Face it, end of the season probably means tossing your skis or snowboard into a corner in the basement, garage, or shed and “fawgetaboutit.”
Until November or December. Then you beat off the horde of spiders and pull out something with a grey, fuzzy, ashen-colored base, rust-caked edges, and mold and mildew spreading across once vibrant graphics.
Sure, we can resuscitate your skis or board when you bring it to Avie’s Tuning Shop for “The Works,” but it’s not the best route to go. We take a lot of life out of your gear when we need to grind off all that rust. And resurfacing the base multiple times doesn’t do long-term good either. The edges really never get rust free, so they don’t stay sharp so well anymore. And the base, once it’s deeply oxidized, simply doesn’t hold wax very well, so you don’t slide along as sweetly as you used to.
I’m pretty sure Neil Young wasn’t thinking about skis or snowboards when he came up with the album title of “Rust Never Sleeps,” but it sure is appropriate. Ski and snowboard edges rust 24–7. And the base oxidizes—the equivalent of rust for plastic—non stop.
There’s an easy solution though. When you’re done skiing and riding for the season, bring your gear to Avie’s Ski / Sport and have us “Summerize” it.
First, we sharpen the edges and resurface the base. Then we wax it. The BIG difference is that we hot-iron a coat of wax into the base, leaving a thick coating to seal it up so it doesn’t oxidize. We rub wax over the edges to help hold that nasty rust at bay.
The REALLY BIG difference is that when you bring gear back in the fall, we lovingly scrape the wax off and brush out the base. We give you back a nice, shiny, full of life pair of skis or snowboard that will look better, perform better, and hold its value better.
If you’re looking for an excuse to get new gear because your existing stuff is rusty, junky and doesn’t look or perform well, then keep tossing it in that cold, damp corner at the end of the season.
But if you want to really want to do it right —– SUMMERIZE IT!!