This past weekend I took a brand new pair of classic racing skis out for a
run on our local trails. I will spare you the details of the first day.
The skis performed well and I had a good time.

The second day I went for a longer ski and was pushing a little harder. I
was very impressed with the skis and how well they handled fast down hill
curves. That was until I was coming around one particularly fast curve. I
was out of the track and entered the curve wide, cut close to the inside and
was heading out of the curve wide, near the left side. Just before the end
of the curve I hit a place where sun had been on the trail earlier, but had
now frozen hard. I almost recovered, but the left ski cut into the bank at
the edge of the trail and stopped. I did not stop quite so fast and ended
up doing a somersault or two and skidding to a stop. To my surprise the
right ski was broken. The top surface was broken almost all the way across
about half way between the boot and the tip. The ski was also delaminated
from all most the tip to the front of the wax pocket.

I managed to ski about another 5 km back to the parking lot with the right
ski top flapping up and down. I didn't do any fast curves.

The ski has now gone back to the distributor, hopefully for warranty
replacement.

Oh yes, the near death experience. That occurred when I told my wife what
happened.

Scott Elliot
http://www3.telus.net/selliot/