill.

Dynafit has always been a top manufacturer of alpine touring and backcountry ski boots. They damn-near cornered the market on pin-tech style bindings, although some other manufacturers are setting themselves up for some interesting competition.

Welcome to the Start Haus ski tuning video series, where Start Haus owner and World Cup Serviceman Jim Schaffner shows you how to tune your skis like a pro, making tuning easier and your skis faster.

We'll add videos each week, taking you through the ins and outs of ski tuning and waxing.

First up, meet Jim:

Next up, Jim shows you how to set up your work station with the right tools in the right places so you can work quickly and efficiently. You can shop ski tools here.

Last in this week's group, Jim shows you how to position your body to work efficiently, more leverage and less energy goes a long way in getting your skis set right without an achy back:

Now that we've got your work station and your positioning dialed in, we'll move onto tuning next week. If you have any questions, shoot us an email at online@starthaus.com or call the shop. You can buy the entire World Cup Ski Tuning DVD here.

The Nordica Nemesis, a long-time Start Haus favorite for hard-charging women who like to get off-piste, has been updated for 2015, and from our testing, it's for the better.

Taking lessons learned from the shape of the wider Nordica Wildfire, the Nemesis gets a new rocker profile that's gradual and subtle, blending perfectly with the camber of the ski, along with tip and tail tapper, perfectly executed to reduce hooking in crud and variable snow without significantly diminishing edge contact on groomers.

Maintaining its lightweight wood and Wi-Core stringer construction, it's still a light, energetic and poppy ski like previous versions.

Tecnica has long been proud of their race heritage and the success of their narrow performance-focused boots. The Inferno released a few years ago, and the new Tecnica R9.8 130, which uses the same mold, has been a success over previous models and a pleasure to ski.

I owned the Inferno and skied the 9.8 130 extensively as my primary boot for three years. The fit is fantastic; I have a C-width foot, and didn’t have to do much work to make the 9.8 comfortable. After many days of skiing I put in a 5th metatarsal punch and an ankle punch, which are more than reasonable for the amount of days I’ve put into these well-loved boots.

The 98 mm category is bitterly contested, and all manufacturers (for the most part) make an excellent boot in this category. Why should Tecnica take your hard earned money? That is for you and your bootfitter to decide of course, with so many great boots in the category, go with the one that fits your foot best based on your values and needs, as each boot in the category skis darn well. What I can say is that for my foot and skiing ability, the Tecnica was a great match and a pleasure to ski for so long.

Here in Tahoe, the Start Haus tends to recommend 98 mm underfoot skis as the best all-around all-mountain skis for local conditions.

There are a lot of good skis in this category, but the one that both Sierra Jim and Phil Pug have held as the gold standard in the category recently has been the versatile Blizzard Bonafide.

It's won numerous magazine awards, sold out last year before January at the Start Haus, and this year, Blizzard is sold out nation-wide, so once they're gone, they're gone. We've got them in stock, but they're going fast. Click here.

Lange deserves accolades on many fronts in their history as a ski boot manufacturer.

Throughout their history, performance has been their highest value. While so many companies have gone off on wild goose chases in the ski boot world, (see rear entry boots) Lange by and large has stayed true to its core values with their elite racing heritage and building ski boots that perform well, no matter who you are or what your foot shape.

Boot fitting for the better part of the last decade, I have always counted my lucky stars that I have a narrow foot. Of all people who got the short end of the stick in the ski world, people with wide feet have by far the roughest go in the ski boot world.

Why?

Medium-wide ski boots have some serious competition in the last few years. When Tecnica built a new boot from the ground up, the engineers knew it had to be something totally different than they'd ever built before.

I was fortunate enough to go to the America’s Best Bootfitters test last spring at Mt. Bachelor, Oregon, and was more than interested in how the Tecnica Mach1 130 would stack up against the rest of the 100 mm-wide category, particularly the strong competition that has sprung up in the medium fit market.

We're really excited about our new selection of ski clothing this year - we think its the best yet. We're carrying Start Haus classics like Spyder, Descente and Helly Hansen, versatile alpine-inspired brands like Mammut and Sherpa, and new-to-us brands like Obermeyer, Armada, Oakley and Flylow.

We put together three combos we really liked so you can check them out:

Swing by the store anytime or shop online.

I am pleased to say our clientele is, by-and-large, quite well educated about the ski products they are shopping for. As a boot fitter, as often as not the client will state their ability level followed quickly by a short list of boots their interested in trying on, and that list is made up of all the major models from major brands you’d expect, and then they will ask for a recommendation; “and anything else you think I should try on.”

When the client has a narrow foot and is an expert skier my reply is always, “Well you should definitely try on the Head Raptor 130 RS.”

Head as a brand has carved out a large niche in the race market in both skis and boots. They haven’t made the flashiest powder skis, nor best-selling all mountain skis. Instead, they’ve stuck to making the finest hard snow and race skis available, and the same goes for their boots.

We’ve been raving about the Head Raptor since it came out, as has the rest of the universe, and you may be asking, what is so good about it? In short, everything really.

The Nordica NRGY 100 and Nordica NRGY 90 are two new skis for 2015, replacing some of our personal favorites - the Nordica Hell & Back and Steadfast. Fortunately, the new skis did not let our testers down.

Walking the line between a metal-less ski and a full metal laminate ski, the NRGY series uses a skeletonized metal layer, giving them just the right amount of damping and torsional rigidity without being heavy or demanding.

Phil summed the ski up in one word after skiing them; compliant. We felt that the NRGY series are more approachable than some of the most advanced ski in the category for less aggressive skiers without giving up much in the way of top-end performance.

In our 2015 ski testing, Start Haus staff was extremely impressed by Stockli's race ski lineup for this year. In the video below, we took the Stockli Laser SL, Stockli Laser GS and Stockli Laser SX out for a spin and talk about what makes them shine.

While all FIS skis have to meet the same standards, that doesn't mean they're all created equal, and the Stockli skis really are something special. To learn more, swing by the shop or give us a call.