The STW Ski & Snowboard thread. The 2015-2016 season

Cheers 10, much appreciated.

Stoner, more detailed email to follow (Odd connection probs in da hood today!) but as others have said, prices usually don’t include footbeds, but you should probably get them. Also, not all boots can be moulded, some rely on their shell shape alone.

Timely reminder not to litter in the mountains or anywhere really

Hi guys, starting to plan this winter’s trip to the Alps. Any tips on finding accommodation?

Looking for a chalet for around 13 people, roughly £500/person for a week, catered would be nice but not essential, not particularly set on any resort, as long as there’s good snow!

Any suggestions would be great 🙂

Thanks,
Duane.

finally decided on Avoriaz .

@Thetallpaul check out action outdoors.

http://www.action-outdoors.co.uk/ they’re the uk booking company for a French based sporting ‘charity’ called UCPA. The idea being that it provides cost effective winter sports. Action Outdoors specialise in solo travellers really. I’ve been on their solo travellers feb half term trip for the last two years. 2014 there was about 15 of us with me then aged 27 as one of the youngest. This year there were nearly 30 of us and at 28 more than 50% of the group were younger! Awesome trips though, great people, great food and most of all great snow 🙂

I’m going twice with them this year!

Duane, these guys are really nice, the chalet and food are great. It’s a 5 minute walk to the gondola at Courchecal le Praznhm-ski[/url]
Nick and Heather both know all 3 valleys like the back of their hand and will usually ski with guests to show them around if required. They can usually get you a bit of discount on ski hire too.

Duane . Try Chalets Direct for starters . Get as much detail in your requirements and let the owners contact you.

Stoner. 2nd Colin at S4Feet. I went for custom footbeds , @ £120 not cheap , but a great investment. He measured my feet and flexability and recomended Atomic Hawx for me. Did an Ebay notification thing and got a brand new , never used pair of Hawx for £80.

You cant beat good fitting boots.

Not sure of my winter hols this year yet , potential new job on the horizon might spanner things up. I do have a new to me set of Shoguns to try in the powder if I do get away.

Very timely post singletrackmind. If anyone is interested we’re selling Jnr’s Atomic Hawx size 28.5 if anyone is after a pair of boots in very good condition. They’ve only lasted two weeks away plus probably getting on for 50 sessions at Xscape MK (they’re about 1 year old). We’re after £65 (delivered) for them and will throw in an Atomic boot bag.

Another good report for Ski Exchange in Cambridge too. They fitted Jnr for new boots earlier in the week, usual excellent fit. But it turned out that the bindings on Jnr’s skis needed re-fitting (funny that 155 SL skis being used with size 30 boots!). They wanted to check with Head that it would be ok to re-drill them but the office was shut so we left the skis with them. Went back yesterday, they’d checked with Head, drilled and re-fitted the bindings and while they were at it decided to edge and wax the skis for free. Ended up with boots, new bag, re-fitted binding and edge and wax for £190.

STMind – did colin mold footbeds for you and then you took them away and stuffed them in whatever boots you can find then? footbeds arent specific to the model of boot then I guess?

Yep. Although a little bit more scientific than that.

Colin had the Hawx . I have rectangular feet ” These are what I would put you in , with a 100 flex ” was his recomendation . I have the 80 flex model and they appear absolutely fine to me for my 75kg and 5ft11 body size.

So I went away and sourced my own at 1/4 of his price, although I think if you buy the boots the custom footbeds are reduced

stevo – That’s what I figured – never seen any Kesslers for even a gesture less than full price!

Just really fancy a fast charging board again – had a Duotone MTX 168 which was magic – loved that board, then killed it.

You could do worse than an Amplid UNW8 or B 10/30. Did all my SBX races on my UNW8 last year.

Tom B – Ta, I’ll have a look this evening. At 43 I may well be the oldest by far 😀 . Just have to show these young whippersnappers…..

Just firing off enquiry emails for prices for 3V again next year. ooooooh…exshiting. 😀

Nothing booked but prob a week in Andorra with the wife/daughter and her friend then sending them home and flying to Geneva for a week somewhere with the lads.

stevo:

In my experience the… blend of underfoot camber and an early-rise nose offers optimal all-mountain performance.

Yes!!

Me and Pete, we’re on the same page. The B 10/30 looks great. Thanks!

Right, if anyone can get get 60-80% off Amplids, let me know! 😀

Any recommendations for good family resort, parents + 3 year old on first outing. Obviously access to slopes, other stuff to do and pool would be ideal. Short transfer and critically can fly from Edinburgh. Not mega worried about budget to be honest.

And to echo comments – buy good boots, get them properly fitted and use good quality footbeds. Shell shape is main thing then customisations once you are standing properly. (Ex instructor and boot fitter!)Nothing worse than teaching people who are rattling around in their boots.

my experience the… blend of underfoot camber and an early-rise nose offers optimal all-mountain performance.

Is that like a Jones then?

Dunno, possibly. They’ve probably got a bunch of different profiles for different boards and different uses.

Just looked. it’s like Jones’ Directional Rocker

Any recommendations for good family resort, parents + 3 year old on first outing. Obviously access to slopes, other stuff to do and pool would be ideal. Short transfer and critically can fly from Edinburgh. Not mega worried about budget to be honest.

Morzine has been good for us for the past 4 years. Our youngest was 2.5 when we first went, 90 mins transfer from Geneva and plenty to do in the town when not skiing.

Thanks – Morzine was one that came to mind.

