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Introducing WNDR Alpine

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wndr_alpine
Posts: 10 - Karma: 136
Hey Newschoolers, Matt Sterbenz here with another episode of Tech Talk! Just kidding, but seriously I should get with Sam Peters this season and make a few episodes for old times sake. So yeah, it’s been a minute, and now I’m signing in under a new name, WNDR-alpine.

So as some of you know, about a year ago, I began working with Checkerspot, a materials company out of Berkeley, CA using biotechnology rooted in converting algae into oils that produce new materials for specific product applications. I decided to come back to NS to shed a little light on my journey since leaving 4FRNT and talk about what my current project may mean for our future and my aspirations for our sport.

Some background: Those that work in the industry are well aware that the variety of raw materials available to ski builders is typically very limited. Everyone has access to roughly the same palette of materials from suppliers. And given how small our industry is in the grand scheme of things, at no point are any large scale materials suppliers designing performance materials specifically for use in ski products. We’ve simply been adapting available materials for our own uses. This left me wondering about the potential of new materials – ones that were designed specifically to boost performance when integrated into a ski.

So the limitations of traditional materials suppliers made Checkerspot’s capabilities all the more intriguing, as these materials can be engineered from the ground up to produce novel performance characteristics - ones that were previously inaccessible by global suppliers of plastics, resins, composites, etc. I joined forces with Checkerspot and began prototyping some of these materials to improve a ski’s performance.

Back in January, we got our first skis on snow, and shortly after I was milling about and chatting with friends at the ski show in Denver. Sorting through the various trends at the show, it became clear how special the material was that we created. So much like I did back in the day with 4FRNT, we decided to start a brand that would serve as our home for new technology and share it with a community of skiers direct from our website.

So today we’re launching WNDR Alpine (http://www.wndr-alpine.com) - a new outdoor brand that utilizes this technology to take product performance in our industry to new heights. Our first product is the Intention 110 – a versatile and balanced backcountry ski that utilizes a new algal composite in its core for better performance on descents and up the skin track.

I’m just as stoked to be able to introduce you all to my latest project, as well to see our skis on feet this fall!

Party on,

Matt

**This thread was edited on Jul 8th 2019 at 5:27:34pm
6 years ago
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oldmanski
Posts: 3619 - Karma: 27,061
Looking forward to seeing these new skis! Always cool to hear of something new being introduced, do you have any pictures of the ski?
6 years ago
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JoeF2661
Posts: 1627 - Karma: 6,302
Stoked to see the new skis.
6 years ago
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JoeF2661
Posts: 1627 - Karma: 6,302
Stoked to see the new skis.
6 years ago
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e.will
Posts: 1981 - Karma: 967
Cool. So the angle is performance driven, not an eco-focused ethos? What exactly is the Algae doing? damping?

Super curious.
6 years ago
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wndr_alpine
Posts: 10 - Karma: 136
e.willCool. So the angle is performance driven, not an eco-focused ethos? What exactly is the Algae doing? damping?

Super curious.

I think we're all of the mindset today that any new innovation needs to be rooted in sustainable and renewable technology, but that we need more than a substitute origin of material, we need better performing products. The algae oil allows for us to improve materials beyond current petrochemical capacity. While we all know the first skis were of wood and leather, the current ski design, the one which we rely on for multiple seasons worth of use and performance, are leveraged largely by oil rich plastics, to be more precise, polyurethanes. So our focus is to elevate the performance characteristics of modern day ski building materials by using the Algae to fuel our technology. The current application is a high density composite core, that increases torsional stiffness and improves current strength to weight standards. You can find some of that charted data on the Intention 110 ski page. Dampness is also a benefit to our core design because as you can imagine, hard woods transmit frequency quite well with their long fibers, but cellular material like our composite is quite insulating as there is little room for frequency to travel so while we have started to test these characteristics, and we know from field test that they are quite damp, we are still charting the graphs to present that data. As with any new technology, there is a lot of discovery still to happen but you can always trust we'll be working to isolate materials and present their characteristics in raw form. Thanks for askin! - Matt

**This post was edited on Jul 8th 2019 at 5:54:53pm
6 years ago
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lilneuman420
Posts: 17 - Karma: 111
It would be interesting to see how this ski compares to a wood core over the life span of the ski. Does flex change after repeated use, can the core get waterlogged, does extreme cold or heat effect the performance
6 years ago
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Malczyk
Posts: 1435 - Karma: 1,895
4frnt, wndr ... wtf you have against vowels Matt?! Jokes aside this is great! Excited to see the new tech in the market. -j
6 years ago
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wndr_alpine
Posts: 10 - Karma: 136
Malczyk4frnt, wndr ... wtf you have against vowels Matt?! Jokes aside this is great! Excited to see the new tech in the market. -j

