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World Cup Surface
- Thread starter Swede
- Start date
Aww... it's geo-blocked... "This video is not available in your location". Any chance there's another link?
Ahh, I have it as an MPEG4 too, but not sure if that is uploadable here on on Pug ski? Says:
The following error occurred:
The uploaded file does not have an allowed extension.
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Now it should work.
Quaint. Ice that's still white. 
Impressive but not that uncommon, with the eastern re-freeze - Europeans are so spoiled.. 
Rain all day, drops to -20C in the evening and you get this, for the provincial championships warmup: not easy to see here, but the skis would not even leave tracks:
Now... carving that in a course - a whole different bowl of fish
Rain all day, drops to -20C in the evening and you get this, for the provincial championships warmup: not easy to see here, but the skis would not even leave tracks:
Now... carving that in a course - a whole different bowl of fish
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^^^^
RE: all of that.... it's not so much that the course is icy enough for skates. That happens naturally at times as shown above. It's that they intentionally make it that way, and then they expect people to ski it at a world class level, that makes it crazy/amazing.
RE: all of that.... it's not so much that the course is icy enough for skates. That happens naturally at times as shown above. It's that they intentionally make it that way, and then they expect people to ski it at a world class level, that makes it crazy/amazing.
I'll point out that you have a skate arena just down the road to get your legs in
Where is that? Poster has a Romanian name - so could be anywhere
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I'll point out that you have a skate arena just down the road to get your legs in
A few in the area, in fact - I actually haven't been to the closest one. But I'm also not a very good skater.
I volunteered for the Talon Crew for this year's Birds of Prey race. I'm not exactly sure what type of work I'll take on, but the ability to use crampons was required. Maybe I should bring my Bauers instead.
That was at Blue - and I think you know which Blue...Where is that? Poster has a Romanian name - so could be anywhere
I posted this a few years ago.
Norwegian Leif Haugen inspecting the WC SL at Wengen.
Now THAT is a very firm, WC surface of a few years ago. You never saw the WC women on anything like that.
99.9999% of us, I hope, would consider it completely unskiable.
Norwegian Leif Haugen inspecting the WC SL at Wengen.
Now THAT is a very firm, WC surface of a few years ago. You never saw the WC women on anything like that.
99.9999% of us, I hope, would consider it completely unskiable.
Are they going to let you ski it after the race is over?
Consider that Killington, despite early season terrain pressure, won't open the race-prepped trails until they can soften them up. I think that's a pretty good indicator of respect for the surface, as is the fact that even with a good snowmaking team aiming for a very high water content, injection is still necessary.
I don't anticipate that, no. ...but you know I'd be dumb enough to try it if they did.
Several years ago I slid across it. I was with a buddy who knew the mountain very well. He took me down a cat track and we came out on one side of the run, probably 75 - 100 yard wide. He pointed to an orange marker on the other side, about 200 yards down. Try and make it to the marker, was his coaching. I slid down 2 yard for every yard I made it across. I barely managed to make the marker.
This was nearly 3 months after the competition.
What @MattSmith said.
That trail is seriously firm and slick. We were on there with SL skis and we were gripped.
You can make a killing there if you are a divorce lawyer.
Skiing that is actually much easier then sliding down. It's simply because you have more power with some speed to make skis work then when standing straight up on skis slipping down. But this sort of stuff, which honestly is not all that often, is reason why my skis are race ready sharp... it's really no fun to go to course and try to find your way down, when course is set, there's 100+ people on course during inspection, and you would have round edges. But as I said, normally injected snow is hard, icy but with relatively normal grip. Pure ice is seen very rarely, on women courses even less... maybe once every few years.
With all respect @Primoz you have spent a lot of time on and near WC courses and have also raced on semi-high level. Your standard of reference on ”pure ice” and ”normal grip” might be a little skewed. Most people have no idea what such a surface is like and how much water that goes into each m2. Most ”expert skiers” would not attempt to attack it, even if it’s the only way to get your skis to bite. It’s not like a little rain/wet snow and a refreeze.
Heheh true @Swede. With pure ice, I meant something like your video is or photo from Wengen which @Muleski put here. That's fairly rare even on men WC. But even "soft" men course is pretty much unskiable for someone with recreational skis, and recreational technique (and power). Injected snow, especially after it gets constant slipping through the race day(s) is something what you don't get anywhere on normal slopes, and once races are done, first thing what ski resort does is to send groomers on hill to break that thing as much as possible, so track can be sort of ok for next day skiers.