This week, we sat down in BLISTER HQ with McKenna Peterson, one of the stars of Matchstick Productions’ new film, The Stomping Grounds, to discuss her personal gear preferences; what ski equipment she’d most like to see get made; the topic of women-specific gear; the best ways to get more women involved in skiing; and more.
TOPICS & TIMES:
- Recommend Shop info: Blacksheep Sports (00:57)
- Kristin Sinnott on the Blister Summit (3:00)
- Praise / Roast of K2’s Jed Yeiser (9:01)
- What gear are you most particular about? (12:53)
- Skis (25:37)
- Ski length + which skis are you on the most? (28:07)
- Backcountry skis: your design priorities (33:15)
- Telemark interlude (38:00)
- Women-specific gear (42:55)
- Bindings (55:14)
- Ski poles & avy packs (1:04:46)
- What We’re Celebrating (1:08:51)
RELATED LINKS
Well done.
Good stuff, McKenna was great. Enjoyed the discussion on women-specific gear. Agree that a risk of going unisex is that we end up with less female content / professionals, which would be a huge step backwards. Bike industry I think is a good place to look as they have many (big) brands doing many different things in this space, some more successful than others.
Dynafit Radical is available in 22.5 with stated 120 flex, but looks like it might be the same shell as the 23-235
The Scarpa GEA RS is 22.5-23, The fischer Transalp pro/Tour and La Sportica Vanguard look similar size and stated flex wise
*The Atomic Hawx XTD Ws and Tecnica Zero G Tour are stated 115 flex, but the size charts seem to indicate a TRUE 22 size**
Thats what I could find, But the Atomic Hawx XTD or Zero G would be what to look for on fit
*I just like googling things
Also, was super disappointed that the fischer ranger 94fr wasnt available in the purple in a 185+. The grey and black was dull
Enjoyed the podcast. I’m one of those guys that is 5’7, 145, skis a 180 and wears a 23.5 for a tight fit. As of 2020 no manufacture is making a men/unisex non racing, narrow last, 120 flex that works well for me. I’m hoarding some generation one technica Mach 1 lv. At the very least, manufacturers should make a unisex 98mm model in a 110-120 flex that goes down to a 22.5. I would argue that most women who need/want a boot like that don’t need the “women’s” specific features most manufacturers use to sell boots (I.e. scalloped cuff, extra warm and soft liners and feminine colon schemes)
Also in general, I think touring boots are too high volume. It doesn’t make sense in my opinion to ski a touring boot that is a full size bigger than what your alpine set up is.
For the small-footed rippers out there, Atomic makes the following 130-flex boots in true-size 22/22.5 and 23/23.5 with low cuffs & low liners:
Hawx Ultra 130 Professional
Hawx Ultra XTD 130
Hawx Prime XTD 130
These sizes aren’t differently colored or made from different material toolboxes – they are built with the same materials as their larger-sized siblings.
I’d love you guys to interview Deb Armstrong. She seems to be extremely knowledgeable – but with a different take on gear. It would be very entertaining, as well as informative.
Awesome episode. I liked listening to McKenna’s discussion of touring boots, but I’d push you towards greater clarity of terms!
In discussing touring boots, I think it would provide a lot of value to the listeners if you were more thorough in defining the words we use. Jonathan is great at this most of the time and has a passion for it, which I really appreciate, but specifically in this episode McKenna and Jonathan talked about “good walkability” and “light enough” — pretty vague/subjective. What counts as light? What walks well? How do we talk about that? It would be cool to hear McKenna’s definitions of these terms and juxtapose them against more or leas “standard definitions,” etc.