Nobody pays much attention to the ski world in the Summer months, so we don’t spend a lot of time updating things. But we’ve been quietly toiling away at Caldwell Sport set-up, and things are taking shape.
Our original plan had been to rent a shop space early in the summer and, get cranking immediately on set-up and build out. But we decided to go a slightly different route and buy a place. Our closing is August 22nd and everything appears to be lined up for it all to work out well. There will be a lot to do in a short amount of time, but we’ll be up and running during September, and cranking along at full speed in October – just about the way it always works out.
The change of plan did create an interesting circumstance where I found myself grinding skis in my Uncle’s old sugarhouse. He shut down the operation several years ago, and most of the equipment is out of there. But as you can see in the picture, the arch is still in place. Noah Hoffman was in town for several days of technique work prior to departure for New Zealand. Back in June I carried some new skis home from Norway for Noah, and we needed to put grinds on seven pairs for testing on snow in NZ. With no permanent shop set-up, we made use of the sugarhouse. It’s a relatively small job to wire-up the phase converter, hook up the pumps, fill the tank, hang some good bright lights, and get cranking. So that’s what we did!
Impromptu grind batches aside, July has been a pretty nice vacation. We’ve enjoyed great weather (after an exceptionally wet start to the summer) and a ton of Blueberries. Now I’m preparing for the second trip to Europe of the Summer. Our skis from the first trip have started to arrive in the US, and I’ll pick up a batch next week. Things will start to happen fast now!