How To Tune Your Skis For A Better Skiing Experience - Chris Hillier Sidecut Tuning

On today's show, we're going to be talking ski tuning with Chris Hillier from Sidecut Tuning. What drew me to want to talk and interview Chris was a couple of things. Chris has a very fine attention to detail, which all great ski tuners do, but Chris is also a very experienced and highly regarded ski coach to the highest level, so World Cup. So Chris has an understanding of technique and the finer details of tuning skis. And you'll find out more about his company Sidecut, who makes ski tools that are very like precise and beautiful and lovely to use because you'll hear in his story how he got into creating them. His family has a history in designing CNC machinery and things to a very high level. So this person is going to give you information not only on how to tune your skis really well, but relates it back to how that affects your ability to ski and improve your skiing skills. I thoroughly enjoyed this episode, there are a ton of takeaways. I think one of the biggest ones is when you get a brand new pair of skis, for the most part I just take them out of the wrapper, put the bindings on and I ski them. And now I'm going to be taking a lot more care in making those skis, as Chris describes, like a 5 or 6 out of 10, as a lot of skis come, and turning them into a 10 out of 10. And that's not because skis come out of the factory not great, it's just because everyone has a personal preference and a way that their skis are going to be tuned that is going to get the best out of them. So as they come, you actually want to do a couple of things that Chris will discuss in this podcast to make those skis really hum. And I know I've felt the difference between a great tuned ski and one that's not so good, and really that's it. It's not often down to the brands, it is the ski tune that is really what you're feeling and makes or breaks a great skiing experience.

I think you're going to get a ton of takeaways from this episode.

It's a fantastic one, and it's inspired me to expand my tuning equipment pieces and to take more time in not only doing my skis really well, but my wife's and my son's and any guests that I, I ski with. I will be really pushing and promoting the fact that you want to tune your skis and make them like a 10 out of 10 every time for when you get on the snow. Now, final note, Big Picture Skiing is my company, and the goal is to help skiers improve through understanding all the little nitty-gritty details, the things that like you'll find out in this podcast, but with all aspects of your skiing, and then making sure you have simple fit feelings and actions to be able to take onto the hill and improve your skiing. So if you haven't checked it out yet, please go to bigpictureskiiing.com, and now you can also access all the content on an Android and iOS app, making it far easier to review content, find out a tip while you're on the lift or having coffee at the mountain. You can download videos offline to view them for later on a flight when you're traveling to the, to your next ski destination. So if, if knowing the details, improving your skiing is something you're into, please go check out bigpictureskiiing.com and you can get 25% off any subscription by being a listener to the Big Picture Skiing podcast. All you have to do is enter PODCAST in capitals at the checkout and that coupon code will take 25% off any membership. Thanks for listening. Let's get into the show with Chris Hillier talking about ski tuning.

Hey Chris, can we start this podcast off with a little of your background? Because you, you started this company Sidecut Tuning, but where, where did the, where did the journey begin that brought you to that point?

Yeah, sure. Um, well, I mean, I ski raced as a, as a youngster. I started skiing young, not that young in fact. I probably started around 4. Kids now start at 2, my little guys too. So I'm gonna start 'em at 2. But then I jumping forward a bunch of years past all that. When I, after high school, I moved out to Whistler and I taught skiing for 1 year. And at that same time I was going through, in Canada you do your coaching levels and your ski instruction levels. They were combined and they were really combined back in the day. And I always wanted to go down the stream of coaching more than instruction, but you had to do both anyway. I was on a coaching course and one of the Canadian ski team World Cup techs brought in an angle. It was literally a piece of steel, um, nothing really done to it, and he was using it as a guide to file skis. Well, my family had been in the precision machining business since 1936, in fact. And so I'd grown up around rebuilding Porsche engines. My dad built a race car. We used to go racing in the States with it and all these things. So it was sort of really obvious to me what that little piece of metal was and what I could do with it that could be better. And I guess that was the moment when it started. I thought, well, I could make that way better. Not in any egocentric way in any way. I just thought in my back of my head, oh, that would be cool to make that. I don't, I don't need to copy that. I can make that. And that's sort of where Sidecut was born. And then I flew back that summer back to Ontario where I grew up, and I would go out on the night shift at my family's plant, unbeknownst to my uncles, and I just started I started machining tools and get the, get the workers in the shop to set up the CNC machines and program them into my ideas. And then, and then it was sort of just, that's when it all started.

So what year was that?

That was 1990, I want to say '91.

Okay. So, on— you're obviously, you're interested in making better equipment because more precision, better equipment can do a better job more easily. When did you realize that, like, tuning of equipment when you get to a really high level is like a big piece of the puzzle, or a big— a critical factor, I should say?

I think I realized it really young from my father. Taught me how to tune skis. I'd hold it down on the carpet. I had a tuning room from the age of, I don't know, 9 or 10, and I'd go down there and I'd put vinyl records on. I love music, and I'd play music and I'd tune skis even at that age. And, um, he would come down for things that I couldn't do or that I didn't understand, and he would show me how to, how to file a ski. And so I always did it by hand without tools. Well, not totally true. There were some tools. I remember an old plastic gadget that helped remove the sidewall a little bit, but I didn't really know anything about the strict nuances of, you know, sidewalls and top sheets and base bevel. I just knew I had to create an edge and make it sharp to do the best I could in the race and then wax the skis. You know, that's, that's what I knew. So I got it. I got it. I got a feel for it quite young, I would say.

Yeah, okay. And, and you've tuned skis to what kind of level now, like World Cup level?

Well, I last— last— I'm a coach first, so I was always, um, that was my passion. I always wanted to be a coach. I didn't really know what level, but I devoted my life to that. I, I went to university and studied, um, sports science and elite coaching. Um, and, um, yeah, I just— that, that's what I want to do. And I got into coaching education, certified many coaches around the world. In fact, started Australia's coaching education system, um, ran that for, I don't know, I think 11 or 12 years. Wow, that was great. So I didn't answer your question one bit there, but What level did I, have I tuned to? Well, last year I was at the, uh, I worked with the British athlete alongside the Swiss ski team, which was a really wonderful experience. I worked for many years as a coach, 25 years. I retired. I'll explain this so it makes more sense. 7, 8 years ago, I retired from coaching, or I took a break. I mean, I was flying 120,000 miles a year. I lived in Austria for, I think, 8 years, Norway in the winters for 3. And a lot of years of traveling, you know, both, both hemispheres. I think I did, I don't know, 16 seasons in Australia, 3 in New Zealand, and, and a lot of years back and forth in Chile and Argentina. And so you know what it's like. It's just, it got to be to a point in my life where I wanted to take a break, and I did. And I thought I would just take sort of a, let's call it a sabbatical, for a year or two. And then I thought I had this idea one day. I was working in Norway alongside the— we teamed up when I was working with this British athlete with the Norwegian team. And I was standing on the hills, -40, not unlike what it is in Whistler right now. And I thought to myself, I'm gonna get in my Volkswagen and I'm gonna drive around and visit ski clubs with my old connections and teach people how to tune just to get a break from coaching and do something different. I had no idea it would ever turn into this, you know.

Wow.

And so last year, moving forward about 7, 8 years, an athlete that I retired with, which was a fantastic skier, absolutely amazing. He actually, for his age, he was second in the world in giant slalom, actually behind Henrik Kristoffersen when I retired.

Wow.

