sibhusky

Crash course (very abbreviated). In both USSA and FIS, lower points are better. Basically, within each system there are two aspects: race points and penalty points. Race points are assigned based on the competitor's time compared to the winner, without regard to placement. All you care about is the time behind the winner. The more time difference, the higher points you get. Then there are penalty points. Obviously, a world cup race is a higher caliber field than a PA race. So, they look at the top competitors at a given race (top being based on past performance) and what points they brought into the race. If it's a World Cup race, the points will be low, possibly in the single digits. If it's a PA race, the points of the top performers maybe in the low hundreds or maybe down around 60 in a tough field. They assign points to the race itself (higher being a lower caliber race) based on who shows up. Once the race is run, the winner will get zero points as "race points", since they won, and then the "penalty points" that were calculated based on who showed up to race. Basically, the winner of a race pretty ends up just getting the points they showed up to the race with MOST OF THE TIME. Now, if the top competitors do BADLY, but finish the race, so that lower level competitors get times CLOSER to the top finishers, the lower level competitors will get lower points than they would have otherwise. Race points are added to penalty points for the race result. So, say a girl named Kate and her four twins show up, they all have 20 points. The average of those points (ski, I am just being simplistic here, so let's not split hairs) will be 20 and that will be the penalty for the race. (It's actually a LOT more complicated, but you get the idea). Now, Mary shows up at the race with 100 points, runs well down the list at the start. She finishes, however, within a second of Kate and her siblings. Kate gets zero race points plus her penalty of 20, and her race result is 20. Mary gets her race points (say they are 40 or whatever) plus the 20 penalty points, for a race result of 60. This is MUCH better than her points when she entered the race (100), so her points for the next "list" will be lower and she will have a better start position next time. The best two race results are averaged for each list that comes out. Lists come out periodically throughout the season and your start position is determine by these lists and your ranking against other racers across the US and (for FIS) around the world is based on these lists. That's the basic idea. In reality, it's much more complicated...if you don't race for a while, your FIS points will start to creep up as they assess penalties for not participating in races, plus each season there is a "true up" between FIS points and USSA points and your points in USSA from last season's finish will be increased as you start this season, etc. Anyway, the thing to remember is that newbies start at 990, and are gunning for zero. The first season they are highly likely to get their points down in the 300's, maybe even the 200's. Colleges are looking for racers with points down below 100. Each reduction in points is way tougher, that is, it is far more difficult to go from 80 points down to 70 than it is to go from 300 points down to 200 points as you are talking smaller and smaller time improvements possible as you get faster and faster. Remember it is all about TIME, not finish place. So, if you improve your "line" a bit, you cut time off the race. But as the more skilled competitors compete against each other, their "line" through the course will be more and more ideal and the time difference between each of the top racers will be within HUNDREDTHS of seconds of each other. Those hundredths of seconds get shaved and shaved and the race points for finishers at the top will be very close to each other. The last two finishers will more than likely be several seconds apart from each other, not hundredths of seconds. Hope this is some help. Here is a link to a race sheet where you can see these calculations. You'll see what the "penalty" was at the top. All the way at the bottom you can see all those calculations. The main part of the sheet you'll see the finish placement and the race points for each finisher.

Starting with bib 85, finished SECOND at Mammoth with FIS points in the forties. The guy is 50 years old. GO, PHIL!!!!!!

Wow, I really feel for you guys, I can't imagine how upset I would be at this point!!!! A couple of years back some of the Western areas gave discounts for season passes for the season following our bad winter for those who had bought passes for the bad winter. It'd be nice to think that a Pocono area would do that. And since Blue is owned by IntraWest or whoever bought them, have they offered skiing at their sister resorts to passholders?

Is this a trick question like "Who's buried in Grant's tomb?" I wonder why the CB basket check is only free to SNOWBOARDERS who rent equipment? Is that a reflection of the quality of the skis they are renting?