I'm a disemvoweler. Thanks Josh!
6 years ago
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wndr_alpine
Posts: 10 - Karma: 136
lilneuman420It would be interesting to see how this ski compares to a wood core over the life span of the ski. Does flex change after repeated use, can the core get waterlogged, does extreme cold or heat effect the performance

Great question. We feel great about the longevity and durability of the current product. We have a profiling machine that we can run tests on on a variety of specs, but to your question, to measure bulk strength and torsional strength. We test off the press, after minimal use and at season end. Room temp, outdoor temp and below freezing. The sample set is small but growing with every pair off the press. We are also in the process of mechanically measuring life cycle where we use a gear motor to count rotations flexing and reflexing the ski. Based on X amount of rotations, we can re-profile the flex curve and see how it changed. The data will all be forward facing on the site as this will lead us to ways of improving the current materials used in ski building today. If this is the kind of stuff you are interested in, we are going to be posting a new Mechanical Intern position starting in September for you or anyone interested in the SLC area to come and help out? Thanks - Matt
6 years ago
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yhprum1720
Posts: 363 - Karma: 497
Do we say "win-der" or "wine-der"?
6 years ago
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yhprum1720
Posts: 363 - Karma: 497
Or wonder
6 years ago
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Denseclouds
Posts: 536 - Karma: 3,193
yhprum1720Or wonder


Wonder.
6 years ago
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LukeTheWaffle
Posts: 1847 - Karma: 8,894
DensecloudsWonder.


I like wonder
6 years ago
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JoeF2661
Posts: 1627 - Karma: 6,302
Is that a pelican for their logo?
6 years ago
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IslePuny
Posts: 7 - Karma: 12
niiice, leaving 4frnt cant be a bad move ahah
6 years ago
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wndr_alpine
Posts: 10 - Karma: 136
JoeF2661Is that a pelican for their logo?

Our logo is a Snow Owl, but Pelicans are sweet too!
6 years ago
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-eREKTion-
Posts: 1632 - Karma: 10,987
The camber shape looks sick, right about ideal for me in terms of weight/radius/shape. Based in Berkeley, any chance we might have a demo down here in Mammoth? I'd love to take a few laps on a pair.

Also, Matt, how would you describe the handflex in the tips/underfoot/tails?

Last, who's building these? Elan?
6 years ago
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Skibumsmith
Posts: 5469 - Karma: 12,381
wndr_alpineDampness is also a benefit to our core design because as you can imagine, hard woods transmit frequency quite well with their long fibers, but cellular material like our composite is quite insulating as there is little room for frequency to travel so while we have started to test these characteristics, and we know from field test that they are quite damp, we are still charting the graphs to present that data. As with any new technology, there is a lot of discovery still to happen but you can always trust we'll be working to isolate materials and present their characteristics in raw form. Thanks for askin! - Matt

**This post was edited on Jul 8th 2019 at 5:54:53pm


Can you talk a little more about dampness testing. How do you test that? What sort of data do you get from the tests and how do you use that data to characterize a skis dampness? Are you just trying to find the camping coefficient for a given material or are you testing actual skis? I’m just really curious. Thanks.
6 years ago
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wndr_alpine
Posts: 10 - Karma: 136
SkibumsmithCan you talk a little more about dampness testing. How do you test that? What sort of data do you get from the tests and how do you use that data to characterize a skis dampness? Are you just trying to find the camping coefficient for a given material or are you testing actual skis? I’m just really curious. Thanks.