And then I had enough, nothing to do with him, just needed a break from the sport. And then they sort of summoned me back into coaching over the last couple of years. And I went back and I worked alongside the— I had an old connection with the Swiss, Swiss head coach. And as he did, and we had a collaboration with the Swiss ski team and with the goal of qualifying him for the Beijing Olympics this year, last year he did, and he came 12th in the combined.

Nice.

So I'll tell you why he's at the— I had a technician last year because, you know, with coaching you gotta have a tech at that level. So I hired a tech from Bulgaria, really great guy. I took him to, um, a lot of great techs are from Slovenia and Italy. I mean, they're from— there's some great ones from all over the world, I shouldn't just say that, but at that level you find a lot of Slovenians and Italians, typically the best ones in the world. And I took him down to be trained, 'cause I didn't wanna train him all myself because I was coaching and I didn't wanna have that relationship with him. So I took him to, down to the south to see there in Slovenia, across on the border of Italy. And I trained, he trained there with a really, one of the world's greats in my opinion. And then we brought him back up and he's, and then we used him all season. But because of Beijing and the whole COVID thing and all that, we couldn't, get him into the Olympics. We didn't have the accreditation spots, and so I was, I was tuning and coaching. So here's technical skis, everything. So what level? That's the highest level I've tuned to.

Well, here's why I guess I asked that. I mean, I knew you were to a high level, but I was trying to set the stage for this. When you get to that level, like, I'm not sure how it works in terms of you're doing some training with this athlete that's at the top, top of their game, they come down, the, the day's done. How does it then go with them talking with the tech and the coach to then what happens overnight with the skis? Like, okay, I think we actually need to adjust this, I think you'll ski better on whatever it is, a different base grind, a different, uh, tune. Like, how— is there something to that? Can you explain that process?

It's— I can't give you a gen— I can't really give— even give you a generalized answer because it's so specific to different teams. I've worked with so many different national teams, different countries, that predominantly I worked for national teams that didn't have massive budgets Australia, New Zealand. I worked for the Dutch team also, men's Europa Cup, many, many years ago. They had a big budget or bigger budget. Canada had a decent budget back when I did my formative years of sort of, let's call it elite coaching, when I was in university with them. Um, and British, and I don't know other teams I can't think of right now, but, um, All the teams that have a large staff, it seems to me, collaborating with them and working with them, a lot of the coaches don't really guide the techs. I came from a totally different place from my upbringing and so on, so I always have guided techs, or, or if, or I Athletes need to know how to tune skis to a really super competent level, in my opinion, because then they can describe to their techs what the nuances that they want to feel. If you can't— I would—

I want to know, that's what I want to know, because I want to hear it from your angle. Not that, like, what are you like, what are some things can you like, probably because you've tuned skis a lot and you understand how that affects the behavior of the ski. And then if an athlete has done enough, they can tell something's maybe not quite right. Like, I'm watching the F1, you know, the Netflix series, and all that sort of stuff where the driver's like, oh my God, it's understeering. And like, that's the kind of stuff that's going to be communicated and you're going to try and figure out. Am I, am I right?

100%. It is Formula 1. Alpine ski racing is a snow version of Formula 1.

At that level, it is the, the details and the precision is to me, in my coming, also coming from auto racing, it is, it's like, what's an example of like, like a really little thing that, you know, no one like instructors and stuff wouldn't ever bother with, but you would bother with and could, could really make an athlete go, wow, I felt so much better on training because of what you did tuning last night. Can you give us an example of one?

There's so many, there's so many. Um, Well, for example, like when I started tuning Jack's skis, Jack Gower was the athlete I was working with last year and have for many years, I guess all up 6 or 7, I can't remember. And, you know, he would say, I would say, how do the skis feel? I'll give you an example. When the new tech took over and he said, they feel pretty good. I said, well, Have you spoken to him? So I would, I would sort of guide him, but he didn't really need guidance. When you're at World Cup, you don't really need guidance, but they go down and talk to their techs. I, as a coach, go down and talk to the techs. Some coaches don't, some do. So in, in this particular case that has come to my mind, you know, he'd, he, he'd come to me and say, ah, the skis, the skis aren't, the, the tuning's not good enough. And I'd say, okay, well, let me talk to the tech. And so we would talk and I would go down and watch how he was tuning the skis, and then I would just give, you know, my input on how to do it better. Because all the tuners are really competent, right? But they have— some of them have their own ways, and, and, and they're, and they're, and it might not be You have to have that dialogue with the athlete because everybody's, the details of skis can have differences that one World Cup athlete might love and another just won't go fast on, just can't win with that setup. You know, so the way that the base edge is profiled on the tips and tails, some might like a quarter of a degree higher on the tips and tails, Some may not and might run it identically, identical all the way from tip to tail. So for example, maybe the, maybe on a Super-G ski, they run the one, one athlete likes to ski all the way 0.5 and, and, and loves that. Another skier doesn't like that because he doesn't, doesn't have the freedom of expression on the ski or the ski, he can't run the line the way he wants to. The ski gets stuck. And so then you can't release. It's like having ABS on the car. A good, amazing tuner said that to me once, and it really resonated with me. And that's exactly what it's like. You would feel that, you know.

Yeah, I, I know the first time I—

any, any, any competent skier, look, even a beginner, absolute— this is the thing that sort of perplexes me about ski instruction, is that a lot of— and this is no disrespect because you of course, at all. But a lot of the ski instructors and coaches can't identify when the cause of the problem is the tuning, when it's the equipment. You know, it's always boots or tuning. So if you can rule out boots— that could be another podcast, um— and, and we've just focused in on tuning. My, like, there's so many things that, that are affecting beginners out there on the hill. I can watch them, or powder skiers when they come out of the powder, particularly in Whistler. I can tell their base belt was wrong just by the way their knees are shaking. Yeah, you know. Okay, they got the wall.

All right, well, let's, let's get to that then, because I, I think we, we had a good question, which is what— like, I'm about to arrive in America in like a week's time. There's a new pair of skis there waiting for me from the factory, not being touched outside of there. You mentioned most the time I just ski, and that's just been, you know, what I do. I get a new pair of skis, I just ski them, and then often I'll feel, oh, I want to change this, but I'll just ski it. What do you think is a good process to go through to really make those new skis hum? Um, because I think you even said like new skis come like skiing about like a 4 or 5 out of 10 or something, like a lot of— even though they're like primo, really good ones. What, what can you do to, to make them a 10 out of 10 for that first day on snow?

Right. They— again, I don't want people to take this the wrong way, and particularly ski factories, because the skis do look primo, as you— to quote you there. I mean, they look wonderful to the eye, but they're not. They are literally a 5 out of 10. So at the, at the elite level, you can't take a ski— even when I pick up skis at the factory right from the race room, top shelf, you have to come home and perform the nuances on it before it hits the snow for that elite athlete. And in my opinion, I don't think it should be any different for someone out there wanting to enjoy the day more and have more fun on their, on their skis. You spend so much on the sport and so much on the skis and the equipment, and then that little thing on the snow, you've got it slightly off and you don't recognize what a wonderful difference it makes to just having way more fun. Forget about how fast you go, it's just where everything works better, and you can— and your skill level goes up immediately.

A lot. I think that's— I think a misconception, isn't it? Like, you tune things and everything goes faster, oh no, I'm gonna have less control.

No way, but way more control. Yeah, you have a way better base of support platform to balance against, and then you can do You like the fundamental skills of skiing, just go, you don't even need a coach for, for, for a period just to go, wow, this is amazing. I, I mean, because, you know, for a lot of people, just recreational skiers, it's in there. The picture of what they want to achieve is in their head.