Final Slalom, first run:

In a word, no. The first GS helped her FIS points slightly, but none have helped her USSA points. Of course, she didn't have dryland training or ANY skiing until she got here mid-December, so it's not surprising. At this point in her career, it's not about "moving up", it's just about enjoying the race. School is just too much work for her to spend time preparing for races anymore. Sad, but it's reality. Unfortunately, you get to an age where you are up against kids who are still hoping they'll make the US Ski Team, not a lot of happy amateurs. We hope that she will just keep her hand in until she can qualify for Masters racing.

Coverage is good. So good in fact that going down the face in some flat light I had NO idea I was on a large boulder until I started to come over its top and oops, there was all this rock. Didn't fall, but added some more scratches to my bases (nowhere near as bad as I expected). The NWS is forecasting that the mountain will get 28 more inches between now and Monday morning. I have to work the next three days, but will have all that nice stuff to play in on Monday. Yesterday was FANTASTIC on the face. The snow was dense enough to provide support and light enough to not worry about catching an edge in the chop. Young men who were more athletic than I were popping down without a stop whooping.

They used to race together at CB. I think it's more likely that Siblet will get fatties someday for the backcountry.

Not that often. I used to try it now and again when it was just Friday and Saturday, but as it gets darker the nuts come out in force. I like the 5 to 6 PM time, but by 7:30 there are drunks bombing straight down the hill and it is DEFINITELY not as well lit as Camelback was. So, combine soft snow and someone straightlining and you don't even know they hit you until you are in heaven.

Well, on a normal day they are closing the lower lift at 4 because by 5 you need lights. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, the lower lifts are open until 9.

A day with no fog, first time in 2007, hit F11 to maximize screen

Here's the link to the FIS site. I don't know any names on your team.

Yeah, I like that last one best myself. I've decided to show her all that are taken and get the one she likes the best. She's pretty fussy. The kicker is, she did better yesterday. Today's course was supposedly "cursed". Two girls left on sleds, there were endless long delays, some girls came down crying, one of the top contenders gave up three gates from the bottom....

But, wait, there's more. These are today:

I think one reason CB's forum has lost steam of a positive nature is because skidude and skimom are too busy to post anymore and I moved out west. skidude used to be the "Doug" of the CB forum.

Second run, GS:

Hey, my brother tells me they're cancelling flights again down in Denver due to snow and MORE is supposed to be coming again in a few days. Colorado is the place to be jealous of. We're not even fully open yet.

I remember that ski boots bit from years ago. I also remember when they went from age to height. Since plenty of kids don't have photo ID's proving their age, I can see why they did that, unfair as it is. Siblet actually got an extra year's season pass off the deal, though, since she is such a pixie.

It was a picture perfect day today. Boots were perfect, OFF piste was good, blue sky, but unfortunately I was sick and there's too many people here this week. But I managed to take a few pictures. Christmas week at Big Mountain

I had a guy here tell me that they are IMPORTING help this winter because they hope to get people with a "work ethic", which apparently was lacking last year. I guess if you DON'T like the pay, don't TAKE the job if you don't want to DO the job.

So, basically what you are saying is that if you have enough extra cash, you get "special privileges", which are really no better than what other ski areas consider the norm. They wanted a price increase to the passes, decided to hit the rich people first, screw the poorer ones, and for what? Personally, I think that if enough people write articulate letters to management and suggest how to handle giving some OTHER perk to the rich guys (or refund them the difference) this can get changed. A similar silliness was proposed at CB years ago for the free kid passes. I wrote a letter about the hassle this was for little kids starting to ski and guess what, they wrote me back, told me it was a great letter and changed the policy back to what it had been. So, letters can work if they are well reasoned, etc. It probably WON'T work for getting the fired park guys back as that involves saving face, but as the crowds hit and that special window gets backed up and passholders are losing ski time, it's got to have some impact. As it is, if they can let the VIP passholders up the hill, if they trust the lifties to check THOSE passes, then why can't they trust them to inspect all the passes?

