The weather has finally changed out here. It remains nice - we’re still getting our share of sunny warm days, but it’s gotten quite a lot colder, and we’re getting regular rain as well. Other signs of Fall are evident in the shop. Plenty of work - I’ve been plugging away at a big pile of skis in there. Not exactly hurrying, but getting things done with some help from Pat O’Brien. It’s really nice to have a previously trained and well qualified guy to feed skis for flattening.

Yesterday we had a visit from a friend with a broken rollerski shaft (to be fair, the thing had served well for over 10 years, and didn’t owe anybody anything). We thought about trying to repair it, but figured it was structurally shot, so we came up with a replacement. I’m sure this has been done countless times, and I’ve attempted it a few times before. But these Swenor forks and the Atomic skis seemed to mesh particularly well. We’ll see how it goes. We made no attempt to reinforce the shaft ends, so I have every expectation for catastrophic failure. The skis will only be used for double-poling on the flats, and we have a handshake agreement on no lawsuits! I wonder what Atomic would say if we tried to warranty the skis after they fail?

Speaking of rollerskiing, the loops and parking lots up at the venue are finally complete! We’ve now got a 4.75 loop that you can access (on rollerskis) from the parking lots of either the XC or biathlon stadium. This opens up quite a lot of really good terrain, and the hills above the XC stadium make for really good rollerski climbs. It’s been a long wait, but well worth it.