Blister Gear podcast reviewing other gear reviews

[Marker]

Phil lays out yet another reason I was very glad to stumble across PugSki. Between here, Blister and Ski Essentials (love their Chairlift chats) - that's all I need to feed my gear obsession.

Edit: just read the Is Print Dead? thread, adding RealSkiers to my list. Thanks @Philpug I needed something to enable my procrastination even more today

In addition to these, I like a Euro perspective from http://www.winter-sports.com/EN/Ski-test/index.php?season=2019

They will call out a bad tune or preparation and advise waiting until next year's test or look at the previous year's.

 

[Philpug]

In addition to these, I like a Euro perspective from http://www.winter-sports.com/EN/Ski-test/index.php?season=2019

They will call out a bad tune or preparation and advise waiting until next year's test or look at the previous year's.

We have run across our share of bad tunes and quite frankly the biggest show that we attend is the worst culprit, the event right after Ourdoor Retailers (formerly SIA) in Colorado. The good is, our testers are professionals at testing, not that they are paid but that they are very good at what they do and can discern the difference is a proper tune and a bad one. The bad is, the customers (retail shops) who are there to be "sold" on the skis, a good percentage cannot discern those differences and assume that a ski that has a bad tune is not a good ski. We know this because we listen to people at the tents and hear what they are saying to each other. We will not review a ski based on a bad tune, either we will grab another pair or wait for another day to test it. If we cannot get a good pair after numerous tries, and yes it has happened, that ski is not reviewed and might not get the exposure it deserves.

We have been told directly by more than one product manager, "When you come to our tent, make sure you see me, we have special "press" skis". Well that is all well and good, while we talk about your skis, you need to make sure the people coming to the tent who are buyers with orders that are well into the five figures get the best possible experience too. These are people writing you a check and they need to be blown away, I can tell the difference, most of these guys cannot.

 

[Vitamin I]

Just listened to this a couple hours ago. Really love their podcasts.

There was one ski review (Elan Ripstick I think) they were talking about where I thought they were maybe talking about PugSki because the review was talking about comparing it to a Porsche. Phil often seems to make those comparisons, which always go over my head because I'm no car guy. Couldn't find the evidence that it was from PugSki in either case.

That publication was not PugSki. It was Freeskier. You can judge Freeskier's review for yourself at https://freeskier.com/gear/elan-ripstick-106-black-edition-2020

 

[Snowflake2420]

Love Blister podcasts. They've really been pouring it on this year with lots of guests and reviews.

I was surprised on the hate for Curated. Curated is a start up testing out how high ticket items can be sold, not a gear review site. While not perfect by any means, it seemed to me Johnathan didn't get the premise of the site. He also could have had a horrible experience, don't know if he got connected to an actual person this early in the season. My understanding is Curated is in the business of selling stuff and this is a step above being left to your own devices and honestly most people, even those who can afford new skis, aren't going to the research lengths of Blister or Pugski readers. Yes, I've served as an expert for Curated last year and think it's a cool idea. I'm also a Blister member.

 

[John O]

We have run across our share of bad tunes and quite frankly the biggest show that we attend is the worst culprit, the event right after Ourdoor Retailers (formerly SIA) in Colorado. The good is, our testers are professionals at testing, not that they are paid but that they are very good at what they do and can discern the difference is a proper tune and a bad one. The bad is, the customers (retail shops) who are there to be "sold" on the skis, a good percentage cannot discern those differences and assume that a ski that has a bad tune is not a good ski. We know this because we listen to people at the tents and hear what they are saying to each other. We will not review a ski based on a bad tune, either we will grab another pair or wait for another day to test it. If we cannot get a good pair after numerous tries, and yes it has happened, that ski is not reviewed and might not get the exposure it deserves.

We have been told directly by more than one product manager, "When you come to our tent, make sure you see me, we have special "press" skis". Well that is all well and good, while we talk about your skis, you need to make sure the people coming to the tent who are buyers with orders that are well into the five figures get the best possible experience too. These are people writing you a check and they need to be blown away, I can tell the difference, most of these guys cannot.

I'm continually surprised at how many skis are handed out at demo days with bad tunes. I know that I'm not nearly as competent as your line of testers, but have still been on multiple skis over the years from various manufacturers that very obviously had bad tunes. For me these have been demo days for the general public, run by a ski shop but staffed by manufacturer reps, where they're attempting to actually sell the skis to skiers. It baffles me that they wouldn't want to present the best product that they can.

To be fair the majority of the skis I've been on don't have this problem, but it's a much more common problem than I would have expected.