Yeah.

A lot of times the problem is the tuning.

So without like, give them the tuning.

It's like they just— they're like perplexed. My God, I didn't— I can ski so much better. Yeah, well, they just—

yeah, because for me, I'm probably thinking a ski that's a 5 out of 10 is like a 10 out of 10 because I've maybe never had that. I can remember a couple of skis, and you, you know, Gord Brown, he'd had his hands on them, and I can just remember just— yeah, the word that comes to mind is the skis felt easy. To ski, so it's just easier. So I could actually just focus on what I had to do, uh, more simply. But if we, if we come back to me again and my new skis, you don't have to tell us in detail, but what are, say, some of the steps? Because I know you've got a great YouTube channel that actually goes through a lot of tutorials on this. You run, uh, workshops going around teaching this. But if I'm then to, like, go and look up these, what are some of the Yeah, some of these steps I could go to make that 10 out of 10.

Well, I'll keep it very simple. I mean, the first thing you're going to do— I'm just holding this tool in my hand, you just happen to have it staged, by the way. Um, this is a— this is our new base bevel tool, for example. And so what I would— what I do right away is I check the— I check the tuning on the tips and tails. Typically from the factory it's a little bit aggressive, so we we do what's called profile or detail the tips and tails, say 5 to 10 centimeters from the tip back and from the tail forward. And so you place this particular guide on the ski. So if the factory— I get this question all the time, by the way, my skis, the factory said my skis are on this. Well, have you verified that? And how do you know? And it doesn't really matter because it's, it's based on your skill. Your strength, literally your strength, how strong you are, and the discipline of ski you're on. If you're on a powder ski, slalom ski, GS ski, Super-G, downhill. But long story short, you can watch the videos and learn more about that. But long story short, you want to do that on the tips and tails. So for example, I don't think there's anything wrong with what you're doing. You try the skis out on snow for, I don't, I wouldn't say 4 or 5 days, I would say 4 or 5 runs. And then they would go to the tuning room. At the highest level, they don't even get a chance to really try them. They get what I'm about to describe to you done prior to even hitting the snow because we know that they're gonna want that. So you take, so for example, if the ski, let's say the ski is ground at the factory on 0.5 on the base edge, 0.5 degrees, 0.5. So that's a very aggressive edge. That's tough. That's unskiable for a lot of skiers. It's just, it's just too stuck. It doesn't have any freedom. It's hard to steer, doesn't skid. You can't stop it well. It's not, not user-friendly for the majority of skiers out there anyway. You take a 0.5 guide like this, you put, insert a file or a diamond stone or whatever you're using. That, that, that, those nuances can be described in the videos. But, and then I check to see if it is on 0.5. Often, more times out of 10, and again, it's no disrespect to the factories, if they can make skis that were tailor-made to everybody's individual needs, God, they would cost a lot more.

A lot more money.

A lot more money. You can't really. I mean, they come at a 5 out of 10, and that's not— I don't think that's disrespectful.

Skis are made to— Most of the time I'm enjoying it. Yeah, yeah.

We have to tune them every single day. I do that on the tips and tails, or techs do that on the tips and tails. At 0.5 and pull off any steel to verify it's on 0.5. Because if any steel comes off, then it clearly wasn't on 0.5. And before I said 0.5 is very difficult to ski. So if it's less than 0.5 and it's, say, 0.3 or even less, that's unskiable to the general public. Literally, it's not a nice feeling at all. So you want to make it 0.5 on the tips and tails, or— and then go test. And then if it still feels too grippy, too aggressive, I'm just talking about the base edge right now. Too grippy, too aggressive. The beautiful thing is you can come back to the tuning bench and you can do the tips and tails on a quarter of a degree more or 0.2 of a degree more, do them on 0.7, you know, and, and that's sort of what you do. You test and you, you change these little nuances. The beautiful thing about the base edge is unless you hit rocks, you leave it for the season. Or in your case, you're probably skiing 120 days, you're gonna have to regrind your skis probably once a season for sure.

Yeah, and I like that point that you said, like, if I was first time doing this, just check it, and then I could experiment with having, like, I don't know, 3 centimeters of, of, like, a 0.7 base bevel, or, like, if it's already at 0.7, a 1 base bevel, and then, oh, I like that, maybe I could test a little another centimeter further, and, like, it's going to be an individual thing. Yeah, it has a huge impact, especially on, on all levels.

Elite level, obviously massive. Um, you know, it's that description I gave you before, like having ABS. Um, the skier can— they can really attack with the line, they can run really deep with confidence. But if the ski feels like it's railing, you don't have any confidence. See, carving and railing are two very different things. And, and so, and so that's a really important thing to understand as well, but we won't get too technical on this one.

So we got check the, so we got check the base, base bevel, check the base. I've done that. Now what should I do?

And again, that's a lot of people say to me, hey, I don't want to touch the base edge. I'll let the ski shop do that. Or I just do the side edges. The thing that impairs skill development or that affects skiing more than anything else is the base edge. So this is, this is amazing thing that people don't know, especially powder skiers. Like, you think in the powder you don't need any base bevel. Yeah, but you still got to, unless you're totally backcountry skiing.

But even if you're on the side of a, you know, the side cut, going out of bounds. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You hit some hard stuff, your base bevel's off and, and it's grabbing and your skis are starting to do all this. Well, that's a very unnerving thing. I can't stand that. I want to be able to grab and jump in or whatever I need to do to have a good time in that couloir. For example, I'm talking powder skiing now or wherever I am. And the same thing applies for, you know, for younger kids, younger kids to make it easy for them or the general public who are intermediate skiers. You really want to make it easy for the ski to turn and to build confidence and motivation on the ski so they have, have fun, or otherwise skiing's not— it's just, it's just, it's frustrating, you know.

Yeah, I think I was telling you before when we were lining this show up, it was those skis actually, the, the Völkl GS ones there. Yeah, I, I bought them off someone, a racer who actually never skied on them, and they would— they'd been tuned and I skied on them and they I couldn't— they were railing, like I couldn't carve them. Like the end of the turn, the ski would just grab, and it was very unnerving, as you said. And I went and took them to a shop, and they said, oh, I think the structure in the edge— I was like, okay, I didn't know that was a thing. But then they said they ground it and, and, uh, or like redid the edges. Oh, the edge is too sharp at the tip and the tail. And Yeah, they do all these things, it still skied the same. And then like one guy just reground the whole like base, and actually the base seemed to be the thing that was making this thing track straight, and I couldn't kind of guide it a little bit. Maybe we could now talk about like, I don't know, jumping on—

it can be, you know, if you have a very, very linear grind, very deep and linear, it affects what it was, it affects the way that's the ski tracks 100%. Um, I would still, you know, I, I would also, I would guess without— I would say you needed to profile the tips and tails. You needed 3 things. You needed that tool, that tool, and a file.

That's what I think now too.

And if you don't want to expend that money on that, then you buy the really great— even I've even seen a lot of World Cup guys use top tuners use the plastic versions of these and they're like $15. So for that, a diamond stone and a file, I mean, that's going to change so much. And I believe that would have changed a lot that day for you, aside from structure, which— correct, it does affect the way the ski turns.

I like reflecting now, I think that's probably what also got changed with it and probably was the edge more, uh, because it was like the guy Ronnie at the bottom of Threadbough and he had his new machine and did a 0.5 underfoot, 0.7 tip and tail. So it just all got redone again, like blanked out again, but, you know, put those dimensions in. And yeah, I was like, oh, this is so much fun. Yeah, night and day, night and day.

