…now for the first time ever, instead of looking forward to the winter, I'm sad that the summer is over, and working out how much time I can spend in the Alps next summer.

How mad is that?

Totally understand where you're coming from.
Once the snow starts falling though and the ski trip is booked, everything will be back to normal. 🙂

Just got into the skiing lark a few years ago and always find it hard on my legs….after getting back on my bike after a long time away from riding and getting out every week since last November I am hoping the legs are a bit stronger for when I head to the Alps for a cheeky week in December

Any other top tips to get ski fit boys n girls ???

Getting fit for skiing is exactly the reason I started mtbing. It works too! My first run of my first bike fit ski holiday was from the top of Solaise down to Val d'Isere non stop, something normally only achievable (for me at least) after at least one week's skiing. I find gnarly downhills on the bike work the same quads as skiing so I try and lead with the wrong foot forward as often as possible to balance things up.
I don't understand the OP's sadness about the end of summer, autumn and winter riding is just as good fun! I got 17 snowy rides in last winter and it was brilliant. Come to think of it the 1st was Carn Ban Mor on Oct 4th so almost exactly a year ago. It must have been colder last year!

Sadly, there is no way to get ski fit other than to ski lots. I wonder now how I used to cope – I don't feel fit until 5 or 6 weeks into the season…

If you want to help your skiing, there are two things you need to do

1) core strength. A lot of skiing works your abs, obliques, glutes etc: look at a really good skier and you will see that the upper body appears to glide while the lower body (legs) acts as a shock absorber. The stronger your lower body is, the easier you will find it. Crunches, sit-ups and squats will help

2) get lessons. Doing things properly is a hell of a lot easier than fighting the ski to get it to do what you want.

First comment…
…take up SNOWBOARDING you ponce! :))

Second comment…
…am only a 1 or 2 weeks a season boarder and the MTBing was fantastic in improving basic strength. Could slide for hours and really get into technique without becoming totally wasted 🙂

Enjoy the winter rides!!

Cheers
Paul

i've got a few seasons under my belt now but when i was out for holidays last year i really struggled – not with overall aerobic fitness but more with leg strength. i found it difficult to complete a single descent without being in tons of pain in my quads. i felt weak, even though leading up to the holidays i had been doing so much mtbing (which i thought was going to help).

this year i am going to be doing lots of squat thrusts leading up to the holiday.

Doing both…. ie working out how many weeks I can get in the alps in Winter *and* how many weeks I can get in the Alps in summer.

Tempting to drop a week skiing, since I can drive to Innsbruck after work on a Friday, but it makes more sense to use the 5 public holidays in May here for MTBing and get a bonus ski week.

2 ski, 1 MTB trip pencilled in so far.

I'm just hope the Met Office has got the winter forcast about as acurate as the summer one – another couple of days at Yad Moss like this:

Or Weardale like this:

Haha – I spent a couple of days up at Yad Moss this last winter, pretty amazing actually. Hope we do get a decent winter again.

I agree that the two sports compliment each other both seasonally and in fitness. I find MTB is also quite core intensive as well as leg, so it works for snowboarding too. I do some additional exercises as snowboarding prep:

Burpee star jumps make you spring from a plank position into squat and them explode up which works on core and leg power – I try to do a small number as quick as possible to develop twitch/power muscle.

For me, the big advantage of biking is that I can do it fairly locally, whereas I only board 6-12 days a year. But I wish we had some more uplifts in our biking "resorts".

Me too! Started mtb to get fit for the dry slope race circuit back in '89. Did both until about 95, then ended up going cold turkey from skiing for 8 whole years, while living bikes. Now I'm as into skiing as you can be while living in the UK and see biking as a way to fill the void between ski holidays.

Last season I skied really hard and was pretty surprised how well my legs coped. One thing that helped a lot was pump track laps on a hardtail. Fairly similar leg extension/compression to skiing and great for upper body stability/leg mobility. 15 laps of our pump track gets the ski burn feeling! If you've not got a pump track, try to pump a bmx track.

It was definately a vintage pennine season. Got about 15days in intotal but quite one of the tow operator on quite a lot of those which cuts the hours down a bit.

Both clubs have been busy with summer maintainance – grass cutting, snow fencing, weather proofing buildings and the like. Yad Moss Poma is getting a new cable, last year's tow abuse and subsequent derailments finally did for the old one. Hopefully people will remember tows are for uplift not trick riding.

Practice on a flight of stairs and old ski's?

It was the opposite for me. I took up Mtbing 'cos I couldn't ski all year round and needed that mountain, fresh air, scare yourself, speedy type sport which is similar.

Agree that the mtbing does keep me fit for the ski holiday.