Ski Country Sports has brought to the High Country’s skiing and snowboarding community a remarkable new state of the art machine manufactured to revolutionize how skis and snowboards can be tuned up and cared for. Bill Leonard, owner of Ski Country Sports says, “This is a futurist machine – this is the latest and greatest! And we would love for folks to come by and take a look at it. We’ve been looking at this machine for more than a year. In September we decided to invest in this technologically advanced state of the art tuning machine. There are very few of these machines in use in the North America. The investment required for the purchase of this machine has allowed us to provide our customers with the most precise ski and snowboard tuning available world wide. Yes it was expensive, but in the long term we think it will provide a huge service to our customers as well to our ski and snowboard rental fleet and our demos. We are now able to keep them in much better condition than before. It has made a huge difference!”
The machine is called Jupiter and is built by Wintersteiger, based in Austria. Wintersteiger is the market leader in providing premier tuning machinery to the ski and snowboard industry.The unit is close to 20 feet long and about 7 feet tall. Wintersteiger boasts that with the new generation of Jupiter automated machines they are taking you on a journey to a new world, where the latest innovative features improve snow sport experience.
“This was a big major investment for us,” says Leonard. “We feel it will keep us ahead of the curve here in the High Country and help us to continue being the leading store for skiers and snowboarders.”
Tune ups have always been an important factor in how skis and snowboards perform. Everyone appreciates the difference in performance of their equipment on the slopes after a good tune-up. The standard procedure for a tune-up has always been done by a skilled technician usually by hand. What this machine does is put this tune-up procedure into a computerized environment that gives a consistent performance that can be fine tuned to a skier’s needs and skiing ability as well as specific snow conditions. “It does unbelievable work on refurbishing older skis and snowboards,” says Leonard. “And it also does a great job on new skis and snowboards as well. In fact, there are a number of ski manufacturers that use the Jupiter to finish the polishing process on their race skis as well as retail skis before they are shipped out the door to retailers.”
The real beauty of the Jupiter is its ability to give the edges of the ski or snowboard a variable degree of edging along the length of the ski. Where the majority of skis come in with a consistent either a 1 – 2 or 3 degree edge from tip to tail, the Jupiter is able to give the ski or snowboard three different edge degree setting along the length of the ski. This is important because the edges on skis and snowboards effects the ability and ease of making turns when out on the slopes.
“What is unique about his machine is its ability to give you various degrees for the tip, the midsection and tail of the ski or snowboard,” says Leonard. “This allows you to initiate your turn easier and while maintaining constant edge grip under the midsection and tail of the ski. The variable edge tune allows you to feel secure in your turn from start to finish. It makes the initiation of getting into a turn and then out of the turn much easier and smoother but also without losing any of the stabilization on a hard packed snow.”
You can also put an unlimited number of base structures on the base of ski or snowboard as well, depending on what the snow conditions are and to what type of skier you are, whether you’re racer, casual skier or a performance skier – this machine has unlimited settings to do that. And this machine makes sure every ski comes out is flat, because when it’s flat it definitely skis better.
The other thing that is nice about the Jupiter is that it’s 100% consistent. “With this machine it’s 100% the same every time we put a ski in there and that’s just amazing,” says Leonard.
Carl Bindlechner, the Service Manager at Ski Country Sports adds, “It’s truly an amazing machine. Whoever gets a tune from this machine is gonna notice a difference. It’s gonna make their skiing experience better, even more fun – without a doubt!” Carl’s been skiing since he was two years old. He moved to Banner Elk with his family in 1969 when his his father, Erich Bindlechner, became the first Ski Director at Sugar Mountain Ski Area. “I’ve been skiing my whole life, never have missed a season. I raced through high school and college and worked in the ski industry just about my whole life.” In fact, Carl worked at Ski Country Sports while in high school and has spent the last 18 years at the shop. And this Jupiter machine is the most exciting innovation he has seen in a long time. “A good tune ski is just as important, if not more important than a good, even brand new ski. Now we can guaranteed you a world class tune-up or a factory spec tune every time. That’s exciting because it use to be once you skied the newness off a ski, it was gone. We can actually now refurbish a ski back to new, even better than new. You are gonna appreciate your skiing even more after a tune-up from the Jupiter.”
And Carl can’t emphasized enough the importance of the variable edge that the Jupiter can add to a ski or snowboard. “The variable tune-up is unique to this machine, only this machine that can do this. The variable edging really lets the ski be more responsive from edge to edge and lets the ski track just as smoothly when skiing straight but you can really count on the ski when you get into your turns, especially on hard backed snow and ice conditions. I telling you, somehow magically the Jupiter makes the ski perform better!”
And it just keeps getting better as Wintersteiger has in the works a plan for manufactures of ski and snowboards to provide a barcode to customers that has their recommended settings for their products that the Jupiter will be able to read and adjust the machine to those settings for the tune-up. Leonard says they will be able to do the same thing for their customers. “We’ll be able here to make a bar code for an individual skier’s personal preference for structure or variable edge and when they come back in for a tune-up we’ll be able to match that preference 100%.”
Leonard says it’s been mostly just been word of mouth about their new machine so far. They received the Jupiter in September right before the hurricane hit and like everyone else had to spend the next couple of months working through all of that. “Just by word of mouth we’ve seen our tune-up business increase 30% so far this year. We bring our customers back here for a demonstration and they are just blown away. We even get calls right off the slopes with folks so excited about what a difference the tune-up has made with their skiing experience.”
Even snowboarders, who in the past generally haven’t given much attention to tune-ups, are saying they are feeling such a difference in the performance of their snowboards after a Jupiter tune-up. They are definitely sold on the benefits! Tim Ollis, a rep for RIDE Snowboards says, “You can tell a notable difference in having confidence in having edge hold under your foot in making an aggressive turn for snowboards. This machine is proving a night and day difference in your confidence in edge hold. That’s a huge deal. From what you notice from a start of a turn, and from your initiation to the contact point on your nose and then having the stability under your foot and then finishing coming out of your turn, you’ll notice just how much smoother the whole transition is. And you can even tell this on a brand new snowboards. It changes the way the it rides and makes even a good riding snowboard ride great.”
The Wintersteiger sales Rep said that many of the local ski instructors, ski patrol personnel and racers have said that they will never pick up a file or tune their own skis again.
Leonard also pointed out they have the latest in waxing technology as well to help finish off a great tune-up. The infrared waxer adds a consistence balance of wax across the base of a ski or snowboard.
Ski Country Sports recommends that skiers get a tune-up at least once a year to keep your ski in good shape as well as definitely making them last longer. They have a quick turnaround with the ability to get them back to you the same day, but prefer to at least have them overnight. Dedicated skiers often have a number a tune-ups a year to help match the slope conditions and the type of skiing they are participating in.
Ski Country Sports is a family owed business that has been operating in the High Country since 1983. They have continued to grow since then with a vision to provide the best outdoor gear in the world and to be the best at doing it.
Ski Country Sports is located at 3148 Tynecastle Highway right across the street from the entrance to Sugar Mountain Ski Resort. Winter hours are 8am to 11pm 7 days a week. There phone number is 828-898-9786.
You can see a video demonstration of the Jupiter machine by clicking here:
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=912528211064342
You must be logged in to post a comment.