Killer question, thanks for asking. Lauren, our material scientist, starts with Instron (3pt bend; tensile, impact, fatigue) and DMA (Dynamic Mechanical Analysis) tests she performs in our Berkeley lab with super small coupon specimens that represent different formulated materials. We test lots of materials in current ski design, not just our own, with these machines to understand their behavior and establish a baseline characteristic. Then we move onto who ski material testing and this is where our SLC facility plays a critical role as the dimensions of ski material exceed traditional lab testing dimensions. We test raw parts and whole ski composition with an impulse machine that we fabricated. The load strikes the ski at an array of contact points, and using a string potentiometer, we can chart frequency (vibrations) as a result of the impact. The whole ski data is still being collected but we'll release the results once we reach a critical sample set of measurements. We are also working with outside engineers about ways to even further simulate dampness from on edge, much like we feel on snow. The more we look into it, the more ways there are to isolate these characteristics, and industries like ours seeking similar data (ie. hockey). We dug up a really awesome frequency report some legendary K2 engineers did back in the day and we've looked at their setups a few times and how they measured the data for reference. Nearly all their tests were performed on snow. That stuff is wild and it's perhaps a lost art form but those dudes were really onto something back in the day when all skis were the same dimension and brands were really focused on differentiating themselves from competitors with different construction techniques and materials. Some material companies that had brands back in the day are now lead suppliers of composites to aerospace. Pretty cool to see the passion in skiing fuel those other industries innovation as well. It's also funny to see history repeats itself a bit with a lot of brands making not only the same shape, but also out of the same materials. And that's where we fit in. Thanks for asking and stay tuned to more graphs and squiggly lines! - Matt
6 years ago
3 0
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wndr_alpine
Posts: 10 - Karma: 136
-eREKTion-The camber shape looks sick, right about ideal for me in terms of weight/radius/shape. Based in Berkeley, any chance we might have a demo down here in Mammoth? I'd love to take a few laps on a pair.

Also, Matt, how would you describe the handflex in the tips/underfoot/tails?

Last, who's building these? Elan?

Glad to hear you dig our dimensions! The shape was our first project and I called my friend Logan Imlach to help me do it. We wanted it to float well in the powder but also turn on hard pack. I've been on Hoji's 30m reverse camber designs forever so it was a little adjustment back to sidecut in powder but all around function, which was how we tested these, I really enjoyed the response they had. I had built up this opinion that sidecut skis can't ski fast but I learned I was wrong, these were plenty fast, and grippy. We'll make a couple more models, one narrower and another wider, perhaps with more or less taper and sidecut, just to round out a quiver to support the fall, winter and spring ski touring seasonal snowpack but we wanted to start in the middle with the 110, and it worked great for me all season. I'm really excited for the 192, as I'm 6'2 and I’m use to a bit longer ski. The mount point is also only 7cm back so you feel quite centered making longer lengths a bit more nimble.

Re: Mammoth, maybe someday but I gotta be honest, I have been up and down in that town trying to appease dealers and sell skis and it's just not for me this go around. If we do have demo's, it'll be because our friends want to help promote them. If you are interested, head over to the site and click the button at the bottom that reads, Ski with Us and we'll figure it out.

The flex is progressively stiffer front to back. There is a short rise in the tail but just to add the pop in and out of the turn and aid in the surfiness in pow. The flex graph is on the ski page. Pretty standard bell curve with a wide sweet spot under foot. The biggest change we made in the testing process was mellowing out the apex of the core we originally drew to be a little more even flexing. This gives the ski’s tip and tail a little reinforcement going into the turn but also you feel the ski flex through the turn which give you a good feel for how much load there is as you release and transition to your opposite edge.

Your question about the origin, and it's fun you brought up Elan because they make awesome skis and still do for many brands. Someday we will outsource, but right now we are too small so we are making them ourselves here in SLC. We'll roll out more info about the ski building process through our social in the coming days, weeks, months but until we get a bit more experience with our product and increase sales we won't be asking anyone for help in making these for us. It's too fun to just hand off at this stage! - Matt
6 years ago
6 0
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-eREKTion-
Posts: 1632 - Karma: 10,987
wndr_alpineGlad to hear you dig our dimensions! The shape was our first project and I called my friend Logan Imlach to help me do it. We wanted it to float well in the powder but also turn on hard pack. I've been on Hoji's 30m reverse camber designs forever so it was a little adjustment back to sidecut in powder but all around function, which was how we tested these, I really enjoyed the response they had. I had built up this opinion that sidecut skis can't ski fast but I learned I was wrong, these were plenty fast, and grippy. We'll make a couple more models, one narrower and another wider, perhaps with more or less taper and sidecut, just to round out a quiver to support the fall, winter and spring ski touring seasonal snowpack but we wanted to start in the middle with the 110, and it worked great for me all season. I'm really excited for the 192, as I'm 6'2 and I’m use to a bit longer ski. The mount point is also only 7cm back so you feel quite centered making longer lengths a bit more nimble.

Re: Mammoth, maybe someday but I gotta be honest, I have been up and down in that town trying to appease dealers and sell skis and it's just not for me this go around. If we do have demo's, it'll be because our friends want to help promote them. If you are interested, head over to the site and click the button at the bottom that reads, Ski with Us and we'll figure it out.

