The annual snow buying cycle is well underway and with it comes the nationwide on-snow demo tours. The Western Winter Sports Reps Association holds two separate events in California (in addition to their Northwest demo)—the Nor Cal demo was held at Alpine Meadows on Monday and Tuesday, February 6 and 7, 2012 and will end the week with two consecutive days for SoCal retailers at Mammoth Mountain on the 8 and 9th.
Though the WWSRA/SIA National Demo at Winter Park, Colorado was well attended, according to WWSRA Director Cami Garrison, this years buying cycle and subsequent demos have been a bit of an afterthought for many retailers struggling in the current season. “When I went to SIA we literally had only 40 people pre-registered for the Nor-Cal event,” she says. “But, as soon as we got back, bam—everyone started signing up.”
All told, Garrison had 256 people sign up ahead of time for the Alpine Meadows event and by the end of day one she gauged attendance at about 390. For $25 a person, retailers are able to test boards, boots, bindings, accessory items from the various rep and manufacturer booths set up in the parking lot at the base of the resort. The WWSRA also throws in free beers and a hot-dog lunch each day.
Follow the jump for the rest of the story and photos.
WWSRA Director Cami Garrison, MC, and Katie making the WWSRA demo roll.
Though the snow-levels at Alpine Meadows were far below normal for this time of the year, on Monday conditions on the hill were perfect for testing most of the new product technologies—backcountry split boards and big mountain powder board excepted. The groomed runs off the Roundhouse lift were filled with retailers making hot laps all day long, and inside the tent city reps and assistants were busy turning screws and scraping snow off freshly returned boards.
We were on a mission to try out the non-conventional designs from the SIA floor—the Flow ABT boards; some of the off-camber, park-centric sidecut designs from Burton; the Salomon Halogram binding; and a few others. Our reviews for each board was obviously slightly different, but on the overall it is nice to know that as the industry tries to one-up each other with new technology they’re not screwing up the ride. All of the boards were fun and many of the new technologies didn’t detract from our riding, the good ones even kicks us up a notch. We still say for shop employee these demos are still the best way to know what is happening inside the newest gear.
It was tent city with skiers on the right, snowboarders on the left. Just as it should be.
Flow tech rep Kevin Stande setting up next year’s Rush with the new ABT silicone base implant (one of our favorite rides of the day).
Vans’ Jared Bevens getting out and meeting the NorCal shop kids.
Butterbox’s Myles Soderstrom getting the Vans lowdown from Garrett Gibb.
OG Tahoe shred Monty Roach spreading the Wend Wax gospel.
At first Spills, Charlie, and Brady weren’t going to let us roll with next year’s Burton product, but after a little “networking” we got out on a couple smooth rides. (Watch out for the Harvest 151).
Lib Tech, Gnu, and Roxy getting boards out on the snow for everyone.
Salomon/Bonfire tech Jess Wilfley turning screws all day long.
Rome California rep John Graham (second from left) and the Rome SDS crew getting ready to shut it down for the day.
It was a pretty good day for goggles and Spy had everyone covered.
And us, we rode until they shut the lift and got on with two chairs to spare.
