I thought most had gone away from machining edges on speed skis?
Probably wasn't too clear. I think that's very true on the WC, and EC. I was talking about things like decent level domestic FIS speed races. Some of these kids are part of clubs where it seems like every kid is paying for the tech service...which can, as you know, be very costly. And "depending"...on the calendar, the travel, the numbers, I believe that a lot is machine tuned and not so much massaged by hand with stones, etc. That's where we were talking about some crashes where the kids looked like they were "bitten" by the snow!
WC...yeah, from all that I see and hear, a lot of hand work. A tremendous amount of care. As it was pointed out to me, those skis are lovingly nurtured for seasons. And it's not like on race weekend, a tech is dealing with 50 pairs of speed skis, which a club tech actually could be.
It's sure different than it was 15 years ago. A coach buddy jokes that some of his athletes, some really good ones, "have never even seen the base of their skis!" That one always cracks me up.
We bought our first Trione about 13-14 years ago and I was amazed at how quickly and how well my kids could tune a LOT of skis. Like a whole college team's tech skis....the actual stoning and such...up to the athletes. A lot didn't bother. Then again, this was not speed, and normally on pretty hard surfaces.
