J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by SwingBeep

Mrs SB had one when she broke her fibula just above the ankle (displaced fracture, titanium plate and 5 screws) it worked a treat she could take it off to wash, no itching and when the six weeks were up she had lost only a small amount of plantarflexion and hardly any dorsiflexion and didn't require any physiotherapy. The overall cost is reckoned to be less than treatment using a traditional pot.

Hire cars at Turin airport aren't normally supplied with winter tyres or chains, you have to pay extra for them. In the province of Aosta it's mandatory to either use winter tyres or carry chains between the 15th October and 15th April. The route via the Fréjus tunnel will cost 53 Euro each way in tolls, if conditions are good the journey will take about 3½ hours. The route via the Mont Blanc tunnel will cost 92 Euro in tolls and takes about 4 hrs

If you decide use public transport the route is:

Bus from the airport to Turin Porta Nouva station
Train from Turin to Chambery
Train from Chambery to Bourg-St. Maurice
Bus from Bourg-St. Maurice to Tignes

Travelling time will be between 5½ and 7½ hours. The winter time tables aren't published until December; the easiest place to check times is via the German railways website http://www.bahn.com/i/view/GBR/en/index.shtml

Treating an Achilles tendon rupture in this way will leave you with a very stiff ankle and weak calf muscles. The preferred method here is to use the Vacoped orthotic treatment system: http://www.vacoped.com/de-en/home.html http://www.oped.it/download/Studi%20internationali%20Vacoped%20versus%20Cast.pdf.

Specialist treatment at a foot and ankle clinic might reduce your recovery time considerably: http://www.cfas-uk.com/about-us.html http://www.cfas-uk.com/pdf/vacoped-rehab.pdf

Warming your ski boots in a Hot Gear heated boot bag will make them much easier to put on. Alternatively you could get a ski boot shoe horn: http://www.thebootster.com/ .To take the boots off, press down on the back of the boot shell, step the other foot forward, bend your knee down towards the ground until the liner pops a little way out of the boot, then push down on the back of the liner.

There should be a bit more leeway with regard to foot shape, as the boot is moulded directly to the foot. I don't think 6k is excessive (the machine contains a compressor and a chiller). When compared to the Ertl-Renz / corpus.e fitting system, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRZNH2k5BzY which reportedly costs 38,000 Euro, it's positively cheap. The toe box is a bit pointy when compared to the Lange RX 130 but the Lange is built on a wider last. Previously boot fitters have only been able to make ski boot shells bigger; this one can also be made smaller. There is quite a lot of background information in the recently published patent; US2010236101A1, which lists as one of the inventors Johann Leitner, an Austrian boot fitter http://www.schuhsport-leitner.at/

It will be interesting to see how the other manufacturers react to this. It took Fischer and their supplier several years to develop the plastic so they will probably have an exclusive supply deal for a few years.

The new Fischer Vacuum ski boot is a significant step forward in ski boot design.

Upside:
It's made from a specially developed plastic that is much lighter than the plastic used to make existing high end ski boots, it's stiffness only increases by 200% between 20°C and -20°C (a polyurethane boot is 4 times stiffer at -20°C than it is at 20°C). The plastic softens at a lower temperature than PU, so the boot can be directly moulded to the skier's foot. Forward lean can be set anywhere between 14 and 17°. There are 3 fit settings: sport, performance and race, and the boots can be remoulded up to 5 times.

Downside:
The fitting machine costs 6k (unless you order 100 pairs), supplies are limited and the inner boot is a bit thinner than I would like.

Initially 5 models will be available:



Details of the fitting process are to be found here: http://www.rockymountaingearguide.com/pdfs/FAQ-vacuum-fit-070611.pdf
And there is a video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsqrxBHLk0I&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

The Télécentre lift at Alpe d'Huez is a pulsed, fixed grip monocable gondola lift fitted with baskets instead of cabins, each basket holds 4 people. The lift doesn't stop at the stations but it does slow down (from 5 m/s to 0.5 m/s) the journey time from the bottom to top station is 11 mins.

There's lots of self catering accommodation on the Swiss Tourism website http://fewo.myswitzerland.com/holiday-rentals/Engelberg.aspx There is a free shuttle bus http://www.engelberg.ch/en/info/transport/ but the winter timetable's not online yet.