That's a good point, Tom, because, you know, a lot of people also, they try a ski or you go to a demo, demo day, you know, you're trying all the skis. A lot of the times, you know, you're not— you're you're testing tuning more than you're testing the ski. 'Cause you could retune that ski that you gave bad marks to and go, oh my gosh, what? Or you could ski it later in the season, go, I never liked that ski. Oh, we'll try it. 'Cause you're with your buddy and he's on it. All right, same boot, let me try it. That doesn't even feel like the ski I was on. I'm testing. Of course, there's so many parameters that change the snow and everything, but honestly, the tuning makes, huge difference on those, on all those demo fleets.

So what should I check also on my new skis? I'm gonna check the tip and tail base edge.

And so that's the main thing, do that first. And I think it's a good idea for people to, you know, at the elite level we don't really do that, but try your new skis, you know, get a feel for baseline. It's also good to break them in, you know, and, you know, for a day and then go to the, put them on the bench and take that base bevel guide and put the file in it. And if you think, I mean, if you don't know anything about base edge angles, we have a really great chart, a grid on our website that tells you all the way from younger athletes all the way to World Cup skiers, generally what their base bevel should be and what their side edge should be, all the way from park and pipe skiers to, slalom skiers and everything in between.

Perfect. So that was— there we go, we've covered that bit because I was going to be like, okay, with Archie turning 5, what should I be— so I can go find all that out. I can find out what would be good for my wife, for me with my new powder skis, and, and okay, cool.

So on Sidecut, yeah, yeah, there's a PDF there you can just download, and, um, that's awesome. And then go to the education tab and then under the written instruction section you'll see those PDFs to download and you'll see an educational video there, how to tune skis. It'll, it'll, it'll be in there as well. We made a video years ago that I would have never guessed. I mean, these days it's not that many hits, but I think it has around 140,000 views. But a lot of club, ski club parents and now ski instructors, which is really cool, have been turned on to that video. And we made it close up so you can actually, we built it so that it's just 10 simple tools. And that's our intro tuning kit on our website. This is not a sales pitch, but I'm just, that's a fact. That's how we—

No, I think that's, yeah, I think that's good to know because I want to get into that as well. What are the basics? And quickly, sorry to cut you off there, but I was just thinking, I know you're an educator first, like you love, that's your thing. You love educating. I just now I'm like, oh, I'm interested now to go ski these new skis for half a day, take note of how they feel, and then when I go tune them, see if I can feel in the tune some things. Maybe I was like, oh, I kind of sense that, or whatever. That'd be a really good learning process instead of just handing it off. Yeah, and then you never like— you can never put the two things together, like what you're feeling and then the— like, that's why you're recommending athletes really tune their own skis to a high level so they can—

so they can make that relationship. Yeah, yeah. And I really— I mean, I'm generalizing, but I really have never met an elite skier that can't tune really well.

That's true.

And that, that doesn't go for, um, male and female either. That's the same across the board. Um, when I worked with, you know, Europe Cup for example, women in Australia, some World Cup skiers in there too. Um, they all were really good tuners, and if they weren't, I would help them to be better tuners. Um, but they were all very confident even when I met them in there. They were— they would have been in their early 20s at the time.

Yeah. Hey, so I, I jumped around here, but I just had that memory. You're talking about the Slovenian guy and Jack he went down, he said the skis are not good enough. You went down and watched. Can you give an example of then, like, what maybe could have changed in the way— maybe was this the sequence of steps, or what, what was it? Because did Jack feel better the next time he skied because of how the tuning was done?

Yeah, so I went down and I spoke to the technician, and, well, I would talk to him and I'd say, look, it's, um just stating factual things, you know, like it's super— I mean, the snow's injected, it's super, you know, it's rock hard up there. Jack needs sharper skis. He, he skis better. I know him, I worked with him since he was 14, you know, he's 29 now, um, 28 at the time. And I know, I know he'll ski better if you make those skis sharper. His feedback to me was, well, this is what I learned from so-and-so down in Slovenia. And I said, he's not wrong, but he was also generalizing. You have to be specific and cater to the needs of the specific individual. That's the reason why ski companies can't make the ski perfect for everybody. It's not possible. I think there's only one brand I've ever seen that says tune before putting on the snow. And it was Head, you know, I don't even remember. They used to have that sticker on the box when you got the skis. I mean, for junior racers, I, I never knew it because when we got Heads, just get them from the factory and I never saw that. But Heads that were coming to the ski clubs and so on, I remember a few years back they had this sticker on them or something. Somebody watching this would probably know. Um, and they would say on it, need to be tuned before skiing. And it wasn't a joke. I mean, every ski company should say that, but they don't.

Yeah, okay.

Tuning is okay, look, and the machines these days are amazing, there's no question. But again, to tailor the skis to your specific needs, these nuances make a world of difference.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

So then on—

Anyway, to answer your question, so I said to him, you know, Let me feel those. Watch this. I grabbed the tools. I said, feel that. He goes, okay, you want them that sharp? I said, I want them that sharp for tomorrow. And as soon as— and then I walked away because I know he's a great tuner. I don't need to like teach him how to tune. I just needed to say for Jack, who he doesn't know as well as I do, he needs those sharper. And he did it, and he came out the next day, and I think he had an amazing result that day. I don't know, we were in— we were in Italy somewhere, Europa Cup, you know. So it's just a thing, you— that's why it's so important. Jack was a good tuner. I taught him how to tune when he was a young kid, you know. He didn't know how to tune, his dad tuned for him, or maybe he knew a little bit, but I taught him. And at the back, when he was young, we didn't have a technician. And I purposely did not tune his skis for him. I helped him. I would go to the tuning room with him. I mean, I did at times, but the majority of the time I let him do it. And he got really, really good at tuning skis. Jump forward to like trying to qualify for the Olympics. And, you know, he'd been a, you know, Europa Cup, World Cup skier for those 7 years and so on. And, um, you know, he could just say without— just exactly what he wants the skis to do and what to do. So you just go and do it, just execute the plan.

This episode is sponsored by Carv, the digital ski coach. And one of the updates I've really enjoyed this season is the addition of separate SkiIQs for moguls and short turns. In the past, Carv scoring was mainly built around carving metrics, which meant everything was viewed through that lens. But Carv have gone deep on that research and completely separated what makes a great short turn or mogul turn different from a carved turn. To give you an idea of how accurate it's become, the person at the top of the Carv leaderboard right now isn't a carving specialist, it's Olympic mogul skier Matt Graham. So the best SkiIQ in the world at the moment is coming from someone who lives and breathes bumps. And to be honest, my own highest SkiIQ is also in moguls, which makes sense because that's my favorite type of skiing. What's really exciting this year is the addition of Turn Tempo, so basically your turns per minute. It's such a simple external output that's incredibly fun to play with. So good skiing isn't just about edge similarity or parallel skis, it's about how you interact with the terrain and whether you can change your tempo on demand. So seeing numbers like my quickest tempo of 117 turns per minute in the bumps gives you something concrete to compare, refine, and work toward. I've been working with Carv since 2020, and every year I'm genuinely impressed with how much the product evolves. They keep expanding what you can measure, and they're covering more and more of the turn types that skiers actually use all over the mountain. So if you're interested in tracking not just your carving but every turn you make on the snow, check out Carv. And a big thanks to the team for supporting this episode.

