A Visit To Voile

August 20, 2003--While in Salt Lake City for the Summer Outdoor Retailer show last week we thought it would be fun to pay a visit to our good friends at Voile Equipment, check out their factory and see what's new. We were greeted by Voile's General Manager David Grissom who was kind enough to lead us on a tour of the facility. Later we sat down with Dave and went over changes that will be implemented this season to Voile's popular VP-II and Hardwire bindings. We shot a five minute video during our visit and it is available in several versions for your viewing pleasure. We have also included 10 frame grabs below.

18mb Windows Media	28mb Quicktime
40mb Mpeg	1.6mb Quicktime (modem)

Dave Grissom met us out front and welcomed Neil and I into the Voile headquarters and production facility.
One of the first things we got a look at was this press where Voile has produced several hundred thousand of their aluminum shovels over the years. You couldn't help but get a feeling that here was a little bit of backcountry skiing history...
...especially when Dave explained that the mold was more than twenty years old and we stopped to consider how the sport has changed in all that time... but at least one thing had not!
Moving into the ski and splitboard manufacturing area, we were shown the new top-sheet material Voile is using in their latest ski, the Carbon Surf. Although it is softer, the material is superior in resisting chipping and gouging.
This is where both the splitboards and the skis are laid up by hand, then placed into one of the several ski presses, one of which is shown here against the wall. Heat and pressure is applied to bond the various fiberglass, carbon and core material layers together inside the mold.
This is the payoff, a fine looking ski that brings a smile to every manager's face!
We then went into Dave's office where he went over the changes to the VP-II and Hardwire bindings. This frame grab shows the new single- pivot VP-II, which also gets an improved heel throw next season as well.
Here is the 03/04 Hardwire, sporting a redesigned riser with a bit of angle from front to back to reduce rocker launch. The rigid rod attachment point (pivots) have also been reworked to give the rods a more free motion.
Another change to the Hardwire are these spring pre-load indicators which guide the user in setting up the spring cartridges to Voile's specs, as well as allowing for more uniform preload.
It was a fun tour and we got a great feel for Voile's position as a small grass-roots sort of company run by telemark and backcountry skiers, for telemark and backcountry skiers. Everybody here pitches in to get the job done.

As we were leaving we ran into Mark (MC), one of the co-owners, coming in from the factory with a work apron on and looking a little worked, but like everyone we met at Voile, he was smiling and appeared to be having a good time turning out some of the best "no bs" gear in the business.

It would seem impossible to come away from a visit to Voile without gaining a lot of respect for the people who make it happen there, and for the job they do. Neil and I certainly did.