Ski

The doctor's diagnosis: delirium tre

Ha, but 'Mom will be more than happy to graphically describe how they shrink your pelotas.

Atomic race bindings have from two to seven different positions (maybe more on some), depending on the model. The entire binding slides forward with one simple click at the toepiece for quicker turns; all the way back sets the ski up for longer arc turns.

I count mine, but definitely with an asterisk next to it...I hike for turns at our ski hill for the workout, not the skiing, unless Ty's with me and we're also having fun. Nine hikes to get 1000' vert is a lot more work than it sounds. And not much fun.

Congrats to Jeff, the first inductee. And 1,868 runs! I can't even imagine. Damn those measly 38,000 feet you're behind tomorrow's (er, later today's) inductee. I don't care how good your jobs are now or might be in the future---you are real ski bums.

Thanks guys...I miss it already and am psyched about any changes that might be coming. BTW, skifreak, notice the GS:11 21m skis. In a forward position, they are an amazingly versatile and turny ski. In a back position, they simply scream. And they were my closing day skis 'cause I went from skiing with the little one to hanging around Boomer and WL...

Hey, Ski4Food, let your marketing person know that if Montage and Blue skiers were also your friends from PA, we'd consider Greek Peak instead of our usual Belleayre spring trips.

Not to harsh on your post, skifreak, but I saw the Elan "high performance" skis they had for sale. They were locked in the racks between the rental shop and the ticket windows. They were also selling boards for $125. I can safely say that the skis, which they had a sign on them saying $150, were worth roughly $6. The boards looked beaten up too, but I didn't really bother to look at those. 'F' CB for rippin' people off on dead skis.

Rahlves calls it quits after 13 years Associated Press

Thanks, 'Mom, very much. And I only had to read that twice.

Every mountain picks a date to scale back. Our snowmakers became garbage pickers a week before closing, despite 15 degree nights. Last night, after Montage closed for the season, we drove the 25 minutes home through snow squalls. At 2am, there were plows on our roads spreading sand for the inch and a half of snow we got. I went over and put down some cool looking turns on our private (and closed) ski hill. The end of our season never feels right or makes complete sense, but it's invariably about money.

Everything I've read has said that indeterminate fibers act differently for athletes that are 40 as opposed to 20, all other things being equal. I read much less sophisticated things than you, 'Mom...men's mags/internet/someone else's interpretation of what real doctors publish, for example. And then there's ALL THAT TEFLON I'VE BEEN INHALING. You are telling me that quick twitch muscles are equally responsive, if that's a good enough word, in someone 40 as they are in someone 20? Assuming the two athletes have equal training regimines...and, jeez, I'm hoping that what I've read is dead wrong.

Metzy, my point wasn't directed toward the limits that Masters/ASRA/NASTAR racers may have, but more toward limits faced by World Cup racers. World Cuppers are the best in the world skiing at the very highest level. At our level, we can make up for one problem by overcoming another. We have lots of places for improvement. But World Cup racers have to be 100% 'on' in every way to win. Every small deficiency, just like every small mistake, knocks them down a place. In World Cup, it's generally easier for a big guy, like Bode, to win speed events. Rahlves is just 5'9" and is known as a poor glider. His best DH races are turny courses, more like SG. Beaver Creek's Birds of Prey course is a good match for him if he can stay fast in the top flats. Bode has always looked a little out of control in slalom, even on clean runs. His long arms are all over the place, but his edge angles are amazing. For a while, Bode was physically able to cut every turn at the boot tops, to where he was "better" than the course. By that, I mean, he was hitting the gates so fast and hard at the base of the gate with his boot buckles that the gates were shattering. He was also shattering his skis. His radical line slapped down the slalom gates right onto the tops of his skis and he was sometimes crashing because of it; at the very least, he was shattering his topsheets. Slalom gates, btw, strike the snow at 600mph when blocked by a World Cup racer. Bode was so good, he was making himself fall and was destroying the course like no one else. Any body type can ski fast slalom. It's just skied a little differently. Watching a World Cup combined race is a great place to see it, since all sorts of body-types ski the slalom portion. But my point to all this is just to say that you never get your quick twitch muscles back. And slalom is a quick twitch muscle event. At it's highest level, a 40 yr old is at a huge disadvantage to a 20 yr old.