And the proof is in the result the next day. Yeah, know it works.

Hey, um, on the— these pretty sweet tools that you've created, I didn't know about this tool that I saw just today before this on your Instagram, the, uh, Top Sheet Planer What's it called?

Well, I call it a top sheet remover. You could call it a planer.

Top sheet remover. Yeah. Can you talk about that? Because I didn't know that was the thing. Like, I know there's a sidewall remover. Yeah, remove some of the sidewalls so then it's easier to tune the edge. Explain what this is and, and why, because I'm like now like, oh, I think I need to do this to my new skis.

Yeah, well, that is that. So what we described before, I call that in our in our education system. I, I have 4 simple steps that I teach. I could teach 50, but I keep it to 4, otherwise you're not motivated to tune. You go, this is insane, I'm not doing this. Yeah, but once you do it and you realize the benefits, you will never go back, ever. And you'll think, what a dummy I was for never doing this. Anyway, um, so the top sheet remover at the, at the tips of those skis behind you there, those vocals, you know, they come very very square at the tips and at the tails. And a lot of people think— a lot of people just— a lot of people don't even know what a sidewall remover is, which is fine. It's one of these, and that, that takes that step. So you got the sidewall of the ski and you have that little step beside it, and that, that gives structural integrity to the edge from blowing out. Because a lot of people say, well, if we have to remove the sidewall, why didn't the factory just do it? That's a great question. And I always just say, well, because they don't know. But the truth is it adds strength to the edge. And for the general public, they're not tuning their skis very often. So if they're hitting rock, it's going to be less susceptible to blowing an edge. For elite skiing, I don't, you know, I think you should remove some of it anyway, no matter, no matter what. I don't even worry about that. But So up to about this far from the tip and tail, generalizing again, depends on the ski and all these things. The sidewall step sort of stops and then it goes into the top sheet and the, and the tip and tail of the ski. And they're very square up there, almost perpendicular. Okay. And that section of the ski is hard to get sharp after a while. So you have to profile that tip of that ski and the tail of that ski. For two reasons, to be able to get the effective angle that you're trying to achieve. So for example, if it's 2 degrees on your skis, that's sort of the default these days on most skiers, general public, you may have a hard time achieving that because you're gonna get interfered with by that top sheet. So the top sheet, remember you can see, I don't know if you can see that on a Zoom call, but—

Yeah.

It's a huge angle. So this doesn't hit the edge at all, the steel edge of the ski. This puts an angle on that front of that ski so it initiates better, releases better out of the turn. There's less drag and friction in the snow when it's carving through ice. And, but the main thing is you can really put that effective angle. And when you get up into like slalom, World Cup slalom skiers that are going 4 degrees on their side edges, you need to, you need to have that. Material out of the way. Otherwise you get interfered with and you can't get that edge. And that's also— I don't want to jump around too much here, but that's also why on file guides you don't want to, you don't want a spring clamp, in my opinion. We used to use them, you know, those things that hold the file. Yeah, on the ski. Yeah, we have these things called trigger clamps, and with the trigger clamp, it locks it right down. You got to think of the spring on a clamp. If your sidewall isn't removed correctly, and/or if your top sheet isn't removed correctly, well, that file is going to follow the contour all the way up without you knowing it.

Oh nice.

In the jaw of that spring clamp, whereas a trigger clamp, you're going to know because it's locked and it won't move, and it's going to hit. So if you look at the teeth of the file, if there's anything other than steel coming out of that file, well, you have to stop that process right down there, pick up either your side wall remover or your top sheet remover and, and do more details, you know. Yeah, that's a really key thing to know.

Yep, that is, because I've got one of the, um, I've got one of your trigger clamp guides, but it's just for, for like a 3-degree, and then the other one's just a normal 2-degree, which I usually just use that. But that's interesting because I was tuning some skis just a couple of days ago Yeah, that's—

it makes a huge difference having that clamp on there. It really does.

Consistency.

You get perfect consistency. And if you're going to get into this, you, you may as well do it right, you know. It's that much easier to do it right than to do it sort of halfway.

Yeah.

And, and with really good tools, you— it's, it's so easy. This is the other thing, Tom, like, it's not a difficult thing to do.

Yeah.

But people— it's a daunting thing, I admit it, when you start, because you see all these fancy gadgets. Oh God, gosh, I'm not good with my hands. You don't even need to be, honestly. You just follow these 4 steps that we've created. I mean, I've watched all men, women, boys, girls, everything, and everything— everyone can do this. You know, we're teaching kids to tune from, you know, the— some of the— you know, using a Diamond Guide, for example, is a great way to learn the motor mechanics of and then they can graduate to using the file guide later. 'Cause you know, messing up with a diamond guide, which is a diamond disc on top of a guide, is very inconsequential. Like, you know, if you're wearing a protective glove on your hand, cut protective glove, even if you slip off the edge, you're not gonna damage the edge and you're not gonna damage your hand if you've got that thing on. But if you give a 9-year-old, you know, one of these who doesn't really know what they're doing, they don't have the dexterity or the forearm strength to really have a precision, or a feel or really an understanding. So these, these Diamond Guides are really great training, training tools for kids and, and just for everyone. You know, a lot of skiers are now putting these in their pockets and, and you can tune right on the, right on the hill. Or kids put them in their packs and they take them to the stop, because a lot of kids don't have two pairs of skis. You know, ski racing is not that economical. And so at the younger ages, they, they can't— they don't have the luxury of warming up on one ski and then having the race ski. They ski and train and race on the same ski. So runs of— on really hard snow, that edge is compromised a little bit prior to getting in the start gate, for example. So after 3, 4 runs, they can just, they can just get that geometry back to that acute edge, and boom, they're—

and I'm sure I feel that because I, I've sometimes done that, or even like in Australia, Threadbo, just at lunchtime in my locker, diamond stone. It's not just a placebo thing. Even though the diamond stone is not a file and it's not cutting it, can you explain like why that's even just such a great— even if you just outsource the edging to your, to your shop, yeah, but you bought a diamond stone with a guide, what are the benefits there? Because I think it's a really important and such an easy thing to do, and it prolongs it. But can you talk to the diamond stone maintenance, I guess?

Sure. Well, another— I'll put it to another way. I think I touched on it there, but I don't want to, I don't want to take from— this is a quote from another great tuner and also a great shop in town. He said to me one time, you know, tuning is like, you know, it's geometry at the end of the day, isn't it? And I said, yeah, that's a good way to put it. And you want to get that geometry, you want to get that acute angle. Well, just running a diamond stone back, if you sharpened your skis yesterday for example, and you go out and you run 3 runs on hardpack snow or really hard or 5 or 6 or 10 or whatever it is, those skis are not going to feel the same on run number 3, 4, 5, 6, and so on. They're progressively going to get worse. You'll start to lose— you won't have the same precision you had when you started, let's put it that way. If you were to carry just a simple tool like this, assuming all the other parameters are out of the way, the top sheets are done, your base bevel's great. The, the daily maintenance of just doing, just diamond guiding your skis, which takes a minute per edge, literally 60 seconds times 4 because you get 4 edges— game changer every day. And that's what a lot of people don't realize. Yeah, admittedly, the setup of the ski, brand new ski, takes an hour and a half for sure.

And, and the, and the mechanism that the, the diamond stone is like doing to the edge? Is it kind of like knocking it, cleaning it up and putting that, that point?