 

[Vitamin I]

...
I was surprised on the hate for Curated. Curated is a start up testing out how high ticket items can be sold, not a gear review site. ...My understanding is Curated is in the business of selling stuff and this is a step above being left to your own devices and honestly most people, even those who can afford new skis, aren't going to the research lengths of Blister or Pugski readers...

SkiFiore, I can confirm Blister employees' bad experiences while using Curated.com. Curated delivered an EVEN WORSE experience to me (I'm not affiliated with Blister). I consider it unethical for Curated to use the public as guinea pigs for profit while they are "testing out" (as you wrote above) how high ticket items can be sold. It would be more ethical to defer public release of Curated's recommendation system until AFTER the recommendation system/process has been refined and tested using INTERNAL employees/testers (who wouldn't actually buy, it would just be testing internal R&D).

MAJOR FLAW #1: After user finishes answering all the questions of the new-user-experience, the system should display something HONEST like "Sorry, we still don't know enough about you to make a sufficiently-personalized recommendation, so later we'll need to have you speak with a human, and we'll get more info from you at that time." Instead, the system just attempts a money grab by recommending an immediate purchase that is a POOR MATCH for the user.

MAJOR FLAW #2: Curated deceptively reports their user satisfaction ratings for ONLY the subset of visitors who bought. So, Curated is inflating their reported ratings by not including any satisfaction ratings from the visitors who were so dissatisfied with Curated service that they refused to buy.

DETAILS OF MY CASE: Curated's system recommended that I buy a Head Kore 93 180cm. It is an understatement for me to say that ski is a POOR MATCH for my tastes. That ski is 1585g, 180cm, & 93mm underfoot. Turns out my tastes are WAY WAY DIFFERENT: I like skis that are literally ~3000g, ~195cm, ~130mm underfoot...like a 2013 metal Volkl Kuro 195cm, or a 2011 Blizzard Zeus 194cm, etc. It's hard to imagine any recommendation system being WORSE at personalization/curation than Curated.

 

[Analisa]

aren't going to the research lengths of Blister or Pugski readers.

...but Pugski reviews are like 3-4 sentences long. Brevity and the ability to quickly convey a ski is, I’d say, one of the strengths of this platform. Sure, most people don’t need all the Blister details and don’t know why the mount point should be important to them, but I’d say it’d take longer to fill out the Curated survey than it does to ingest the line strategy for the major players in the industry with the information on here.

 

[Snowflake2420]

SkiFiore, I can confirm Blister employees' bad experiences while using Curated.com. Curated delivered an EVEN WORSE experience to me (I'm not affiliated with Blister). I consider it unethical for Curated to use the public as guinea pigs for profit while they are "testing out" (as you wrote above) how high ticket items can be sold. It would be more ethical to defer public release of Curated's recommendation system until AFTER the recommendation system/process has been refined and tested using INTERNAL employees/testers (who wouldn't actually buy, it would just be testing internal R&D).

MAJOR FLAW #1: After user finishes answering all the questions of the new-user-experience, the system should display something HONEST like "Sorry, we still don't know enough about you to make a sufficiently-personalized recommendation, so later we'll need to have you speak with a human, and we'll get more info from you at that time." Instead, the system just attempts a money grab by recommending an immediate purchase that is a POOR MATCH for the user.

MAJOR FLAW #2: Curated deceptively reports their user satisfaction ratings for ONLY the subset of visitors who bought. So, Curated is inflating their reported ratings by not including any satisfaction ratings from the visitors who were so dissatisfied with Curated service that they refused to buy.

DETAILS OF MY CASE: Curated's system recommended that I buy a Head Kore 93 180cm. It is an understatement for me to say that ski is a POOR MATCH for my tastes. That ski is 1585g, 180cm, & 93mm underfoot. Turns out my tastes are WAY WAY DIFFERENT: I like skis that are literally ~3000g, ~195cm, ~130mm underfoot...like a 2013 metal Volkl Kuro 195cm, or a 2011 Blizzard Zeus 194cm, etc. It's hard to imagine any recommendation system being WORSE at personalization”

I think your statement that it’s “unethical” is a bit much. We are talking skis here not medical advice. And using an example that the recommendation you and a professional ski reviewer didn’t get the specific answer you wanted as a terrible experience is like asking why didn’t someone read my mind after filling out an online survey? No one is being forced to buy anything from curated.

I just went through the survey myself and got a message that the expert was not online and would get back to me. There were some auto picks and while not exactly what I would pick they were sensible selections and aligned with my responses. Is this survey perfect? No. Is it accessible for most people who ski at most a couple weeks per year to get a conversation started? Yes

 

[Vitamin I]

I think your statement that it’s “unethical” is a bit much...