Ha, bingo. It's state owned, so lift tickets are a little cheaper than neighboring Hunter and Windham, because they are subsidized. Lifts are fixed-grip and pretty slow. The lodge is functional, but very 1950's and small. But it has 1/3 the crowds and very interesting terrain. You park mid-mountain, below the diamonds. The lower mountain is green circles. There are some pretty steep diamonds, some of which don't get much grooming. It skis smaller than other Catskill areas, but there's rarely a liftline. The center slopes are the steepest, while there's a long, winding easy run off to skier's left that is like a stroll through nature. Belleayre has made it a goal to open early and stay open late in the season. They make a lot of snow, then just basically say ski it until too much grass shows. Poke around in this part of the forum. There's been a number of threads about the place. It's one of my favorite places to ski.

Yeah, Sib, you're right. Slalom has become such a 'quick twitch' muscle sport that it's hard to imagine a 30 yr old being able to do the same things as a 20 yr old. Male athletes become stronger with age, but not quicker. When I played baseball, we were always told to back off in the weight room. Bulky muscles slowed down your swing. Bonds' steroid regimine found the perfect mix. It's hard to even picture "today's" Bode doing the the recoveries that he used to do in slalom, which are the things that Ligety has been doing. Great point.

The old saying is that technical races (GS and SL) are won by turns not waxes. Zardoz will do pretty much exactly what you need at Nationals. We'll get you turned onto some pure fluoro next season, no prob.

The snow was falling from the ski pretty hard when we left the house around noon...since Ty was coming, I figured the last five hours in the season at Montage was about right. It was chilly, but not really cold; more like an early December day. But the sunny forecast was wrong and that was just fine. Mostly flurries, but sometimes we had heavy snow squalls. Conditions were good on the slopes they decided to maintain. Not many rocks and just the access area around the Phoebe Snow lift and down by the Shuttle lift made you cringe for your bases. We skied together for about three hours, then Ty headed inside with her mom, while I hit the North Face. White Lightning was pretty beaten; still bumped and uneven ruts. Canonball was great and Smoke was still the best it's been all season, with the goofy headwall moguls flattened. I did most laps on my favorite trail, Boomer, which was crusty and fast. My second to last lift ride up, I grabbed a chair with my friend, Jim, who is one of the NASTAR pacesetters. Jim one of the nicest guys you'll meet and skis a lot like former Swiss racer Michael Von Gruenigen....smoooooth....I did Boomer for my last run in a tuck, with no music; just the echo of my skis slicing snow into the woods to melt in the warmer days to come. And then the lifts stopped running.

Ooooooh, Zardoz...I'll be honest with you, VT, that I'm not a big fan of Zardoz. It's easy to use and it'll make your skis a little faster, but there are other, cheaper products that are a lot better. I don't wanna screw with your psych, so I'll tell you that I'd use it if nothing else was available. Use a thin application. Don't gunk it up on your bases. Just barely make them shine. I'd put it on before warm-up/fresskiing, then definitely add a fresh coat before each race run. Good luck!

Assassin, maybe that works for his pasta sponsor, but it's not the same for ski companies. They pay for winners. It's like companies that sponsor NASCAR drivers. Tide or Hefty may get some face 'mileage' out of a goofy driver that crashes, but Goodyear needs performance results. The vast majority of ski sales are to recreational skiers. And although they only slightly resemble what the World Cuppers are using, 100% of the innovation of today's skis come from World Cup racing. It's the highest level of testing that can be done. All that technology trickles down to the stuff on the rack. X Games guys can be wack job personalities, but World Cup guys are test pilots for next year's models. And people just don't ski on sh*t that finishes 32nd because Bode Miller wore sandals to his high school formal.