Yeah, you're putting that, you're putting that acute angle back, like a knife point. You're putting that back on, for lack of a better way to describe it at the moment. And yeah, it, it's, um, you know, you get that, you get that edge hold again and you get that confidence back. And you, you know, it's a, it's a really important thing, you know, for skiers. And if you're Like if you're, if you're, if a lot of ski instructors are watching this and you're doing your ski instructor exams or you're, or you're a ski racer watching this or you're just a recreational skier, it's all, it's all pretty much the same in my mind because it all relates to having fun and skiing better. You know, for the elite ski racer, it's certainly having fun 'cause they're having a lot of fun, but it's about winning. You know, they wanna win at the end of the day, it's a time sport. From A to B. They want to get there as fast as they can and try to be on the podium. And, you know, if a skier— that's why, you know, you go to Chile in the summer and World Cup slalom skiers have 5 or 6 or 8 pairs of slalom skis on the snow for one athlete because they only do 1 or 2 runs on each ski because the edges are compromised after those 2 runs. You wouldn't continue to train on that same ski because you're not gonna make any, there's no training effect to that. Yeah.

Well, you're never gonna race on a ski that's right. Slipperier, like, you know, comfort.

You have the skis mimic exactly what you're gonna do every training run. And that's why I, I really influence the kids and ski instructors or general public to at least have this in their quiver because what grit? 400. 400.

400.

Not this color. This is a blue one. You have the yellow one or gold, gold, I guess it is.

That's 400s, a good, as a good maintenance, the one you keep in your backpack or your pocket to just bring back that edge again.

It's amazing. It's amazing what you can do. You know, like when I'm freeskiing, like I remember last year, um, my wife and my son, we went on in between, in between competitions. I was living in Austria last winter. In a little town called Zell am See. And at the end of the season, I actually still had the motivation to go skiing because I hadn't skied that much because you don't ski when you're coaching. And I took them and I wanted the little guy to go skiing. He's way too little to ski, but I wanted to hold him, which you're not really allowed to do, but I wanted to anyway. Anyway, long story short, I did— all my tools were in our technician's truck, but I had a little quiver with me. My skis were all set up. So the only thing I really needed to do was after, at the end of each day, and that'll, you can do that for 2 or 3 or 4 days and you bring that effective edge back to 3 degrees I think I had on those edges. And it's just, it's a game. It changes your day. I mean, it's so, it's really not fun even on medium soft groomers, even powder skis, you know, The good guys are all tuning. I mean, Darren Rouse is a perfect example. He's such an ambassador to the sport. And I really think he's a champion in so many ways because he's one of the greatest downhillers, Super-G skiers, you know, ever, I think, particularly in the United States. But he, he's just, he does, he can do anything. And he went to ski across, and then now at powder skis with his son, he does big mountain stuff, takes him to Alaska. And he said to me, I do, I, I tune all my powder skis just the same way I tune my race skis.

Yeah, I mean, there's a reason a guy like that's gonna say that.

And all the World Cup guys say that, you know. I, I've talked to so many of them that with their powder skis. They tune them all. They want them to be the same.

Yep. It's funny because, don't— I mean, I don't know, you come across this, but at times, sometimes people are proud of the fact like, oh yeah, I tuned these like last season, you know, I'm fine, look at me get around. And like, I think that, yeah, like, sure you can, but yeah, you're just leaving something there that's making you work harder. That's all it is.

You're definitely leaving something great on the table for to be taken. Yeah, yeah, I don't understand that, but sure, I think you're right. There are a lot of people out there like that. I don't really meet people like that so much. I just meet people that just don't know how important it is. They don't know what it is, or they just never— you know, it's a thing you have to start like anything else, and it's a bit of it, like I said, alluded to before, it's the daunting thing to start. But once you start, people are afraid they're gonna damage their beautiful $1,000 skis. I get it. I totally get it. But with good tools, not the plastic jobbies that you're gonna buy.

Yeah.

Respect to the competitors. You know, a lot of those competitors were my mentors. So, but you, They don't know. You need tools to do it.

Like, I can, I can speak to that because I, I was introduced to your stuff from Gord Brown, who was an ex-Canadian, uh, national team coach and takes great pride in, in tuning. And he, he gave a workshop to, uh, the group of people I was skiing with, uh, that season and, and used the stuff, and we all got to have a go at using it, and we all could then order some stuff. And I do remember that. I just remember feeling, wow, this is such, uh, like much more of a pleasure to tune my skis. It was easier to do. I also liked my gear because it had this shiny anodized look. It didn't— wasn't just like— I don't want to say like yellow, but you know, like it wasn't just a— it looked— they looked nice. So I really appreciate that about— I can, I can test, I can I can say that it really makes a difference. And I've still got the tools today and they're still going strong. So what would you say is a good minimum if people are going, yep, I'm in, I'm going to invest in some home shooting equipment? What's the minimum?

Well, first of all, I have to give— I didn't know you knew Gord so well, but I have to say you were in the presence of one of the world's one of the greatest motivators. And so definitely helped you, because he's— isn't he a great motivator? He was, he was also my, um, he was also my mentor coach from my Level 4. So, um, Gord trained me not in ski tuning but in coaching.

Okay.

Yeah, when I was young, in my formative years. And he, he, he's a wonderful guy. And I, I guess, um, I owe him more. Uh, I didn't know he was such an— I knew he was a big advocate of Sidekick, but I didn't know it was that good. I guess I'll need to send him a care package for Christmas. Anyway, moving on. Uh, your question was, um, the minimum basic setup. Yeah, the minimum basic setup. Well, just like, if you want to keep it really economical, get a file, 150 mil or the 250 mil, either or. 150mm is a bit more user-friendly.

Are you saying that that's the length of it?

The length of this file?

Yes, 150.

See it on our website, sidecut.com, under the file section. Get the cheaper version of this if, if, if, if budget is your thing and you're just like, I don't know if I believe these guys. I'm just—

the cheaper version of the base, that's what I've got. I've got like the, the plastic 0.5 and plastic 1.

Yeah, you can buy, you can buy all three really economically for a quarter of the price you'd pay for just the one angle in the, in the machine one. Um, and that's what you would do for step 1. And, and have a diamond stone, go with the 600-grit diamond stone, the black one. Okay, 3 tools, that's all you need for step 1. Step 2 is really, which is top sheet and, um, sidewall preparation, I call it. You can't really go— a lot of people think, well, I don't need to do my sidewall, I'll get the shop to do it? Well, you do, because as you tune, your edge will start— you start to wear away your edge, and you'll, you'll soon meet up with your sidewall much faster than you think. This tool stays on my bench all the time, and I'm using it every time I tune, um, for a little bit. You'll find you're using your sidewall tool all the time. It is an expensive tool. You kind of can't get around it, but you need a good one. Otherwise you get chatter marks in your sidewalls, and you just make a mess of it. You want one that cuts it, you know, ribbons, and the technique is really important. So watch our videos how to do that. That's— you need that for step 2. You can't go without it. Can you go without this top sheet remover? Yes, you can. Now, what I was explaining before is, is more high-end. Do I think— does it— do I think everybody should do it? Yeah. Will I do it to my, my son's gear? Probably. Yeah, I will. I can't wait to tune his 70-centimeter skis. I'm going to really experiment with things with him anyway as he grows. And so that you don't really need. And the cool thing about the top sheet, you can do the same kind of thing. I teach you technique in that advanced— in that How to Tune Adult Skis video, which is just 20 minutes. In step 2, you learn how to do it manually with that file. So now we're still only up to 1, 2, 3. 4 tools. You move to step 3, which is what everybody sort of knows how to do, which is tune their side edges. You need a file, 100 mil file like this. The cut 14 would be your most user-friendly.

