KJUS and the City- Day 1

Two weeks ago we ventured into New York City for a number of meetings, including some time with Bode, Casey Puckett, one of our suppliers, a retailer, and some media. We had said we'd be posting updates via Twitter, but had some technical difficulties. What follows is the first of two posts on the trip.

On the first day we met with Bode in his agent Lowell Taub at the offices of CAA Sports. We discussed the season, his feedback on the product he'd worn all season, and went over preliminary designs for his 09/10 uniform. After lunch we interviewed Bode for a story to run in next year's KJUS World Magazine.

After Bode, we met with Casey. His shoulder is on the mend and he is very motivated for next season. We discussed the possibility of expanding the Ski with Casey program (keep an eye here for updates) and did a fitting for his race uniform. Skier cross athletes are not allowed to wear tight one piece suits like the alpine racers. Last season, Casey essentially raced in gear "off the rack". This year he'll be racing in what might be consider "off the hook" or Casey might consider "so KJUS". This winter Casey stopped in at our head office in Cham and met with designers to work on a race uniform for this season.
Pants are the toughest to get a good fit for. Above Casey was testing out one of the prototypes that were brought in for him to try on. After trying on pants of various materials, we found one that Casey felt would give him the best performance. Roman Stepek, KJUS Director of Design and Development was on hand to take measurements and preparations for the next round of prototypes.Once Casey's fitting was complete we headed back to our hotel and prepare for the evening, which included a reception for Bode, by his other sponsor SuperFund. SuperFund was kind enough to invite us to their event where they invited about 150 avid skiers and Bode fans from the New York area to meet Bode. The event was a lot of fun as everyone was really passionate about skiing and excited to meet Bode.

Bode is the one in the way back with baseball cap on.We had some mannequins on hand in Bode's 08/09 Uniform

After the reception the KJUS team went to dinner while Bode, Casey and friends went to POP Burger. We all met up later that night... and that story is for another time.

Team America - Update

Bode and Team have been busy getting ready for next season. We just got an update from Warner Nickerson who just returned from Austria where he did some testing of new skis with Bode.

I've been home for a few days now, but that trip was pretty wild. We only ended up training three days, but not because of the weather. The weather was absolutely perfect for our entire stay. For Bode the main objective was to find or help develop good slalom skis. And after two days of slalom training he was psyched with two models. The days we skied slalom we'd drive up the 30 minute access road to arrive half way up Kauntertal by 6:30 AM. Just in time for a warm up run or two and a slip run before we dove right into training. I was skiing on four different pairs of slalom skis taking two runs in the course on each pair. Bode had 6 different pairs so he only took two runs on a couple pairs of skis, if any, since he took a few runs on his speed skis before Rainer and I finished up in the course.

Either way, it was a great set up. We were lapping around on a snow mobile and those guys were hammering. There were a few times when I was getting pulled on a relatively flat section where we were easily doing high 60s (mph not k's) the only thing I was thinking was don't catch an edge… please, don't catch an edge. With GS skis it was pretty moderate, but with slalom skis it was certainly squirrelly. We were able to get 8 runs in before the mountain opened at 9:00 and we were off the hill by 10:00 when it started to warm up a little. The snow was great and the training was better.

We're heading to New York tomorrow to meet up with Bode to take care of some planning for next season and then attend an event that his sponsor SuperFund is hosting. We'll be updating throughout the trip on twitter. Follow us here.