BNS Heads to the Olympics; StoneGrinding Schedule Suspended Feb 14-28

Boulder Nordic Sport staff Zach Caldwell, Amy Caldwell and Nathan Schultz will be doing race service work at the Olympics in February, and so BNS will suspend customer grinding operations from February 14-28^th.  The deadline for skis to arrive in the shop for the last pre-olympic batch is Monday, February 8th.  All skis that arrive on Monday, Feb 8 or before will be shipped Feb 15.  All skis that arrive in the shop between Feb 8th and Feb 28 will be completed the first week of March.  Both BNS locations in Portland, ME and Boulder, CO will remain open and fully operational with the exception of stone grinding.

The Olympics will be the culmination of years of research and development for Zach under the US Ski Team’s Olympic Development Project.  Mr Caldwell spent two years living near the Olympic venue and testing stone grinds, skis, waxes and developing solutions for the crazy weather that often engulfs the Callaghan Valley Olympic Cross-country venue just outside of Whistler, BC.  The US Ski Team saw the extreme technical demands this venue presents as an opportunity to provide US athletes with advantages over the competition.

“The process has been a humbling and educational one for me.  The biggest lesson I’ve learned is that this venue throws new things at you every day, and while we’ve developed some exciting new solutions that may come into play, more importantly, we’re prepared to adapt quickly to deal with whatever comes our way.  It has been a very valuable and challenging process that has made me a better stone grinder, waxer and ski tech,” said Caldwell.

Ms. Caldwell will join Mr Caldwell for a short stint during the middle of the Games as part of the USST service crew before heading off to co-lead the European OPA cup spring trip in March with Matt Whitcomb.  Schultz will be working with the Holmenkol and US Ski Team Service Teams testing waxes, structures and skis for athletes.

BNS owner Schultz commented, “while it challenges the business to remove our staff from the shop, we learn so much from being involved in high-level racing that we can’t pass up these opportunities.  Having coaches and ski service people on our staff is a huge hassle because of scheduling issues like this, but the trade-off is that we have experts who truly know the sport and can share their knowledge with our clients.  Any other way of doing it is just pretending.”