Open Letter to the Ski Reps in NY

Open letter to the Ski Reps in New York

Why won’t you bring women's skis to the demos? You always have lots of variety for men and almost NOTHING for women. The women’s performance skis you brought were 160s.   We aren't all 5'8", you know. How about some performance skis in the 150s?

It is so frustrating to take a day off, drive to the mountain, pay for a lift ticket, get to the demo tents and discover that your demo quiver has 25 pairs of men's skis and 3 women's models. Don’t tell me that women don’t want to demo. We do. More women would demo if you brought something for us to try.  

Two years now, the Volkl rep hasn't had any selection for women, unless you like a 163. Not to mention that at Gore's demo on Wednesday, he pitched a little fit because some guy skied into the rocks on Topridge and damaged the ski bases.  He shut down the tent and wouldn't let anyone else demo the rest of the day.  My advice for Mr. Volkl?  Suck it up and charge the guy for the damage - you have his credit card.  Repair the base and move on.  Kwiturbitchin.

I understand that you have to pay for your skis to bring to the demos, but don’t insult my intelligence by telling me that you paid full retail for each ski in your truck.  I realize that when you plan your demo fleet, you want to bring the most variety for the target group.  All I want is for you to include women in your target group.   There are women in the expert category, too, and we want to be represented.

A special note to the arrogant little Blizzard Rep (I wish had your name) who said, “Retailers tell me that women won’t spend more than $399 for a ski.  Retailers won’t order expensive skis because they can’t sell them.  There isn’t an Viva 8.1 east of the Mississippi.”    

Go slap yourself.

Sexism is stereotyping and the belief one gender or sex is inferior to, less competent, or less valuable than the other.  It’s time for you to jump into the 21st century.  The days of “Pink it and shrink it” are over. There are many women out there who are expert level skiers. Some enjoy the glades and some like the frontside. Some just aspire to get better and are being held back by their intermediate skis.

I'm not asking for you to reduce the men's demo selection, I want you to increase the women's models.  We all want to try and compare new products.  

If you bring it, we will come.

End of Rant.

agree to some extent. however i will say this, and i am the one that commented on gores fb site as well. the mountain was in NO condition to have a demo day on friday. sunway was thin in spots, topridge was pretty sketchy. i was very suprised that they had that demo. and like i said before if i had my skis damaged to the extent that they were i would have shut down as well. as far as ski sizing, same as before. the average height of women in the US is 5'5'' if im not mistaken, which ski size runs anywhere from a 158-168 for most. just about all reps only buy whats needed to make consumers at a demo day get an idea of what the ski is like. its to much money and too much hassel to be carrying 6 ski models and have all the sizes. reps would need trucks the size of volkls ram 2500. same can be said for myself, im only 5'3'', average height for a male is around 5'10''. ski size that is 170-177. those skis are HUGE for me, over my head, but in all honesty its not a huge difference from a 170 to a 163. biggest thing is that it will be quicker. demos are meant to find your perfect ski. demo are meant for you to go out and see what kind of ski you like...soft vs stiff, fat vs narrow, GS vs SL...and so on. yea maybe you run across a ski that you really like and then you go from there.

basically im getting at this, dont blame the reps for being cranky, blame the mountain for not having the proper conditions to have a demo day. and from what i heard it wasnt just volkl who shut down, but a few tents stopped putting out skis because they were coming back just beat. as far as what the blizzard rep said, that was a low comment.

Don't blame Gore. I thought the snow was really nice - soft and carve-able.  After I had tried the only women's skis that were there, I skied the rest of the day on my own equipment. I don't have a scratch on mine and I didn't scratch theirs.

The true blame is the irresponsible kid who was out of control and skied into the rocks on Topridge, gouging the skis.  Just curious, was it you?  You seem awfully defensive about this.

Do you just make up your own facts?  According to the National Center for Health Statistics, the average height for an adult female in the United States is 63.8 inches, or 5 feet 3.8 inches. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/bodymeas.htm  That means that a ski in the mid 150s is appropriate for most situations for that woman, depending on weight and ability.  

Back to my topic.  You have totally missed my point, because you don't have a clue about women-specific skis.  According to the Volkl website, 37% of adult ski sales are woman-specific skis.  It's time for the reps to acknowledge women and bring a representative sample of their women's line for the women who wish to demo.  

As a teleskier, I've been disappointed that the demo days I was able to make had no tele gear. In fairness, Gore and other mountains do have telemark specific days, and I've never seen a women specific day. (Also somewhat off-topic .. why can't demos be on a weekend or at least a Friday?)

If 37% of skis sold are for women then it does seem nuts not to serve the market.

What is the missing piece of this puzzle? Is 37% percent accurate? Hard to believe good capitalists would miss an opportunity.

