Today is the 21st of March. Yesterday, by the calendar, was the first day of spring. Today, on my drive in to work, I noticed the osprey atop her nest on Route 1 at Silver Spring Cove in Narragansett. When the ospreys are back on the nests here along coastal Rhode Island, to me, that marks the start of spring.
The snow is still great up north. Ask anyone who was on the bus trip to Okemo this past Sunday. Ski and ride season isn’t quite over yet. Keep hitting the slopes as much as you can for as long as you can. Temperatures are continuing to run cold up north, so take advantage while it lasts.
But if you really need to call it quits for the season, there’s a few things you should consider.
First off, if you have been thinking about picking up some new gear this is a good time to go shopping at Avie’s. Some skis have been reduced in price, and others will follow. There are a good number of Demo skis available, in both men’s and women’s styles. These can be had at very reasonable prices, and we will recondition them before you take them out the door. And, because they have demo bindings on them, no drilling will be needed if you decide to jump into a new pair of boots in the near future.
Second, if you are keeping your gear for another season, you need to be thinking about taking care of it. That means getting it “summerized.” Summerized is the opposite of winterized. When the tuning shop at Avie’s winterizes a pair of skis or a snowboard, we flatten and recondition the base, sharpen the edges, then add a thin layer of wax and then buff it out of the base. Ready to hit the slopes.
When the tuning shop at Avie’s summerizes a pair of skis or a snowboard, we flatten and recondition the base and sharpen the edges. Then we add a heavy layer of wax to the base, rub wax all along the exposed edges, and then leave it there. Ready to hit storage for the summer.
Summerizing your skis or board ensures that the base stays fresh. A fresh base holds wax better, meaning you slide better over the snow next season, all season. Having some wax on the edges means they don’t rust as readily, so they take and hold a better edge which means better turning and holding power next season.
During a typical fall, you would beat the spiders off the skis or snowboard you tossed in a corner in the garage or basement, and bring them to Avie’s for an annual tune up. We would look at it and shake our heads after seeing the whitish-grayish base and the heavily rusted edges. And we would be thinking “What a shame.”
When you summerize your skis or snowboard, come fall you bring them to Avie’s with head held high. The tuning shops scrapes the wax off the edges and base, then brushes out the base to a fine, shiny, black luster that looks nearly brand new. Maybe better than new.
Yeah, it’s more expensive to summerize your gear. A whole $10 more than when you bring it to the shop in the fall coated in rust and spider webs.
If you have old gear and are looking for an excuse to upgrade this coming fall, then by all means toss it immediately into a dark, damp corner. You will have a good excuse to go shopping come fall. But if you just got new gear recently, or if you have gear that’s a couple of years old and you just simply love it and want to keep forever and forever, then bring it in when you are ready to call it quits for this season and have Avie’s summerize it for you.
Start a new trend for yourself this year. Don’t toss your gear aside and wait until fall to have it tuned. Do it at seasons end. And summerize it. Both you and your gear will be very, very, happy.
AlanD