Sounds like a dare. You'd need someone with Jacques's tiny size to be fair tho.
Agreed!
Sounds like a dare. You'd need someone with Jacques's tiny size to be fair tho.
Sounds to me like a double dog dare . Honestly, I am not sure if it is Nth degree faster or slower...but it is on par..I think that is all you can really ask of it...especially waxing is not something you enjoy and you do mot want to deal with.
Some people are fine with taking their car in for an oil change, some will want to change it themeselves. Hell, I know some members here who prefer to shoot their own food, me, I think Costco has a reat meat department and i don't have to get up at 4 AM to get there. To each their own. Me? There are instances I like to be in the garage/shop with a glass of bourbon and waxing skis..there are other times I think, I wish all of our skis had Phantom on it.
Well, it sounds like you can still wax the treated skis if you WANT to.
Doesn't seem worth it for skis I already own - this may be a weird version of the sunk cost fallacy - but for a new pair of skis with many waxes to go? Sure. Of course, I won't know if they're my new favorite until I have skied them a few days ... so ...
It occurs to me that Phantom would save you a lot of time and "tracking" when you're driving skis around to demo. Then again, the cost of treating all those skis would be prohibitive.
I have to imagine that at some point, if this treatment is proven viable, most skis will be available pre-treated. Maybe not race skis? Unless the treatment helps race skis at some point midway through the run.
Hmm, I typically get my skis waxed 2-3 times a season, and I go out between 40-70 days (Not every day is a full day, and I know I should have waxed my skis more often, I am lazy). My skis will easily last me another 2-3 seasons, as I am super careful not to hit rocks, tress, etc. Getting my skis waxed/tuned costs me $40 at my local shop. Now all I gotta do is learn how to sharpen my edges with out cutting my wrists and dying on the floor of my garage (ok, that got a bit dark, sorry about that). So, anyway Phantom is going to save me money in the long run for sure. You uber-hardcore people that wax/sharpen/tune your own skis probably see $100 ($80 on Amazon!) as a lot of money. Too bad, I think it is more than worth it just for the consistency (and the environmental impacts of course).
I don't know what this "careful not to hit rocks, trees, etc" aberration is, so I can't speak to that ;-)
I don't know what this "careful not to hit rocks, trees, etc" aberration is, so I can't speak to that ;-)
Still giving it some time to let the last shoe drop, if at all.
It's a good question, and my guess is that DPS also needs to look out for that other shoe to drop. From and engineering standpoint, no matter how much practical testing, modelling, accelerated life testing, etc that you do, you can't really emulate several years of real world conditions.
Other motivations:
1) They also don't want to turn off potential buyers who are suspicious of the new technology. I would wager that people who buy DPS are a little more savvy than the average skier and won't necessarily be sold on "waxless downhill skis" without some more data.
2) Their skis are already plenty expensive without adding the treatment - I'm sure there's markup on what they sell, but they would want to raise the prices, both to recoup the research investment and to avoid a devaluation of the stand alone product.
I bought a Kickstarter 2 pack for $160, I would guess that a typical markup is 75-100% of the cost. So if current retail is $100 (I am just guessing as I don’t know) then their cost would be in the neighborhood of $50-$65. Add in labor to apply and you are at about $100-$125 applied prior to delivery IF they want to do it.
They did say you can do conventional wax over the Phantom if you wanted a race glide.
I can say that my glide was amazing, but it changed a lot in the spring conditions the last two afternoons. I had never skied in springlike conditions before, so I have ZERO to compare it to. I was skiing with a friend for a while one day and they had a very hard time keeping up when we were poling across a flat, but that was in the colder/drier conditions.
If by spring-like you mean wet and slushy, then that always sucks. Warm weather wax helps, but sticky snow (and feeling like you're getting thrown forward and your skis are being held back) are kind of the norm.
If by spring-like you mean wet and slushy, then that always sucks. Warm weather wax helps, but sticky snow (and feeling like you're getting thrown forward and your skis are being held back) are kind of the norm.
I really need to introduce you to spring structure.
If a 'norm' can be reduced by an order of magnitude by ski choice, structure choice, and wax choice, I'm not really sure we should continue calling it a norm.
Maybe I need to buy another pair just to use as "spring skis".
I wonder if it's true that the dps buyers are more knowledgeable than the average skier.Other motivations:
1) They also don't want to turn off potential buyers who are suspicious of the new technology. I would wager that people who buy DPS are a little more savvy than the average skier and won't necessarily be sold on "waxless downhill skis" without some more data.
2) Their skis are already plenty expensive without adding the treatment - I'm sure there's markup on what they sell, but they would want to raise the prices, both to recoup the research investment and to avoid a devaluation of the stand alone product.
I really need to introduce you to spring structure.
If a 'norm' can be reduced by an order of magnitude by ski choice, structure choice, and wax choice, I'm not really sure we should continue calling it a norm.