I'd like to get HPD's take on this. Or anyone who knows the business.

I'm going to a demo today, I'll check the ratio of mens v. womens skis. I'll try to keep an eye out for how many women want to demo v. the men. I'll also ask the factory reps about it. I never really thought about it before, so I guess thats my bad.

ski2moro wrote

 Just curious, was it you?  You seem awfully defensive about this.

Do you just make up your own facts?  According to the National Center for Health Statistics, the average height for an adult female in the United States is 63.8 inches, or 5 feet 3.8 inches. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/bodymeas.htm  That means that a ski in the mid 150s is appropriate for most situations for that woman, depending on weight and ability.

No, it definitely wasn't him.

As far as I'm concerned, "if I'm not mistaken" translates to "I'm pretty sure, but could be wrong.", and it's not like 1.2" is that far off. In terms of sizing skis, it's essentially negligible.

As far as what he said about demo's being about finding a general preference as opposed to your exact dream ski, that is pretty accurate, too.

With that being said, it is pretty odd that there aren't more women's specific skis. The only reason I can think of is that there are a fair amount of ladies out there who ride men's skis and definitely not many guys who ride women's specific skis ( I actually raced on some women's specific skis for a year, but that's a different story). 37% is a pretty high statistic, though. I'd be curious to see some statistics about gender showing up to demo skis.

HPD - Let us know what you hear.

What I mean to say is that if I am 5'0" skiing on a 149, and my friend is 5'8 and skiing on a 163, we each could demo a 156 to get the feel of the ski. If she tried a demo in a 149, she probably couldn't get the true feel of the ski, but a 156 would give her a better idea.  Later, we could pay $40 for a ski shop demo in the correct size.  

The 37% figure was taken off the Volkl Attiva webpage as the percentage of women-specific ski sales.

As for women showing up at demo days, we are right back to my circular logic argument.  If reps don't bring women's skis, there is no point for women to come to the demo - unless the woman can ski on a longer, stiffer ski.

I went to the Nordica demo at Okemo. When I got there I asked how many skis were in their demo fleet and how many where women specific. They had 70 skis and 20 where women’s so they had a 5/2 ratio favoring men. They had at least 1 pair of every mid to high end women’s recreational ski in the Nordica line.

Even though I was sure I knew the answer I asked why they had more women’s skis then men’s. Believe it or not it’s because more men than women want to demo. Nordica takes great pride in its women specific models and values the patronage of its female customers. It’s in no way a slight just supply and demand.

I made a good 10 trips to the demo tent and saw many skiers picking up demo skis. One of them was a woman.  I also noticed that the majority of women’s skis never moved in the rack and the Velcro straps where always on.

I don’t know how other ski companies handle their demos, but I don’t see how anyone could have a problem with the way Nordica approaches women’s skis on their demo days.

I wasn't challenging the statistic, I was just surprised it was that high.

What came first, the chicken or the egg? Do you think that women don't go because reps don't have many women specific ski, or do you think that reps don't have many women specific ski because many women don't go?

Just curious, how many different demos have you been to and at which mountains?

Last year I went to one at Gore (the other two were cancelled) and one at Jiminy Peak. When the Volkl rep didn't have anything to demo, Kyle at Potter Brothers allowed me to demo as many of their skis as I wanted to for free.  He felt sorry for me and one other woman who wanted to demo and couldn't because the reps didn't have women specific skis.  

This year, I went to the Gore demo Friday, 12/3.  Nordica only had the Infinite and the Drive in women's models, but both were available in the 15X. I demo'd both, preferred the Infinite, but wasn't impressed enough to buy.

Maybe the reps in Vermont stock more demos, IDK.  Maybe Gore isn't big enough?  Maybe it's the NY reps?  

ski2moro wrote

Last year I went to one at Gore (the other two were cancelled) and one at Jiminy Peak. When the Volkl rep didn't have anything to demo, Kyle at Potter Brothers allowed me to demo as many of their skis as I wanted to for free.  He felt sorry for me and one other woman who wanted to demo and couldn't because the reps didn't have women specific skis.  

This year, I went to the Gore demo Friday, 12/3.  Nordica only had the Infinite and the Drive in women's models, but both were available in the 15X. I demo'd both, preferred the Infinite, but wasn't impressed enough to buy.

Maybe the reps in Vermont stock more demos, IDK.  Maybe Gore isn't big enough?  Maybe it's the NY reps?  

FYI -Nordica is at Okemo Wed. and Thur., if you can make it there you will be in women's demo heaven. Reps are assigned by region not by state. Reps own their demo fleets and there are many factors as to availability of certain skis at demos. However, I do understand your frustration.