It’s a place where individualism and small businesses rule.
That company is Sego Skis, a small company focusing on making high quality big-mountain and powder skis.
Their five-ski lineup covers almost every sort of terrain you could want to tackle in the Tetons.
Then onto the Ranger, their all mountain/all condition key in of ski coming in at 98mm underfoot.
Another all mountain offering is the Prospect, Segos most playful ski.
The lineup: Saskatoon, Ranger, Clever, and the Prospect.
Photo; @segoskis
1.)
To start this off, where did the name Sego come from?
What was your history in ski making and the ski industry?
Tim: Sego is the state flower of Utah; its also an indigenous flower to the area.
Its one of the first flowers to come up in the spring through the snow.
Its a really robust flower that looks good.
But at the end of the day we wanted a short, sharp name that people remember.
Weve been building skis for about 4 years now.
I came from a corporate background and was unhappy with the lifestyle.
What was your home mountain growing up?
Where do you primarily ski now?
Tim: We ski at Targhee mainly, occasionally making it to Jackson.
Home mountain was Greek Peak, in upstate New York.
Small little mountain but had 46 trails with a little bit of everything.
It was around 800 vertical, great little east coast mountain.
Why did you guys pick Victor, ID as a home base?
And the community is really focused on that as well.
Proximity to Jackson as well, its a big and busy market.
Peter: Everyone was like, what can we do to help?
And we were just excited they were so stoked.
We knew this was going to work.
Where the magic happens.
A pair of Rangers waiting to be cut out and finished.
)How many skis were you guys expecting to produce this season?
How do you maintain consistency within the final product?
The CNC machine is very consistant, and doesnt leave anything up to chance.
The whole process weve put together were meant to be able to scale.
Were setup and have the space to do several thousand skis per year.
We really focus on our tuning, and our final tune.
What other activities interest you other than skiing and ski building?
Tim: Honestly, wine.
I like to drink to wine and beer.
The bike shop in town setup coffee, so why not wine?
Mountain bike a lot in the summer.
Thats another one of the reasons were here, the active lifestyle.
What factors influence the way you design a ski?
Tim: Thats more of a Peter question but I can answer as well.
The skis this season are more big-mountain oriented.
My designs will change, as our demographic changes but as a new company.
)Have you guys thought about making a womens specific ski?
Peter: Were designing skis for ladies with Lynsey Dyer, pretty stoked on that.
You know, Ive made womens skis in the past, and Im not a woman.
What other brands and/or people in the industry influence you?
What do you see as the greatest areas for improvement after year one of Sego?
Tim: Getting on the mountain more.
Continue to develop the product line.
We got a late start this season, so just having more skis.
This is kind of our second time starting a factory so were pretty happy with how everything went.
Who does all the graphics for the skis?
Who is responsible for the base graphic?
Two of our topsheets were done by a waitress at a wine bar we frequented all the time.
People were always interested when they ask what we do, and it kind of goes from there.
Art looks good on skis as well.
For our womens line next year were going to the same base but inverse the blue and the pink.
We went with screen print instead of die-cut or sublimation graphics and it pops.
The bases used throughout the lineup
11.)
How many employees and athletes does the company have?
What does the future hold for Sego?
Sego athlete Morgan McGlashon placed second in the SFS event at Telluride.
The soon to be famous Sego bar.
Huge thanks to everyone at Sego; Tim, Peter and Hannah.
Instagram: @segoskis