The flex is progressively stiffer front to back. There is a short rise in the tail but just to add the pop in and out of the turn and aid in the surfiness in pow. The flex graph is on the ski page. Pretty standard bell curve with a wide sweet spot under foot. The biggest change we made in the testing process was mellowing out the apex of the core we originally drew to be a little more even flexing. This gives the ski’s tip and tail a little reinforcement going into the turn but also you feel the ski flex through the turn which give you a good feel for how much load there is as you release and transition to your opposite edge.

Your question about the origin, and it's fun you brought up Elan because they make awesome skis and still do for many brands. Someday we will outsource, but right now we are too small so we are making them ourselves here in SLC. We'll roll out more info about the ski building process through our social in the coming days, weeks, months but until we get a bit more experience with our product and increase sales we won't be asking anyone for help in making these for us. It's too fun to just hand off at this stage! - Matt


Thanks for the legit response, man. Cool to hear Logan is involved, he's come a long way since superunknown.

More shapes should be rad but 110 with that little tail rocker and a -7 mount sounds like a perfect eastern sierra one ski touring quiver.

I get the aversion to the shops around here, they're pretty set in their ways. P3 Freeride and Mammoth Mountaineering are both low key spots that seem to be open to options other than legacy brands... if you're even looking for dealers at this stage.

No shade was intended towards Elan, they make solid skis but it's cool to hear your pressing them in the US right now. I've never heard any complaints about the sticks you built in the whiteroom before.
6 years ago
3 0
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Skibumsmith
Posts: 5469 - Karma: 12,381
wndr_alpineKiller question, thanks for asking. Lauren, our material scientist, starts with Instron (3pt bend; tensile, impact, fatigue) and DMA (Dynamic Mechanical Analysis) tests she performs in our Berkeley lab with super small coupon specimens that represent different formulated materials. We test lots of materials in current ski design, not just our own, with these machines to understand their behavior and establish a baseline characteristic. Then we move onto who ski material testing and this is where our SLC facility plays a critical role as the dimensions of ski material exceed traditional lab testing dimensions. We test raw parts and whole ski composition with an impulse machine that we fabricated. The load strikes the ski at an array of contact points, and using a string potentiometer, we can chart frequency (vibrations) as a result of the impact. The whole ski data is still being collected but we'll release the results once we reach a critical sample set of measurements. We are also working with outside engineers about ways to even further simulate dampness from on edge, much like we feel on snow. The more we look into it, the more ways there are to isolate these characteristics, and industries like ours seeking similar data (ie. hockey). We dug up a really awesome frequency report some legendary K2 engineers did back in the day and we've looked at their setups a few times and how they measured the data for reference. Nearly all their tests were performed on snow. That stuff is wild and it's perhaps a lost art form but those dudes were really onto something back in the day when all skis were the same dimension and brands were really focused on differentiating themselves from competitors with different construction techniques and materials. Some material companies that had brands back in the day are now lead suppliers of composites to aerospace. Pretty cool to see the passion in skiing fuel those other industries innovation as well. It's also funny to see history repeats itself a bit with a lot of brands making not only the same shape, but also out of the same materials. And that's where we fit in. Thanks for asking and stay tuned to more graphs and squiggly lines! - Matt


Really cool shit thanks for answering. If you don't mind could you post the link to the K2 report. I love geeking out over that stuff. Is Pep gonna work with you guys when he finishes at the U?
Are you referring to Hexcel skis?
Cheers!
6 years ago
1 0
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wndr_alpine
Posts: 10 - Karma: 136
SkibumsmithReally cool shit thanks for answering. If you don't mind could you post the link to the K2 report. I love geeking out over that stuff. Is Pep gonna work with you guys when he finishes at the U?
Are you referring to Hexcel skis?
Cheers!

I'm not of liberty to share others data, but more importantly I'm working on setting up a showroom at our Design Lab in SLC where you can get a tour to see the machines we are using to generate our own data. I'll post the location and all that once we get it dialed in, shooting for Sept. 1 timeframe! - Matt
6 years ago
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wndr_alpine
Posts: 10 - Karma: 136
What’s up Newschoolers, Matt Sterbenz here again.

It’s been a hell of a journey since we launched WNDR Alpine last year. I’m just dropping in to reopen this thread and thank all who participated in the conversation for giving us your thoughts, asking questions, and providing inspiration to keep innovating and proving what we do as we move forward and grow. So thank you for all for your questions and curiosity, be it about pelicans, owls or ski construction!