I think most people consider deception for money to be "unethical", regardless whether it's for medical treatment or something minor. The website claims personalization and good matches, but then the system attempts a money grab by recommending an immediate purchase that is a POOR MATCH for the user, without waiting first to develop more personalization. That is deception for money. My proposed solution is easy---just recommend NOTHING until more personalization is achieved. I would think that a service like Curated.com's service would want to prioritize trust above a quickie sale within the first few minutes of the new-user-experience.

If you don't consider deception for money to be "unethical", that's up to you.

...And using an example...is like asking why didn’t someone read my mind after filling out an online survey?...

Nope. I never said I expected someone to read my mind. I expected someone to HONESTLY recommend NO PRODUCT until the system/process first achieves the sufficient personalization that it claims to deliver.

...Is it accessible for most people who ski at most a couple weeks per year to get a conversation started? Yes

OK, then the website should HONESTLY claim THAT, instead of deceptively claiming "expert" personalization. Perhaps the reason that the Curated system didn't give you a poor match is because it merely made a low-risk NON-PERSONALIZED recommendation and got "lucky" in your case. For example, I could promise you that I am an expert personalized ice cream flavor recommender, then ask you nothing except your name, and then I could recommend vanilla flavor to you. Then you buy vanilla ice cream, try it, and very very very few people will HATE vanilla---it's a low-risk NON-PERSONALIZED recommendation. But c'mon, maybe with more personalization you might discover that your favorite flavor is really something exotic like coconut cherry flavor or whatever. So in that case, was my recommendation of vanilla really the "expert" personalized recommendation I promised you? No. You bought low-risk vanilla and got lucky that you're not a person who hates vanilla.

 

[AmyPJ]

I want to know why Blister did not review the Santa Ana 88

Women's reviews in general are hard to come by. There are a lot of women who I think would absolutely LOVE that ski. Softer and friendlier than a Kenja, better suited off-piste in a wider variety of conditions than a Black Pearl (at least for my skiing style.)

 

[KingGrump]

Softer and friendlier than a Kenja

Most skis are softer and friendlier than a pair of Kenja.

 

[Analisa]

@AmyPJ Agreed - part of it is reviewer driven (I've heard Blister was looking for more women at one point), some of it is marketing budgets for women's lines where demand, and therefore marketing spend, are smaller.

But DITTO for women's info being hard to come by, especially when it gets into nuanced differences in construction. The Blister guys were like "who reads this stuff?!" and I'm just like me! I will take whatever I can find on some skis! So many times I can't find anyone who's ever skied a ski on my radar and I start to wonder if they even exist.

 

[Vitamin I]

I want to know why Blister did not review the Santa Ana 88...

I don't know precisely why, but my possible explanation below is aligned with partial info I've heard from ski manufacturers' comments about Blister.

@AmyPJ ...part of it is reviewer driven (I've heard Blister was looking for more women at one point), some of it is marketing budgets for women's lines where demand, and therefore marketing spend, are smaller...

Those points are aligned with what I've heard. My possible explanation is:

1) There's a limit to how many ski reviews Blister can publish. Why? Because they have a limited number of testers, PLUS their approach is to spend A LOT of time per ski model, which means fewer ski models can be tested per year. For example, I personally saw a Blister tester ripping a ski model in January, looked to me like he had that ski's strengths dialed in already---but after that, he still tested it 4 MORE MONTHS before publishing his review.

2) RE: Marketing budgets. Well, it's not the money, because Blister's model is NOT pay-for-exposure...Their model is donate-gear-to-Blister-for-A CHANCE-for-exposure-in-a-full-length-review. If Nordica were to donate 20 skis to Blister per year, I think Blister wouldn't even test all 20 Nordica skis, because then Blister wouldn't have enough time to test other manufacturer's skis. (See limitations in #1 above). So it's smart for Nordica to be very selective when deciding how many skis and which specific models to donate to Blister. Nordica would want the most "potential upside" in any possible exposure/coverage from Blister, so they might evaluate the best-case outcome for each ski model they could donate. To illustrate, I will make up imaginary numbers here---if the best-case outcome from Blister exposure for a Santa Ana 88 would double sales from 20 pairs to 40 pairs sold, and if the best-case outcome of Blister exposure for a more mainstream Nordica model would double sales from 1000 pairs to 2000 pairs sold, then Nordica won't donate the Santa Ana 88 to Blister at all---because Nordica would want to make sure Blister doesn't completely skip (or even just delay) testing that mainstream model in favor of testing that Santa Ana 88.

 

[Analisa]

@Vitamin I Agree with the approach, and totally just meant I doubt Nordica sends every ski to every potential review site vs. the pay to play model. But I'd disagree that the Santa Ana 88 is a niche model. I mean, it's built as a direct competitor to the best selling ski of all time, and given the size of the women's big mountain market, it'll definitely outsell the SA 110.