Lifts will stop running Sunday, 3/19, at 5pm.

Overlays by their very definition only last a short time. They lay on top of what you've waxed into your ski. Pure fluoro is in the Teflon family and does not melt. You only rub it into the waxed base. You can expect a fluoro overlay to last a few gates. But the biggest benefit comes from the "push" you get...it's like a head start. Try this place: http://racewax.com/buyoverlay.html It's Dr. D's Wicked Wax. The little black film cannister at the top left is only $12.99 and will be all you need, other than a piece of cork. A champagne cork is fine, btw. It's basic fluoro, but KILLER fast. Teflons repell water, so it's only good at 25 degrees and warmer. In fact, the warmer the better. It's easy to use. Sprinkle it on near the start area. You can use quite a bit....sort of how much wax you'd use if hot waxing. Then rub it in with a cork. I don't mind leaving excess powder. Then flip your bases over in the snow to cool. Good stuff. Also, that place is in PA and you'll get it in a day or two... EDIT: VT, sorry, I didn't realize you'd bought something. YES. Reapply before every run. Any overlay rubs off very fast. If you can, I'd still recommend the stuff in that link. I'd hook you up with some if you were local...I only trust wax stuff that I've actually used myself. Is it powder or paste?

World Cup ski racing is all about winning, unless you're some rich goofball from Venezuela that is able to barely qualify for the Olympics and pay the entry fees. Professional sports are about winning. That's what you don't seem to get. It's not my rule, it's just the way of the world. People get paid huge amounts to win for their sponsors, country, fans, whatever. Amateur athletics are where people compete for other goals. Did Bode accept $1 million from Rossi to do anything but win? Did he accept multi-millions from Atomic to do anything but win? Bode is paid MILLIONS of dollars, not to party late and show up hungover, but to take his best shot at winning. If you follow sports, you'll recall that whenever results are listed, also included are teams and people of interest. In ski racing, whenever someone says 'such and such won', it's always followed by 'how did Bode do'. The Giants lost today. But Bonds hit two solo homers. The Bulls lost to the Celtics. Jordan had 52 points. The Cosmos were shut-out today. Pele left with a knee injury. Again, this isn't my rule. It's the way of the world, Assassin.

With what?

Ha, some people, Doug... And, btw, once Doug is done crushing the hopes of beautiful young Jewish girls, he'll make an awesome dad.

Fair question, so lets take a closer look. Today's slalom, which is one of the five Globes Bode hopes to win next season, is his specialty and the key to his success in the Overall, since he'll have to win at slalom and the slalom portion of the combined and supercombined events. So who was better this season? Ted Ligety, of course. Bode's rookie teammate finished fourth overall behind Rocca, Palander, and Raich. Who else? Well, the Japanese have NEVER won a World Cup slalom race, but Akira Sasaki, Kentaro Minagawa, and Naoki Yuasa were all better than Bode this year. Never heard of Minagawa or Yuasa? That's okay, not many people on the circuit have either. Who else? Grandi of Canada and Tissot of France. Who else? Herbst, Larsson, Vidal, Myhrer, and Svindal. More? My favorite slalom racer, Rainer Schoenfelder, who is somewhat of a REAL badass. He's a rock start in Austria and is known to take off a ski after a great run and hump it on TV. You should have heard the American broadcasters describe it the first time he did it. Funny stuff. More? Kostelic, Matt, Neureuther, Bourgeat, Thaler, Janyk, Jansrud, Vogl, Pranger, Brolenius, Hansson, Albrecht, Deville, Moelgg, Omminger, and Hans-Petter Buraas. Sorry, that's all the racers I can think of that were better than Bode in his #1 specialty this season.