Greetings!

So we’re getting some real turkeys coming into the ski shop.

One guy came in for a tune, I look at his skis, they’re tuned. “What’s wrong with them?” I ask.

“Well, I got onto some ice and I couldn’t hold an edge, I think the edges aren’t sharp enough.”

I feel the edges. Bullshit! You can practically shave with these edges. “These skis feel tuned,” I say.

“They are! I had them tuned in Dallas. I think maybe they did something wrong. I can’t hold an edge in ice at all!”

This is where I really want to go off and tell this gomer that he sucks at skiing and he should take a lesson. I can’t do that, alas. Diplomatically, I took out a true bar and showed him that the bases were flat, the edges were tuned to 1° and I even showed him the fingernail trick, where you rub your fingernail on the edge; if the edge leaves behind a little bit of your nail, they’re sharp, which this dude’s edges were. I told this dude six ways from Sunday that his skis didn’t need to be tuned.

Note: Tuned skis are great, but every time you tune them you shorten the life of the ski by a little bit. Hence why I try not to tune customer’s skis if they don’t need it.

This went on for five minutes. Finally he just admitted it, in a half-assed sort of way. “I think maybe my legs just aren’t strong enough. I’ll take ‘em out tomorrow morning and try harder.”

That was just one guy. There were more than a few other folks with eye-rolling inquiries. It’s fun.