J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by SwingBeep

Quickest option would be a Taxi transfer, should take about 2hrs 15min. There is a train to St Anton at 20:18 (the railway station is located below check-in 3) arriving at 23:18.

The bus station at Moûtiers is directly outside the railway station http://www.mobisavoie.com/7431-departemental-bus-stations.htm If you pre-purchase your tickets there should be plenty of time.

Don't panic if you don't see a bus when you arrive, as sometimes they use mini buses if there are too few or too many people booked on the scheduled bus. If you get the bus from Lyon airport you will still have to change at Moûtiers. The train will also be much cheaper, just watch your luggage!

You can check the ski hire prices via the links on the tourism association website http://www.stantonamarlberg.com/en/winter/equipments-rentals-rates I would expect Hervis to be the cheapest, they have a "best price guarantee" and if you book online you can save 15% http://www.hervisrent.at/en/filiale/ski/st-anton-am-arlberg/ their midrange skis are €120 for 6/7 days.

I think binding liability indemnification only applies to North America. The deciding factor on whether this is possible is the distance from any one of the blade binding holes to a new mounting hole, to mount the bindings safely each new hole should be at least 1cm from an old hole. Price varies depending on where you go, you can sometimes get a pair of bindings mounted for €10.

Until then you'll have to bring your own!



http://www.ledauphine.com/savoie/2015/12/27/100-tonnes-de-neige-par-helicoptere

This evening a drone crashed onto the slalom course at Madonna di Campiglio narrowly missing Marcel Hirscher.



http://www.srf.ch/sport/ski-alpin/weltcup-maenner/hirscher-beinahe-von-drohne-getroffen

I don't think we need to worry too much about their use from now on.

The worst start to the season I can recall was in 1989/90, my first days skiing was on 15th January at Saas Fee.

Since then many resorts have invested heavily in snowmaking and snow management, they cannot afford to be snowless over Christmas and New Year as it's the most profitable part of the season. I think ski resorts are going to become increasingly reliant on artificial snow.

50 years ago the Swiss glaciers received 6 to 8 metres of snow per season, some of which lasted all summer. These days we are lucky if we get 1 to 2 metres, which often melts before the end of July. After the snow has melted the glacier ice starts melting. This summer (the 2nd warmest on record in the Alps) the Aletsch Glacier (the longest in the Alps) was losing ice at the rate of 8cm per day!

In 2008 the Swiss climatologist Christoph Marty carried out a shift detection analysis that "revealed a significant step-like decrease in snow days at the end of the 1980's with no clear trend since then. This abrupt change resulted in a loss of 20% to 60% of the total snow days. The stepwise increase of the mean winter temperature at the end of the 1980's and its close correlation with the snow day anomalies corroborate the sensitivity of the mid-latitude winter to the climate change induced temperature increase". http://www.slf.ch/info/mitarbeitende/marty/publications/Marty2008_RegimeShift.pdf

If there is another step-like decrease in the near future many resorts will be in serious trouble.

A 163cm Head iSupershape Speed has a sidecut radius of 13.2m, hardly a GS radius. Sidecut radius doesn't equal turn radius.

Sidecut radius = the radius of the circle which best fits the shape of the sidecut of the ski. This number depends only on the ski's geometry.

Turn radius = the radius of the circle which best fits the shape of the arc of the ski through the snow. This number depends on the sidecut radius, plus the on-edge angle, ski flex, snow condition, skier's weight, rotary input from the skier, and practically everything else under the sun.

Carved turn radius = the radius of the circle which best fits the shape of the arc of a purely carving ski across hardpacked snow. This number is approximately equal to the sidecut radius multiplied by the cosine of the on-edge angle and how much the edged ski can be bent.




The Magnum isn't a bad ski, but it doesn't carve as well as the Speed.

Testing before you buy is obviously a good idea, but bear in mind that the rental version and the retail version might not be quite the same and the binding delta of the rental bindings probably won't be the same as that of the retail bindings so the ones you buy might ski differently. I tested the iSupershape Speed last season and felt that it needed less delta, unfortunately as with most skis of this type the bindings are mounted on a rail so it's very difficult to shim them.

If you want to carve effectively ski / ski boot set up is very important, if you are even little bit off it can make a big difference to your performance.

Resort prices here are astronomic, resort shops normally charge full retail CHF 980 is well over budget.