This routine sounds like a phenomenal pain in the butt. I mean the whole point of a season pass is to go directly to the slopes, skipping all this window carrying on. Sure there's a special window, but it ought to be enough to show your pass as you get on the chair. After all your picture is on it and if you hire decent help they should be looking at it. Basically, it sounds like BB didn't trust its lifties to do the job, so now it's the passholders' problem.

I have to add a little story here about Dr. D's wax. Last season you may remember we were offered some wax that had been loaned for use on a movie set and came back dinged up. Dr. D. offered this stuff at great prices. I got some for myself. Well, Monday night I slapped some on my skis. It was the green kind, which was only labeled as "cold" wax without any other info on the bars I got. I looked at my other brands, thought it might be a bit on the low end of what might be needed the next day, but I've been pretty cold at the mountain, so I ironed it on anyway. Left the skis to sit overnight, no scraping. Went out the next day which turned out to be MUCH warmer than I expected, naturally. Anyway, was skiing with the dad of Siblet's last boyfriend and we are running along an extended cat track on the mountain (quite long). I get a slight head start, but this man is also a former racer and normally tears down the hill. When I reached the cat track, I lean over a bit and extend my poles out behind me, not really in a tuck just more aerodynamic than standing up all the way down. On and on, on and on, this cat track is going. Finally, close to the end, up he comes, in a total racing tuck. Tells me I am a hard person to catch and I must have waxed up my skis because they are super fast. We get on the chair, he is asking me what I used, did I scrape, brush, etc. I told him I slapped on wax that was theoretically "wrong" for the day, didn't scrape, didn't brush, just left it on overnight and went to the mountain and started skiing. He couldn't believe it. How could it happen that he could hardly catch me when I just slapped the wax on, etc. He is one of these guys who makes a production of ski tuning. His son races and he always insists on doing the guy's skis, thinks he is a better ski tuner than most, etc. Then I told him the history of the wax. He was once again stunned that I wasn't using some "famous" wax and that this was bargain stuff dinged up after use on a movie set. He went back repeatedly making sure that he wasn't missing the key thing about my technique, i.e., I just left the wax on there, didn't remove it from the edges, etc., didn't scrape, didn't brush, nothing, and that I do this almost all the time. I told him I thought there was more to fast gliding than just wax, that I used to beat people on cat tracks when it had been months since I waxed, but he thinks it's the wax and the pair of skis. Anyway, I think I will be having to lend him some of Dr. D's wax to try. And this was just the plain non-race stuff, not the high end stuff.

I think K2 might be one of the biggest brands out here, probably because the skis USED to be made in the USA and that's a big deal out here. I'll have to look at skis a bit more here to decide if there is a close runner up or not.

While assuming that 62,000 feet is possible for SOMEONE, I'd say it's unlikely by 95% of this board, even though you are all close to being kids with tons of energy. First of all, you'd never have to stop and pee, which would presumably preclude a lot of hydrating as well, always bad for energy. Also, of course, there's the no lunch thing, but you could always snack on the tram. And of course, the tram would have to always zip up and down on schedule with no delays for any reason. Finally, you have to be in really TOP shape to do that many feet in a day. And frankly, if you did do it, chances are you'd be so beat that you'd call it quits earlier than normal the next day. I'm 55, so I lay no claim to boundless energy, but my 42k day last year was not too tough to do on the day I did it... I didn't start out the day planning to do it, it just happened. But the next day, if you look in the archives, I only did 21,810 feet. Partly that was due to rain, but mostly it was due to a lack of enthusiasm. So the combination of the two days was only 33-34k feet, lower than most other pairs of days at that time of the season. Actually, this topic comes up SO often, Atomic, that maybe we should have an "intro page" for people who are just using the stat manager for the first time. They get the intro page right before they enter the first stat, then they don't see it again later. Either that, or some directions off to the side of the data form when you are filling it in.