And you need 14.

Okay, cut 14. And that number, that, that numeral just, uh, identifies how many teeth per centimeter. That's all that means. We have cut 10s, 14s, 15s, 16ths anyway, and a file guide. Okay, so now you're up to 3, 4, 5, 6 tools, and you should have a diamond stone. If you want to go really minimal, you could— you'd use the same diamond stone you use on the base edge. Now we're still at 6 tools, you know, and you'd want to have a gummy stone, so there's 7 tools. You'd want to have a little brush to clean out your files, the file tools. You could get one at a hardware store. You could use other methods, but you know, like the intro kit has a gummy stone for removing the burr at the end, but you could also use a diamond stone for that. And that's, I guess that's the 9th tool. And there's one more tool in our kit. Well, in our, in our intro kit, you get a diamond guide. So we use this as the, as the filing unit. The file guide, you probably can't see any of this very well.

No, I can see. Oh, you can.

And, um, and the diamond guide to polish. I like to file with this. It's a dedicated used tool for sharpening, dedicated tool for final sharpening and polishing, so you're not switching things out. So things become very efficient. But if that's not a concern for you and time's not a concern, you could do this all in about— with about 8 tools. It's not that expensive, to be honest, even these high-end precision tools. And then step 4 is just waxing. So you need an iron, you need wax, you need—

Scraper.

You can get away with one brush, but you kind of need two. One for cleaning and one for finishing the wax. And you're done. Set of vices. You don't need a fancy table. You can put vices or clamps, some people call them, on any table, really.

You know, I think, I mean, you know, when people, I always remember, do you know Tim Ferriss? He's a podcaster and self-experimenter and, you know, business entrepreneur guy. I always remember him talking about this concept of like, I can't remember exactly how he said it, but it's basically that the value given how much you're going to get out and use something. So you might feel like you're outlaying a lot of money initially and it's expensive, But when you spread it out over time, how much you're going to use and everything, it's actually kind of cheap versus, you know, you might think coffee's cheap, but when you buy it once or twice every day for the whole entire year, yeah, you know, it's really expensive. Whereas you look at like a tuning kit, you buy it kind of once and it lasts a long time and you get a lot of value out of it.

So I couldn't agree more. And this is another thing that always, you know, I say this to the club parents because I travel around different places and in fact different countries. Outside of my coaching profession, I did, you know, teach tuning, obviously. And in these workshops, I often give the analogy to parents, you know, you've spent how much money on these wonderful coaches, the program fees, all of the skis they need to be on. You've got everything. They got to go to dryland training, they got psych— sports psychologist. You've got everything. You've got the Audi, the four-wheel drive, the roof box. You've spent it all, but you have no tuning equipment. That's like showing up to learn how to drive in Finland, doing driving on ice with bald tires, and you got the best coach to teach you line and technique, but you just scramble around there like Bambi on ice. I mean, it doesn't make any sense, really.

Yeah, yeah, totally. We haven't talked much about the— about waxing, but it sounds like— I mean, it's important, obviously, so the skis glide, but, uh, it's like the waxing part. Do you want to speak to that and, and maybe why we've spent more time on edging, like that, like that edge is a platform part. Like, that's really what's going to make or break you. Your skis could be wonderful and glide, but you know, if you're slipping because you can't grip, that's probably why we spent more time talking about edges. And so, but yeah, maybe you want to speak to waxing.

From a, from a— you're right, from a skill development perspective, where I think you're coming from, being a great skier and a great ski instructor and educator yourself, you, you know, if you really want to get the most out of your clients I would, my advice to any ski instructor would be get their skis tuned or tune their skis for them and bring them back to them the next day. That should be part of the service anyway. I mean, if you really want results, that's, that's gonna really help you so you can focus on, you know, technical and tactical things and, and equipment not be the impairment. Yeah. But, but, Waxing. Waxing, yeah. So waxing at that level, at the elite level, is really important for obvious reasons. But I always use the analogy, like, for, for us, just general skiers having fun now, um, the tuning— like, if you were to compare it in a ski racing sense, the tuning literally makes tenths to seconds of a difference. Literally from what it comes from the package to what you can turn it into. Whereas the waxing is literally hundreds. And as general public and as ski instructors and teachers and just out there having fun and skiing powder, we, we don't care about hundreds, we don't care about seconds. So the waxing is important only to protect the base. And protecting the base is actually super important because if you don't protect it, you know, friction's gonna get the better of it and you're gonna prematurely have to grind that ski more often than you need to. And then you gotta start this whole procedure all over again and start these 4 steps. The beauty of tuning is these 4 steps is steps 1 and 2. Once they're done on a brand new pair of skis, you're not prob— you're only gonna detail certain things throughout the season on steps 1 and 2. Step 3 is the one you're gonna do every day. Which is the side edge, getting it, getting that, getting that acute angle back. And then you're gonna throw some wax on it and then you're off. You wanna protect that because, because the base will start to change throughout the season. If you, you know, friction, it'll wear away on, you know, you, you can burn it beside the edges and the only, and it'll start to ski funny even if the edges are, the side edges are sharp, but the ski will start to do all kinds of funny things on you because the base isn't true anymore. The other thing that will happen is that the beautiful structure that the machines put in the skis that eliminates suction and allow the ski to, to glide better, you'll eliminate that by not waxing it because the snow—

well, I didn't really ever think of it that way as protection. I always just thought like it just makes the ski glide. So that's— of course it's really— well, yeah, but, but that part now I'm just more sold on waxing more often because I don't want to go back and have to do steps 1 and 2 or all that stuff as much again and, uh, and keep those skis running.

Yeah, it is a big thing. It's a massive thing. And, um, a lot of people don't realize that they just tune in— a lot of ski racers too, by the way— they just tune their skis and they skip step 4. Um, they skip waxing because they just run out of time. You know, in a pract— you know, it's a thing. You run, it's normal. We run out of time. So, but a ski racer does— it's like showing up to hockey with dull skates. Nobody does that. I don't think so.

Yeah, yeah.

And, and, and good, you know, ski— skiers should not do— should do this. A lot of people are listening to this probably going, well, where I ski, it's soft. Try this. It's really a game changer.

Yeah, I can attest to to that, because when I learned all this stuff, all the importance through Gord influencing me, it was in Silver Star.

Yeah.

And you know, that snow there most of the time is like skiing on silk. Yeah. So, but, but I could feel it. And he would— he also, speaking of part of the service, when he would take the guests out, guess what? If you'd taken their skis home, he's like, this is not good enough. Tomorrow you're going to have a better day because I'm going to tune these. And Lo and behold, every guest, every guest just thought Gord was like the man. Yeah, exactly, because he made their experience better with all the things he could control. So yeah, yeah, definitely.

