Madshus athletes and engineers are taking advantage of the late season snow to fine-tune the gear for the 2016 season and experiment with some brand new concept ideas.
Last week engineers from both the factory in Biri, Norway, and the K2 corporate headquarters in Seattle, USA, gathered at Beitostoelen in Norway to test all the new products in the ski, boots and poles categories.
“It’s been a fantastic week at Beito. We’ve had a chance to test in all kinds of conditions. In the beginning of the week, we had a lot of wind and some snow, but by the end of the week it was spectacularly sunny and amazing,” says Stefano Zatta, who works on graphics and layout at the Madshus factory in Biri.
Lead ski engineer Bjoern Ivar Austrem, boot engineer John Svensson and category manager for boots and poles Jon Fewster met with World Cup racers such as Noah Hoffman from the USA, Paal Golberg and Simen Sveen from Norway as well as legendary veteran Thomas Alsgaard, who now owns and manages his own racing project Team LeaseplanGO with racers competing both on the marathon circuit as well as in the traditional cross-country events. The crew tested relentlessly for hours every day, making notes and tweaks to perfect every product on all performance levels and in all categories, from touring and backcountry to World Cup. Stay tuned!
“Most of the gear we tested was products that will be for retail sale in the fall of 2016, but we have also put some of the concept products and designs on the snow this week. The concept products are designs that we are just testing to see if they even work. Some of them will be amazing, and some will never make it to standard production,” Zatta explains, adding that even the marketing and graphic design crew joined the testing.
“We had marketing and strategy meetings in the morning, but almost all of us took advantage of the opportunity to ski with the athletes after the meetings. It was really fun to ski next to some of the top racers in the world,” says Zatta.