I think it really comes down to a trade off. Blister built their street cred on big mountain and powder skis. Volume on the women's side is driven by the all-mountain east category, where most skis are fairly democratic with a sprinkle of a few more demanding, high performance models mixed in. Do they review skis that drive volume or stick within their niche if they have limited bandwidth for female reviewers? I'm personally really glad that they have always done a majority of reviews in the 90mm+, or more aggressive models because I think the customer who wants to know the measurement of camber underfoot or the flex profile of the ski is usually reaching for something stiffer or wider. But I'm dying for the day they do both.

 

[Tricia]

@Vitamin I Agree with the approach, and totally just meant I doubt Nordica sends every ski to every potential review site vs. the pay to play model. But I'd disagree that the Santa Ana 88 is a niche model. I mean, it's built as a direct competitor to the best selling ski of all time, and given the size of the women's big mountain market, it'll definitely outsell the SA 110.

I think it really comes down to a trade off. Blister built their street cred on big mountain and powder skis. Volume on the women's side is driven by the all-mountain east category, where most skis are fairly democratic with a sprinkle of a few more demanding, high performance models mixed in. Do they review skis that drive volume or stick within their niche if they have limited bandwidth for female reviewers? I'm personally really glad that they have always done a majority of reviews in the 90mm+, or more aggressive models because I think the customer who wants to know the measurement of camber underfoot or the flex profile of the ski is usually reaching for something stiffer or wider. But I'm dying for the day they do both.

100% this.

 

[AmyPJ]

Most skis are softer and friendlier than a pair of Kenja.

Truth to that!

I personally think the Santa Ana 88 will be a strong Black Pearl competitor. I've got about 40 days on mine and they just are so stable yet so playful. But I'm not a rippin' skier so am always curious to hear what women in the "expert" category think about a ski that I am blown away by. I loved the Black Pearls when I still recommend them regularly, but I think the Santa Anas are just that much more stable, particularly off piste. I definitely don't see them as any more of a niche ski than a Kenja.

 

[GregK]

Just making sure everyone here has looked at the Blistergear buyers guide for this year as they have nice summaries and comparisons of many skis that don’t have a full review on their free website. Lots of women’s skis reviewed along with carving skis which I haven’t really noticed on the regular site.

Santa Ana 93, 100, 110 reviewed along with Blizzard skis and they have the same in the men’s Enforcer line. They compare with the Enforcer 88 to the E93 which I’m sure will be similar to the women’s version vs the Santa Ana 93.

https://blisterreview.com/winter-buyers-guide

 

[KingGrump]

Truth to that!

I personally think the Santa Ana 88 will be a strong Black Pearl competitor. I've got about 40 days on mine and they just are so stable yet so playful. But I'm not a rippin' skier so am always curious to hear what women in the "expert" category think about a ski that I am blown away by. I loved the Black Pearls when I still recommend them regularly, but I think the Santa Anas are just that much more stable, particularly off piste. I definitely don't see them as any more of a niche ski than a Kenja.

We spent 7 weeks in the spring between Squaw & Mammoth skiing with the CA crew. Mamie been pretty good with converting the CA crew from BP to Stockli Motion 85W. She has two pairs so she let the other pair out for demo if someone wants them for a day. At least three went out and bought the Stockli.

One of the woman took the Stockli out for a day. Didn't seem too thrilled by it. I suggested she take my Kendo out for a spin. It was a bit long for her. She was on it for the whole afternoon. She literally killed it and had so much fun on them. She bought a pair of Kenja, one size smalle, that afternoon. Fitted her skiing well. She is 2" shorter and #50 lighter. So a lot depends on what put a smile on your face.

 

[LiquidFeet]

....I stand by our "Who is the ski for" and "Who it it not for" because knowing who a ski isn't for is just as important, if not more important than knowing who it is for.....

Don't ever change this. That's the most useful piece of information anyone anywhere offers about skis.

 

[Ken_R]

Flexing skis on at a shop recently I noticed that a lot of skis flex the same no matter the length. Some skis feel as stiff at their 184cm length as they do in their 172cm length. Some are even stiffer in the shorter length. That makes no sense to me. Shorter skis tend to be for smaller and (usually) lighter skiers. It would be awesome if most users of that ski got a similar experience. Besides flex very few manufacturers scale their skis size in their shorter lengths resulting in different turn radii as well.

All that said, Length is a paramount factor when making reviews and should always be mentioned that the ski was tested in a specific length/s. Testing length is obviously included in PugSki's ski reviews.