The hard stuff makes me strongerThere I was, just the other day, on the wrong side of an Alp to get all that snow. I'd packed my 193 free ride super-stiffies in anticipation of exhausting myself with a day's powder. As it was, we managed about four inches of snow all week so I was left to prove that my overtly manly planks were up to the job of scurrying about on the piste.
I'd also taken the precaution of packing my Typhoons, a pretty stiff freeride touring boot but one lacking the guts of a proper piste-to-freeride welly. So, fully gunned for the deep stuff, I was faced with what turned out to be infinite laps of the Sella Ronda at breakneck pace on a quiet week. The pistes were in spectacular condition with barely a skittery patch all week, save for the top of the overly popular Sasslong downhill course. It still meant I could have used 20cm less in the long and 20mm less in the waist to get the most out of the slopes.
Fall-Line does have a tendency to rattle on about how fatties can hold a candle to piste skis, and how freeride skis are the all-mountain skis to be seen on these days. Since I tend to be one of the rattlers-on, it was up to me to persuade my bemused fellow skiers that I wasn't on a masochist's week away but was actually Having Fun.
I also tend to forget that the first drops off Selva's Ciampianoi lift on either side is excitingly steep and busy for the first few yards before sorting themselves out into bewitchingly rolly runs that play to anyone's strengths. So, for the first time in a year or so, I looked at my first turns on snow for the season with a slight tremor to the knee. Will the well-spaced edges bite in this stuff? Will the boots drive the turn? can I still ski?
As it turns out, like a bicycle, I can still get on and go. Not quite as dashingly as if I were on a setup more specific to hardback, but within a few turns I'm in some sort of a groove. After a while, on the hero groomers we kept coming across between Corvara and Arabba, and with the boots cranked up a notch, it came together very nicely. That'll be the Day Two sweetspot.
By Day Five, despite a fair bit of cycling before the trip,the relentless pace of piste hammering was starting to chew at the unprepared bits of my legs. Big skis need some muscle to keep swinging them around and I was being found out. The grip was there, but the pace had to go.
It was on the return that I really noticed the effort I'd been putting in. I (and the others, happily) were trashed for a week. According to the online results we'd been putting in 40km days with around 17-20 lifts per day, which is above the average of 12 lifts per day in a resort like, say, Verbier. It's hard to quantify exactly how this equates to other resorts because we were generally going from one place to another rather than lapping a lift.
I'd reckon that using bigger skis on paste was more tiring than taking some skinny rippers, but it also felt like it was doing special things for my technique, making me work harder to get the skis going. It'll be interesting to see how it affects the next trip. Hopefully it's beaten me into some sort of shape, rather than knocked me out of it...
Posted by Dickie Fincher - Wed, 15/02/2012 - 10:21pm
There I was, just the other day, on the wrong side of an Alp to get all that snow. I'd packed my 193 free ride super-stiffies in anticipation of exhausting myself with a day's powder. As it was, we managed about four inches of snow all week so I was left to prove that my overtly manly planks were up to the job of scurrying about on the piste.
I'd also taken the precaution of packing my Typhoons, a pretty stiff freeride touring boot but one lacking the guts of a proper piste-to-freeride welly. So, fully gunned for the deep stuff, I was faced with what turned out to be infinite laps of the Sella Ronda at breakneck pace on a quiet week. The pistes were in spectacular condition with barely a skittery patch all week, save for the top of the overly popular Sasslong downhill course. It still meant I could have used 20cm less in the long and 20mm less in the waist to get the most out of the slopes.
Fall-Line does have a tendency to rattle on about how fatties can hold a candle to piste skis, and how freeride skis are the all-mountain skis to be seen on these days. Since I tend to be one of the rattlers-on, it was up to me to persuade my bemused fellow skiers that I wasn't on a masochist's week away but was actually Having Fun.
I also tend to forget that the first drops off Selva's Ciampianoi lift on either side is excitingly steep and busy for the first few yards before sorting themselves out into bewitchingly rolly runs that play to anyone's strengths. So, for the first time in a year or so, I looked at my first turns on snow for the season with a slight tremor to the knee. Will the well-spaced edges bite in this stuff? Will the boots drive the turn? can I still ski?
As it turns out, like a bicycle, I can still get on and go. Not quite as dashingly as if I were on a setup more specific to hardback, but within a few turns I'm in some sort of a groove. After a while, on the hero groomers we kept coming across between Corvara and Arabba, and with the boots cranked up a notch, it came together very nicely. That'll be the Day Two sweetspot.
By Day Five, despite a fair bit of cycling before the trip,the relentless pace of piste hammering was starting to chew at the unprepared bits of my legs. Big skis need some muscle to keep swinging them around and I was being found out. The grip was there, but the pace had to go.
It was on the return that I really noticed the effort I'd been putting in. I (and the others, happily) were trashed for a week. According to the online results we'd been putting in 40km days with around 17-20 lifts per day, which is above the average of 12 lifts per day in a resort like, say, Verbier. It's hard to quantify exactly how this equates to other resorts because we were generally going from one place to another rather than lapping a lift.
I'd reckon that using bigger skis on paste was more tiring than taking some skinny rippers, but it also felt like it was doing special things for my technique, making me work harder to get the skis going. It'll be interesting to see how it affects the next trip. Hopefully it's beaten me into some sort of shape, rather than knocked me out of it...