Speed Skiing

Only a fool would go speed skiing with a raging hangover after 5 hours of boozy sleep and on the point of vomiting. Only a complete idiot would do it on a pair of super-stiff race skis he’d never before used. And only a complete imbecile would do it on Friday 13th.

The hangover was thanks to a Genepy bender last night to celebrate Bruce’s birthday. I don’t remember going to bed, but I do remember briefly being the greatest pool player in the world, before doing shots after closing hours with the owner.

The skis are courtesy of eBay and an up and coming young skier called TJ Baldwin. He’s the current British U18 champion in all 6 events. He was ranked No14 in the world for age 18 in Downhill for 2008 and looks like a very bright prospect for British winter sports. I am now the proud owner of his factory downhill race skis from last year.

The “Flying Kilometre” hill in Les Arcs 2000 was created for the 1992 Winter Olympics. Speed Skiing was tried as a potential Olympic sport, but later dropped as it was considered “too dangerous”. Since then it’s been a mecca for speed junkies, throwing themselves down at speeds of up to 150mph until a tragic accident last year. Seeing as most of the KL (flying kilometre) hill is officially closed this year for safety improvements, Club des Sport ran a mini-KL at the bottom for punters which I thought would be a good start.

I dragged my carcass out onto the piste and went for a quick run to remind myself how 215 cm downhill skis felt. Pretty much un-skiable is the answer. They’re so stiff and heavy that until you’re doing 40-50mph they don’t really turn. Sod that, I thought – may as well just go and have a crack anyway.

I got off the lift, traversed to the course and tried to restrain the sudden urge to be sick on my skis. I was given some brief, unintelligible instruction in French which definitely included the words “Dangereux” and “Bof”, tried to remember the advice Kev Alderton had emailed me and pointed the skis downhill.

My ambition has always been to hit 100mph. It just seemed like a nice round number to aim for. As I accelerated down the slope, it became clear that I wasn’t going to get anywhere close to that kind of speed today. At the bottom they confirmed it. 99km/h - 61mph. Fast, but not that quick. And certainly slower than I’ve been before on skis. But a quick look down the list showed it wasn’t a bad time at all. In fact I couldn’t see anyone who had passed 100kmh, and there were several characters hanging about in skin-tight race suits with suspiciously new looking helmets.

My second run hit 101 km/h and my third nudged 102 km/h (63.4mph). Sadly there wasn’t much more to be had, and considering I was wearing a loose fleece, normal salopettes, a snowboarding helmet and a brutal hangover there just wasn’t any more speed to be had. By the end of the day after 60 or so punters I was 3rd best, with one chap late in the day managing 103.5 km/h. I can live with that.

However, off the back of this I have made some contacts and dates permitting, I have been invited out to a proper race on the world speed skiing circuit in Verbier in April, where 100+ mph will be well within my reach!

Speed Riding

...is brilliant. A proper sport for loons. I can't describe quite what it's like, so this probably explains it better...



That was my attempt. No see how the pros do it - this is "Going Home", by my instructor Arnaud. Epic.

Ski Jumping Update

I’m glad to say that Alan Jones, the British Master’s Team member who took a big crash and was helicoptered out in Ruhpolding has recovered with no major injuries, though his confidence has probably taken a big knock. Good news was that James Lambert came 5th on the big hill, jumping 76.5 and 75.5m and came 6th in the combined competition. Cracking result – who says Britain doesn’t have successful ski jumpers?

One thing that has been bothering me is the self-imposed target of the “big four”; Ski Jumping, Speed Skiing, Speed Riding and the Cresta Run. I’ve knocked off the Cresta Run, added in a Bobsleigh run as an extra, and I’m due to start Speed Riding tomorrow, but Ski Jumping fell by the wayside due to illness, and Speed Skiing is looking less and less likely to happen as I couldn’t find anyone to get in touch with to point me in the right direction. For the Speed Skiing, the last option was a 10 hour round trip to Vars in the Southern Alps on my own to try and find someone, but for all I know it might not even be open. And add to that, Calais just 9 hours away from here so that does seem like yet another excessive detour in a car that’s beginning to play up.

However, today is a good day and I think both the Jumping and Speed Skiing could be back on. James got in touch to say that they may be running a beginners course in Sweden in April for Ski Jumping, and I noticed a poster in Les Arcs yesterday to say that they are opening up the “flying km” for Amateurs on Thursday. This is a surprise as I was under the impression Speed Skiing was off the agenda in Les Arcs at the moment, after the tragic accident last year, but apparently I might

This does clash with the Speed Riding as it’s been put back 2 days for bad weather, but I’m sure I can sort something out. 100mph is now optimistic without a skin-tight cat-suit and downhill helmet, but I think 80 mph is just about do-able in normal ski gear with my downhill skis….Thursday, here I come….

