Eric Anderson of ABR Trails , Ironwood, Michigan recently pubished a review article in Cross Country Skier Magazine surveying the range of of snowmobiles for grooming ski trails. As the club is thinking about replacing the snowmobile I read the article with great interest. The article alluded to a grooming DVD so my interest was piqued.
The internet took me to ABR Trails home page http://www.abrski.com and I soon had a copy of the DVD coming across the Atlantic…
As a preface to this review I’d like to acknowledge Eric is pioneering a new gendre of film here – the ski grooming movie! Also you need vision and dedication to make a film with such limited audience, a sub set of nordic skiers! The other caveat about this review is what I know about grooming can be written on the back of a cigarette packet so maybe an experienced groomer might get something different out of this film.
The DVD lasted just over an hour and is divided into 10 chapters. The first few chapters cover grooming scenarios with different pieces of equipment used by ABR trails. ABR Trails seem to have an extensive selection of tools to hand! This is followed by a chapter about the Pisten Bully, the big daddy of grooming, then another chapter on some alternative machines you might want to use to pull a groomer, e.g lightweight tractor or a kubota 4×4 vehicle equipped with tracks.
Buried within this are some useful tips about grooming, for example keep up the revs up on your snowmobile motor when grooming down a hill so you keep the centrifugal clutch engaged and using a roller on too deep snow gives a surface that can look great but can be impossible to ski on. There also some pointers on how to drive a snowmobile to get the most out of it. Eric’s dedication to providing a great piste for his skiers also strongly comes across.
From a technical point of view the pictures are clear and well exposed witht the colour balance about right (which can be a problem filming in an almost white environment). The sound at points has some irritating camera noise on it and the commentary, occaisionally, becomes difficult to understand because of wind noise or noise from the snowmobile. The production values of this film will, of necessity, be limited by the money you will recover from sales of your DVD. Given this constraint the film quality is great. There were some shots of newly groomed trails that had me wondering how much a flight to the mid-west would cost!
What this film lacks is 3 chapters
- A definition of good grooming – and what to look out for. This could include some discussion of structuring a ski trail and snow transformation through mechanical and climatic influence.
- A classification of the types of tools used for grooming and their uses, this would help the viewer make sense of the selection that are presented later in the film.
- From the starting point that most viewers will be pisteing using a snowmobile, a discussion of what attributes to look for in a machine to choose. This could be a chance for Eric’s experience as a mechanical engineer to shine.
In conclusion, applause to Eric and his team for producing a DVD on this subject, however I feel I haven’t yet seen the definitive film on the subject!