The calendar turning to September means it’s time to think about stonegrinding and preparing our skis for the coming winter. Each year, we bring a batch of skis down to Putney where Caldwell Sport tunes them into the best possible version of their shiny, speedy selves!
When should you get your skis ground?
- If you compete regularly on the Eastern Cup, you should be getting your skis ground each year unless they are a very condition-specific pair that didn’t get used much. Eastern Cup skis end up seeing a lot of use, abuse, hot irons, and mass starts…What’s more, the margins get smaller every year due to the rising level of competition in New England. This is a great problem to have as a competitive region, but it also means that we can’t cut corners on ski selection and stonegrinding. When in doubt, grind your skis!
- If you are a Masters skier who only breaks out the race skis for a few events a year, you are probably fine doing a stonegrind every other season. Keep in mind that a stonegrind effectively returns a ski base to “new” condition, and is a lot cheaper than a brand new pair of skis (by a factor of over 10 in many cases!)
- If you are a BKL skier, don’t worry about stonegrinding your skis…chances are, you’ll outgrow them soon enough, and we should all be focused on keeping the sport as accessible and budget-conscious as possible for our younger athletes.The one exception at the BKL level is if you are a middle school racer and you find yourself with a pair of skis handed down from a Junior, picked up at a ski swap, or purchased secondhand online. In this case, stonegrinding makes a ski much easier to wax and take care of, as well as making them faster and more enjoyable to ski on. If you can find an old pair of race skis for a great deal, and put a stonegrind on them for under $100, you’ve got a screamin’ good situation!
Our yearly signup form for stonegrinding can be found below. Please fill out this form with your pairs, and communicate with Coach Adam about a dropoff time/date/location that works for both parties.
We’d like to get all skis delivered and complete intake by Tuesday, September 30th
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