This last year has culminated in a lot of additional product development, so I wanted to give you guys a heads up about what’s going on.

As promised, we have new materials and new applications coming down the pipeline, and despite the shortened season, we have had an amazing time exploring, sharing and evaluating ways to improve our ways and how to build even better skis. As this forum is a place that has informed us, challenged us, and excited us, we’ll be revealing some content next week on July 8th and look forward to see what you think and what questions you may have for how we got to where we are and ultimately, how that is setting us up for next season and beyond.

Bye for now,

Matt
5 years ago
12 0
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STAUSS
Posts: 8232 - Karma: 3,311
wndr_alpineWhat’s up Newschoolers, Matt Sterbenz here again.

It’s been a hell of a journey since we launched WNDR Alpine last year. I’m just dropping in to reopen this thread and thank all who participated in the conversation for giving us your thoughts, asking questions, and providing inspiration to keep innovating and proving what we do as we move forward and grow. So thank you for all for your questions and curiosity, be it about pelicans, owls or ski construction!

This last year has culminated in a lot of additional product development, so I wanted to give you guys a heads up about what’s going on.

As promised, we have new materials and new applications coming down the pipeline, and despite the shortened season, we have had an amazing time exploring, sharing and evaluating ways to improve our ways and how to build even better skis. As this forum is a place that has informed us, challenged us, and excited us, we’ll be revealing some content next week on July 8th and look forward to see what you think and what questions you may have for how we got to where we are and ultimately, how that is setting us up for next season and beyond.

Bye for now,

Matt


HYPE TRAIN!

Loved skiing on the Intention 110 all winter. Epic touring kit! Fast, light, rip-able and versatile.

And yes to echo many in here - so rad to be innovating with new, sustainable tech and hand-built in slc. Those are two huge components for me, and something totally unique in the ski industry.

The third thing that excites me about WNDR is the community they have built and are continuing to foster. Check out the video recap of the Roost.

They really want to build a brand that is inclusive, progressive, and rad that makes environmentally conscious gear. Hell yea to that.
5 years ago
3 0
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hemlockjibber8
Posts: 6003 - Karma: 3,694
wndr_alpineDampness is also a benefit to our core design because as you can imagine, - Matt

**This post was edited on Jul 8th 2019 at 5:54:53pm
[/b]
That's super sweet that you are committed to making skis wet, but how is the vibration reduction?
5 years ago
1 0
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jca
Posts: 4180 - Karma: 6,366
hemlockjibber8That's super sweet that you are committed to making skis wet, but how is the vibration reduction?


How do you keep the moisture in the core?
5 years ago
0 0
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wndr_alpine
Posts: 10 - Karma: 136
What’s up Newschoolers, I’m back.

Today we launched the Vital 100 - an all-new ski for the 20-21 season, designed for technical backcountry skiing in the high alpine.

Complementing the Vital 100’s shape and Algal Core is a brand new sidewall material we’ve named Algal Wall. This is the first of its kind - a biobased cast polyurethane sidewall constructed with microalgae oil and engineered specifically for ski performance.

We’re quite proud of this advancement, as it further increases the biobased content of our ski, and offers the industry a performance built replacement for conventional, petroleum-based ABS sidewalls.

Beyond that, it also enables new manufacturing techniques. While conventional sidewalls arrive to ski manufacturers in a solid state and must be cut, trimmed and epoxied into place, our Algal Wall construction begins with a liquid that is poured (cast) into a trench that surrounds the core. This creates a sidewall that natively bonds to micropores in the ski’s core as it hardens, eliminating the need for additional adhesives to join the two components. The result is a more direct connection between the core and sidewall, and a more cohesive ski construction overall. To top it all off, the casting of the sidewall is a near zero waste process.

Along with this new product release, we’re also updating our original Intention 110 ski with the new Algal Wall construction.

All of this progress is due to the continued growth of our in-house materials science capabilities at our Design Lab in SLC. This ski technology platform, which we’ve affectionately named AlgalTech, will be enabling further materials development in the coming seasons.

If you want to learn more about what we’ve built, I encourage you to check out our new website, respond with any questions you have on this thread, or simply come out and ski with us at next year’s WNDR Roost!

Cheers,

Matt
5 years ago
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hemlockjibber8
Posts: 6003 - Karma: 3,694
That’s sick technology. Literally dampening the core.
5 years ago
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freestyler540
Posts: 13237 - Karma: 20,451
Those skis sound dope.
But Im looking for more of a superlight competition ski touring ski. 2000g a ski is too heavy.
5 years ago
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