Les Gets (you drive through it ten minutes before Morzine on the way from Geneva) is best characterised as a family resort for parents who ski / snowboard to an OK standard with kids who are learning. We’ve got on well with Ski Famille for accommodation / childcare and 360 for children’s lessons. Esprit also do Les Gets but I think they use ESF – we didn’t like Les Gets ESF. That said ESF do lessons from 3, while 360 is private lessons only at that age (our 3 year old, now 4, did a couple of private lessons in 2014 which he liked).

I think of Morzine as having more teenage / adult learners and Avoriaz even more so.

But others will have other views.

We use ESF at Morzine and find them pretty good, they have remembered our youngest every year we have gone back. I have had ski and snowboard lessons with them and found them pretty good. However I have nothing else to base this on apart from the snowdome in Tamworth.

In the past we have put them in for morning lessons then lunch and they get a proper feast at the resteraunt next door. This year I couldn’t do anything due to an operation so we put then in for mornings and afternoons and I had them for 3 hours over lunch. It was cheaper, I got to spend a bit of time with them including letting them use the drag while I chilled with a beer, and they progressed loads. Our eldest can now parallel ski properly and is better than I ever was at skiing.

ESF varies a bit. They have a good reputation some places and not others. Also it wasn’t the teaching we didn’t like – our eldest (only at the time) just didn’t get on with them.

we used ESF at les Gets last year . The lack of snow made it difficult but they were flexible . thy swapped the group lessons i booked for some private lessons . my boys , 11 and 8 , were skiing for the first time and by the end of the week they were able ski .

booked a flat in avoriaz this year .
youngest boy wants to learn snowboard , any recommendations ?

@NZCol if you’re going for Morzine/Les Gets pick your week carefully, they are very low and can suffer really badly of snow is poor. Late Feb/Early March making sure to avoid French and UK kids half terms

It’s been ok at Easter the last few years.

At least Les Gets has – Morzine less so but you can always go up the hill.

nedrapier, well yes. But then again no. Says a man with an extensive Amplid quiver… 😉

The splittys are great too.

if anyone on here has any connections i am looking for a job for the coming winter. spent the last two winters in austria as a ski technician and in a rental shop. happy to work anywhere in the world. confident in fixing all skis and boards and can fit fischer vaccum boots. please get in touch if you know of anything.

singletrackmind – Member

Stoner. 2nd Colin at S4Feet. I went for custom footbeds , @ £120 not cheap , but a great investment. He measured my feet and flexability and recomended Atomic Hawx for me. Did an Ebay notification thing and got a brand new , never used pair of Hawx for £80.

I have my appointment booked with Colin for next week. I asked whether it was possible just to get footbeds to take with me (we’re fly without hold luggage, and I want the chance to get the boots from my LSS in Morzine) and was told that footbeds are specific to boots. Which suggests that one needs to be moulded into a pair of boots at Colins.

Did he mould your footbeds in a pair of bots and put them back on the shelf? I wouldn’t want to offend by asking to do something like that. Does the retail margin on the boot keep the fitting cost down? It’s further complicated that at 6’4″ and 95Kg and size 12-13 plates of meat, finding an appropriate boot for a novice is going to be a challenge away from the largest equipment shops in the ski town.

I have my appointment booked with Colin for next week. I asked whether it was possible just to get footbeds to take with me (we’re fly without hold luggage, and I want the chance to get the boots from my LSS in Morzine) and was told that footbeds are specific to boots. Which suggests that one needs to be moulded into a pair of boots at Colins.

I actually read that as the footbed shape would be cut specifically to the last of a specific boot. Therefore wouldn’t fit into a different manufacturers boot as the last would be different. Possibly would fit, just not a perfect fit.

You’ll find variations in shell and liner lengths which mean that getting footbeds into other boots is not always simple as they are either too long or too short. Its much better to make a set of footbeds, post them properly then put them into a boot which you shape (like the Fishers for example).

seems inevitable Im going to have to try and find a boot at colins around which he can do the moulds. If he hasnt the boots to work for me, we’ll just have to call it quits unless there’s a half way solution.

I guess I was lucky in that the footbeds appear to be a perfect fit into the boot liner.
How about a slightly different appraoch ? Try some ‘Off the shelf’ insoles from Go Outdoors / Sports Direct .
SofSole or Supafeet do various different ones. Will be better than the std one the boots come with , but not as good as a custom.

I think I am right in saying you are an advanced boarder , who has skied for a few weeks? Maybe full commitment to decent boots and liners is a jump too far. Decent boots with a thermo fit liner will still be comfortable from the second day you use them, just maybe not as comfortable after 6hrs skiing and an extended walk up a steep pitch to reach pastures new .

Snowheads might give the answer you are looking for ,Colin posts on there as well. Lots of informed people who know more about skiing than I do.

TBH its news to me that my custom insoles aren’t transportable between boots, but I can see the mechanics of each boot being slightly different , but there is alot of paddding in a liner which simply has to negate some of those differences

cheers STM.

I shall keep my appointment with Colin and see what we can work out together. Ideally we pick a boot that’s current and not to rare, make some footbeds and fly the
m out with me and buy the boots at my LSS.

This will be available for free next month. Looks alright.

Anyone know when new season ski stock starts appearing on the shelves of Decathlon again?

I’ve started checking webcams already 😕

Booked up! A week in Zell am See in Jan, another week in Obertaurn in Feb then, 2 weeks in Whistler in March….better bloody snow this time! 😀

Nice! At least if there’s no snow in January you’ll be able to get up to the Kitzsteinhorn (or whatever it’s called).