Indoor Skiing

Has anyone come across anything like this?

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=323591974451641&set=a.200719583405548.62240.186628698147970&type=1&theater

A place is setting up beside us with one of these.

It looks like a big conveyer belt that can change slope that you can ski on. I assume the belt can change speed. The surface looks like a bristle type make up.

This looks great!

Looks like what it is a rolling mat bored to tears in ten minutes :thumbdown:

Ian Wickham wrote:Looks like what it is a rolling mat bored to tears in ten minutes :thumbdown:

But might it not be useful for improving technique before hitting the snow? Is there any technical reason why this isnt a good idea?

The one on Facebook is either a Maxxtracks http://www.maxxtracks.com/index.html or an Alpine Engineering http://www.alpine-engineering.nl/en/ indoor ski slope simulator, both of which are made in Holland. The speed is variable and the angle of the slope is adjustable. The surface is probably Snowflex a Dendix alternative used on dry slopes.

The main problem is that it's not possible carve turns on them. In order to carve turns effectively the skiers centre of mass must be outside of the area covered by the skis.



Skiers skiing on these simulators always ski with their COM between their skis (no matter how good they are) so there will always be some skidding. If they tried to move their COM to the outside they would fall over.



To get round this problem races who train on them use a harness and a support bar.

tspill wrote:

Ian Wickham wrote:Looks like what it is a rolling mat bored to tears in ten minutes :thumbdown:

But might it not be useful for improving technique before hitting the snow? Is there any technical reason why this isnt a good idea?

For you it may be useful but for me I would get bored very quickly :shock:

SwingBeep wrote:

The main problem is that it's not possible carve turns on them. In order to carve turns effectively the skiers centre of mass must be outside of the area covered by the skis.

Damn, I was going to buy one.

That being the case, It sounds perfect for testing canting on boots and bindings.

Swingbeep - I misread your posting - took me a while to work out how a support bra would help!