I had a good point there with what Gord was doing. Um, yeah, also like, you know, if you're skiing bumps If you love to ski in the bumps or to ski the trees and they're tight and you know, it's not always beautiful powder in the trees or if it is, it's gone, at least around here it's gone in an hour and you're down to that hard pack in between the trees or spots of powder mixed with hard pack or like I said before, you're coming out of the powder back on the groomed runs onto that marbly snow. And then if you're at a mountain like a coastal mountain, geez, The snow at the top is like nothing at the bottom. It's like skiing 10 different conditions. So you really appreciate tuning your skis properly. You know, you want to, you, you want to have fun with all your turns, not just the ones in the powder or just the ones on the ice. You want to have fun wherever you go, steeps, everything. So that's why it's really, it's a fun thing. It's a very rewarding thing to do. You know, it's quite therapeutic as well. You know, you take ownership of this sort of like, I kind of call it like, it's like an ancillary skill for the younger athletes, but for all of us. And, you know, and if you're a recreational skier, you know, you just get, you make this part of your regime and it's just, it doesn't take long. I mean, you can tune a pair of skis in 15 minutes. I told you before, it's an hour and a half to set them up. But especially with the waxes that are out there these days, there's lots of wonderful waxes out there. But Nanox is one made in Südtirol, just over the border of Austria and Italy there. We've been using that wax for— with great success for 15 years now. And it's nanotechnology wax, which is amazing. You can scrape it while it's still warm. That's unheard of in the waxing industry. So you're scraping while the other ski is just on the wall. You don't have to wait a long period of time. You're brushing right away. You're—

there's less mess, less—

and you— the ironing it in longer and spending 10 minutes waxing it in doesn't take— doesn't make it any faster or stay in the base any longer. And it, it really protects the base super well. It's super hard wax. It's amazing. And I will admit to those, to those, uh, powder skiers out there that don't have time to wax every day which is me too, by the way, um, you know, yes, you can get away with Nanox, especially if you use it a lot at the beginning. You can get away for a day or two and not wax and brush the ski and it'll come up shiny again. It's amazing stuff.

And it's fast.

So, so you can tune the skis, and like I said before, in like 5 minutes, literally, a pair that you've set up, all set up. Now you've, you've gone out and you skied pretty hard snow and edges are compromised, come back to the tuning bench, spend 5 5 minutes tuning it with just a simple tool like the Diamond Guide at 400 grit, and then throw some Nanox on it and scrape it in 10 minutes, and add it all up and you've done a pair of skis in 15 minutes. I mean, for me, for the price of a lift ticket to have a way better day, that's— for me, that's, that's an obvious choice.

Yeah, I was just laughing because I had a memory now after buying all the Sidecut stuff and learning from Gord and going, wow, this is like really cool and makes a massive difference. The next season at Threadbo, because you know as an instructor you make peanuts, I started like advertising to the instructors, I'll tune your skis overnight.

Yeah.

And within like a week I'd paid off all the gear and then I was making money because I was like doing 3 or 4 pairs of skis, uh, and I was just, just do like most of the time was just, just I didn't do the base as good a check, but I would really do like the sidewall and the side edge and then put a nice coat of wax and people were loving it. And, uh, yeah, so anyway, just saying for like, this is the way if you're, if you're not, you know, you want to pay off your gear quicker, you can learn and do the work of others who, who can't be bothered.

So true. There's so many young ski racers doing this too.

Yeah. Yeah, it's a great little side hustle.

Yeah, and everybody— and there, there's, there's more proof that it makes a difference or they wouldn't get you to do it.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I started, and then I actually got, uh, I pissed off the local tuning shop because the people in the lodges started going, oh, I can— this guy's like tuning it for, for less and he brings it back the next day. So I had to sort of just do it only for instructors after that. But, um, Yeah, like it was, it was, people were appreciating it.

Yeah, I think there's, you know, I, I hear that sometimes that the tuning shops get upset by, by this, and, and I don't really understand it because the tuning shops are essential, critical to the ski industry, but so is all the tools. I mean, you need each other. You need to take your skis back and get them flat or get, get them ground to the specifications that you like, and then you need to take them home and detail them the way you want. Or you certainly can't be expected to, and you certainly wouldn't want to grind your skis every single time, every week, especially if you're skiing a lot. You want to maintain the way they— you want to maintain the sharpness or the way you like them for perfect consistency. So you have, you know, you maximize every day to its full potential. That, that's my opinion. And then when, when the skis aren't good, I take them to the best shop I know here, or if I'm in Europe, I know the best guys, and I take my skis in and get them grounded. That's just— those guys don't have any animosity. They get that that's how it works, you know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah. Hey Chris, um, sort of wrapping up here, I'm gonna say, so we've got our 4 steps. Yeah, base, base preparation, and that was our discussion on, on having the file guide and not assuming that whatever they come out of the factory at is what they're at.

Check that yourself.

Or might be, might, might be optimal for your skill level strength.

And that's right, and people can, people can then check out what what's kind of the ranges I'm within based on that PDF on the Sidecut.com education resources part. And then we've got the step 2, which is looking like— I think that's the part that I think others will maybe not have seen as really as important, which is the, the sidewall removal. And then even at a higher level, that, that, uh, top sheet kind of also removing so you can get a really consistent, uh, edge angle for step 3. And then, and then finish up with, um, waxing. Yep, that's been really helpful, like super cool. I'm motivated now to, to be more involved with my tuning again. I, I sort of dropped the ball. I think when you, as you know, when you have kids, you sort of, your time starts running out, but I'm more interested in finding time to, to do it. And, and I know with Archie's kids being 5 now, I know when they're tuned nicely, he— I can see him really trusting that, that ski a lot more. And I think kids get like that, that part I've just realized.

I don't—

I think a lot of kids, the people don't give their kids a good enough tune at that level. And that's really— yeah, in New Zealand, like, it's so hard.

They're impaired. Yeah.

And so I just— I, I was doing it quite often in New Zealand this season because the snow there, you know you get that melt-freeze, and he wouldn't— he'd be scared because he couldn't grip. But, um, tuned it, and yeah, he was able to start trusting laying it over more.

Yeah, it's amazing, you know, when you dial in the equipment. Also, boots are a huge thing. Boots and tuning are, are, you know, you save a lot of time for coaches, instructors, if you can get those things dialed in first, and then you can really make some massive you can really change, help to instill changes in, in, in skiers.

Yeah, thanks very much for your time, Chris. It's been, it's been excellent. Uh, if people are interested in, in really good tuning gear, and I think it is some of the best out there, you can go to sidecut.com, sidecut.com. And yeah, we'll, uh, we'll leave it there. Thanks so much, Chris. Have a Have a great winter.

Oh, thank you, Tom. You as well.

This episode is sponsored by Carv, the digital ski coach. And one of the updates I've really enjoyed this season is the addition of separate SkiIQs for moguls and short turns. In the past, Carv scoring was mainly built around carving metrics, which meant everything was viewed through that lens. But Carv have gone deep on that research and completely separated what that makes a great short turn or mogul turn different from a carved turn. To give you an idea of how accurate it's become, the person at the top of the Carv Leaderboard right now isn't a carving specialist, it's Olympic mogul skier Matt Graham. So the best SkiIQ in the world at the moment is coming from someone who lives and breathes bumps, and to be honest, my own highest SkiIQ is also in the moguls, which makes sense because that's my favorite type of skiing. What's really exciting this year is the addition of Turn Tempo, so basically your turns per minute. It's such a simple external output that's incredibly fun to play with. So good skiing isn't just about edge similarity or parallel skis, it's about how you interact with the terrain and whether you can change your tempo on demand. So seeing numbers like my quickest tempo of 117 turns per minute in the bumps gives you something concrete to compare, refine, and work toward. I've been working with Carv since 2020, and every year I'm genuinely impressed with how much the product evolves. They keep expanding what you can measure, and they're covering more and more of the turn types that skiers actually use all over the mountain. So if you're interested in tracking not just your carving but every turn you make on the snow, check out Carv. And a big thanks to the team for supporting this episode.