Boris Goes Boozing

Obviously you have to question the sanity of someone who travels round the Alps with a stuffed badger called Boris, but the reception from everyone has been great. The guys in the chalet have even made him a place at the table, and he sits down for dinner every night. He has been off his food a little recently, but I think it’s probably it a bit rich for him. We did come back yesterday and a large slice of the cake was missing, so it’s best not to leave him unattended. I’m no great expert on badger diets, but mashed potato is apparently a favourite so we’re scouring the supermarkets to see if we can fatten him up a little.

Word of Boris’s fame was spreading fast through Les Arcs, and it only seemed fair to take him on a pub crawl. With the exception of two squeamish barmaids in the Whistler bar, everybody loved him. In one place we even got a free round of 10 drinks because he was parked on the bar.

The night was looking to be a large but controllable one until we hit the local club, where Nimesh, the 3rd person in our chalet, announced it was actually his 40th birthday that day and it went downhill from there. Not much more I can add to that, as the photos tell the truth better than I can…

And after many requests, “Boris the Badger” is now on Facebook…search for "Boris L'Badger"

Chamonix and Les Arcs 1800 / 2000

So things are looking up. Post Autobahn stupidity, I spent a night in Chamonix with Poochie, had a good day’s snow-blowing (not a euphemism for anything, just driving a snow blower) and caught up on stuff generally. I was also beginning to recover from the cold / man flu / gastro-enteritis that had been knocking me back.

Next step was to head to Geneva to pick up my long suffering better half Anna, for a weekend in Les Arcs 1800. Me disappearing across the Alps for a month without contact isn’t going to win me “boyfriend of the year”, and Anna has recently become hooked on snowboarding so it was an ideal solution for her to come out for a couple of days.

Anna put her foot down when I suggested keeping Boris in the room, as for some reason she finds him “a bit creepy” and says that I’m “f***ing weird” for having him along for the ride. Nobody’s perfect.

“Wifey” is a fast learner on the board, so a couple of days pootling around was great. It’s a golden rule that you never try and teach your “better half” anything, but with the exception of arguments on whether she should wear a helmet or not, it was a dream. Every time she fell over, I’d rush down to see if she was OK, and every time I was just greeted with a large pair of goggles and a big grin. She came on leaps and bounds, and really seemed to enjoy it. One of the best weekends I’ve had, and a real change from lying sick in a hotel room in Germany earlier in the week.

Too soon she had to head home for work, so I dropped her off at Geneva and shot back for the next stage of my journey, meeting Bruce in Les Arcs 2000 to and taking on “Speed Riding”.

150 on the Autobahn

Putting my disappointment on not ski jumping behind me (I did ask if they’d let me go off the smallest jump anyway on my normal skis, but after 2 helicopter rescues in a day they weren’t keen), I set off for Chamonix. A great friend, Poochie has a place there, and I needed a warm bed for the night and some time to recuperate.

Trouble is Chamonix was 700km, 4 countries and 7 hours away.

The German Autobahns (motorways) are unique in Europe in that they have no speed limit. The German police can arrest you for driving like a twat, but once you’ve got through the black and white de-restriction sign they can’t arrest you for going too fast. On the way down at night I’d touched 120 mph, and cruised at about 100 most of the way. However since I had missed out on the chance to risk my neck on a ski jump, I thought I’d have a crack at another milestone.

A few years ago I accidentally hit about 120 mph on the M25 when the accelerator on my old MG got stuck flat to the floor for the best part of a mile. However a the big target I’ve always wanted to reach was the magic 150 mph, and seeing as this was my last day in Germany and the weather was good, today might just be my lucky day.

And I’d need luck, because most Autobahns are 2 lane affairs like a dual-carriageway back in the UK with the same myopic truckers pulling out with no warning, unpredictable road surfaces and idiots in BMWs 3 inches from your bumper.

The Subaru was also making a grinding noise from it’s transmission when I turned a corner sharply, the brakes were whining, Torbs reckoned a wheel bearing was on the way out and the car generally wasn’t happy in first and second gears. Add to that 100kg + of loose ski equipment, and not to mention Boris the stuffed badger in the back unsecured meant I had to be a little careful.

I first topped up with petrol and checked the tyre pressures. My tyres are only technically speed rated to 149mph, and too much or too little pressure would just increase the risk of a blow out. And a blow out at anything above 100 and I’d probably be joined Boris in taxidermy heaven. (Just to note Mum – you do have my permission to donate all my organs and have me stuffed if the worst happens).

The next challenge was space. Autobahns are just as busy as a road back in the UK, and to go really fast safely you need a lot of space. Trying to go so fast with other people around is just irresponsible and selfish. If I was going to do this, it was just me I wanted to put at risk.

Mile after mile was filled with convoys of trucks, bends and people carriers at 65 in the fast lane. Then with only about 50km of Germany left, a straight, empty road opened up for a good mile and a half ahead and I pinned it.

