Last season twin-tip sales were the highest of all skis. In the past decade we went from no twin-tips anywhere to them being the biggest category of ski. Think about what has happened to skiing in the past decade. I understand the importants of distinguishing ourselves as different when the "revolution" first came around. And yes, I do understand that there are still a handful of people out there who still think skiing is lame and that snowboarding is cooler, but if you tried to show them what is capable on skis today would it really matter? The only people out there who still hate on skiing do it for the same reason they snowboard, because they think it's cool... We aren't trying to prove ourselves to snowboarders anymore, we've done that. We aren't trying to prove ourselves to the media anymore, we've done that. We aren't trying to prove ourselves to skiers... did we ever have to do that?
The reason behind me creating this thread is because I looked at an add for the Dew Tour and it said "snowboarding and freeskiing". Well, think about it... they don't call it freesnowboarding or any other variation of the word... who are we trying to separate ourselves from? racers? is that really important? We're living in a world where vacation skiers who only ski nice groomed runs are now doing so on twin tip skis while wearing the Orage TJ Pro Jacket the cute lady at the ski shop said looked good. Even so, is that person any less of a skier then the core?
I feel that as a sport, in the past decade we have come full circle. A perfect example of the mentality behind this is the intro/kinda outro to The Massive where Tanner was talking with the waitress about skiing. We're all skiers, is putting the label "free" on the front really make us better, or cooler? Lets get over ourselves and finally admit what we really are, and what we have been all along.
As Line coined oh so long ago: "I AM A SKIER". It's that simple.
