Fabulously fat

It takes commitment to cut up a $1,200 pair of skis, but they were Alex Herbert’s favourite pair and he just had to know what made them so good. Five years ago, the Lyttelton-based skier was working as a ski technician and saw overseas skis literally fall apart on the rough New Zealand terrain. Simultaneously, a growing number of free (that is, extreme) skiers were excited about fat skis, which were near impossible to find here. Fat, you see, can be fabulous. Well, at least when you’re talking skiing, especially on powder.

Herbert wanted a fat ski that would last, and it seemed the only way he was going to get a pair that fit the bill was to make them himself. In order to do that, he ripped apart his favourite French Dynastar skis to see just how it was done.

One of the biggest challenges was finding the right core. Skis are literally a sandwich of materials and the core is key. Traditionally used woods such as spruce or beech are often hard to source and even trickier is the fact that two slices of wood from the same tree can result in differently performing skis. The large European manufacturers get around this by producing hundreds of skis at once and then matching the pairs afterwards.

In one of those serendipitous moments, Alex’s wife, Kris, a freelance magazine writer, wrote a story on bamboo flooring. She discovered bamboo planks coming into New Zealand from China as hardwood floor had exactly the right dimensions her husband wanted for his skis. Bamboo now forms the core of Herbert’s skis (his company, Kingswood Skis, and an exclusive German ski manufacturer are the only two in the world to do so).

Sam Masters, editor of Australia’s premier ski magazine, Powder Hound, was asked to trial one of the bamboo-core prototypes and is now a convert. “The crucial aspect of bamboo is that it’s the ultimate compromise between shock absorption and providing a lovely even flex and pop,” says Masters. “The fat skis also took my skiing to another level, and now I can laugh at the other skiers.

“There are a million and one variables when you go skiing so ski design is really beyond the realm of science. It’s all about testing and refining, and having a special feel that experience brings.”

It’s experience that both Alex and Kris have plenty of: 54 years of skiing between the two of them, including 14 consecutive winters working in ski fields around the world. Kris Herbert also did a four-month stint in Antarctica (and yes, she took some Kingswood skis with her). Both understand ski design dynamics and intuitively know building in too much dampening — or shock absorption — stops the pop or flex of the ski, making it less stable.

But the business of selling is causing more than a few sleepless nights.

A lack of confidence stopped Alex Herbert asking for a bank loan when he started the company. “Basically we haven’t been spending any money on ourselves. We live really frugally and we’ve been sinking everything back into the business.” But once they knew they had a product that worked, they borrowed $20,000 from Kris’s family to make a better press and buy materials for the first 50 pairs of skis they planned to make and sell in the first year.

Kingswood Skis officially hit the market in July last year and they’ve already sold 100 pairs, double what they budgeted for and taking the first year revenue to $73,000. Herbert has more than doubled his next order of materials for a new batch of 150 skis. “Shipping costs for the material we get from Europe are huge, so economy of scale is really important.”

And despite being limited edition and handmade, the $950 pairs of skis cost less than the comparable-quality European brands, which retail for around $1,200. “My original mission statement was to make fat skis for the masses, so the skis I made had to be affordable, so everyone would enjoy going for a ski and have fun. We worked out the costs and how much we needed to live on and priced them around that. We’re not greedy. We want to take things slowly and build the brand.”

The pair is quickly building a loyal market in Europe but decided to look for a market closer to home after struggling with high duties and shipping costs. With its great skiing conditions and low duties, Japan appeared the most promising market and Herbert has appointed a Japanese distributor. “He was a client of ours and is passionate about the skis. He is also developing a Japanese language website for us, because although we record the highest number of website hits from Japan we never get any email enquiries from there. We were told it’s because the Japanese are embarrassed about writing in English, so adapting to make ourselves accessible to that market is vital.”

As the business grows, Herbert has kept his former favourite skis to remind him that anything is possible — only now they hang on his wall in 66 pieces.