I was already cruising at about 100, and as I floored the noisy pedal I could hear the turbos start to whistle and gulp down air. 120 went in a flash, then 130. As I nudged towards 140 the acceleration was starting to relent a little, but the car still felt very stable. 145 came up and I now put both hands on the wheel wrapping my thumbs round for the firmest grip possible, and felt a slightly cold shiver down my spine with the thought that if this was all to go wrong, some poor German coroner was going to look up the expression “being a dickhead” to explain to my family why I had to be scraped out of the tarmac.

150 came up on the speedo and the road was starting to feel very narrow indeed. That should be that you would think, but the reality is that most speedometers over-read slightly to take account of tyre sizes / whinging owners using it as a defence for speeding etc. The only way you can really accurately measure your speed is using a GPS, so I glanced across to the Sat Nav which was reading a slightly disappointing 230 km/hr (143mph). I vaguely remembered from somewhere that 242 was the big target, so that’s what I was going to aim for.

The rate of acceleration was slowing and I decided to straddle the white lines in the middle of the road to give me a little more margin for error. Slowly the GPS clicked up 235, 236, 237 and in the distance I spotted a truck in the slow lane. A whine had also developed from under the bonnet and I knew I was running out of space.

A gust of wind hit the road and the car shifted 2 foot sideways. “Shit” I said out loud. I could almost hear Boris panicking in the back. 239, 240. The car was definitely starting a little weave. Just 2 more km/h…. 241 came up and agonisingly slowly I glimpsed out the corner of my eye and saw 242. That’s it. 150mph. Done.

To give you a feeling of how fast 150 mph actually is, you’re travelling a kilometre every 15 seconds, or in old money, that’s a mile every 24 seconds. A quarter of a mile every 6 seconds. However when you're aiming a 6 foot wide projectile at a hole 10 foot wide it feels much, much faster.

Slamming on the brakes at this point could have made things a messy, so even though I was closing in on the truck ahead, I eased back on the accelerator and let wind resistance do it’s thing. Once the car had settled into deceleration, I squeezed on the brakes and started to scrub off speed.

To say I was nervous as I approached the truck is an understatement. My closing speed to him was equivalent to him pasking up in the slow lane to watch porn and eat pasties, or whatever truckers do, and I’d spanked past in the fast lane at 80+ miles an hour 3 feet away.

I passed him at an indicated 130 and slowed back down to a steady 100mph cruise. I also felt a bit deflated – one of my big life ambitions and I’d achieved it, but on my own with no-one to share the stupidity of it all with. I could have filmed it with the headcam, but the confusion of a bloke being found in a mangled car wearing ski googles would have caused wasn't worth it. But I did get something...

Then I had a bit of a cold sweat as I realised what could have happened if it had gone wrong. And there and then I decided for the sake of the engine, my safety and my underwear that I wasn’t going to try that again.

Ruhpolding – Ski Jumping – Tuesday 3rd March

After a day in bed I decided to get up however I felt. Being miserable on my own is still worse than being miserable in other people’s company, so I decided to head over to the ski jump competition to meet James and the rest of the team.

I’ve taken a 1000km detour to do this leg of the trip and seeing as I’m not actually going to get to jump myself anymore, I may as well go and see some people jump. The competition has different age ranges, and I was encouraged to also see that some of the “Masters” were more senior than others – there were a couple of chaps who looked well into their 70s. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen ski jumping live and it is an amazing spectacle. The thing you notice is the whistling noise as the jumpers come over the hill and then the “thwack” as their skis land hard on the snow. It’s incredibly gracefully and elegant seeing them glide down the hill, and fairly comedy when you see many of them try and come to a stop again doing a massive snow plough on two and a half metre long skis. One chap in particular looked excellent at the jumping side, but a little lacking in the requisite “stopping” skills. Every time he landed he ended up in a heap next to the spectators chuckling away to himself.


Ski Jumping is generally thought of as a fairly dangerous sport, but in fact has a very good safety record. However within 5 minutes of arriving a competitor on the small (40m) hill wiped out, and required an air ambulance to get him out. They took a good half an hour to move him, and as he was stretchered past it became apparent that he took most of the impact on his face – he was not in a good way.

After the restart I found James and he introduced me to the rest of the team – Jason, Alex and Alun. As he was wearing his organisers hat, and not jumping today, he took me up the hill to get a better view of the comp. As we walked up the hill one of the old fellas obviously didn’t spot another competitor coming down the ramp and took off down the hill from half way. The guy on the hill had nowhere to go as he was already in motion and took off the ramp, landing 20 feet from us on top of the older fella who was meandering his way down.

It looked like someone should have “bought the farm”, but there was an embarrassed silence as both competitors picked themselves up and walked down the hill. The impact was big enough to snap at least one of the ski jump skis, but both miraculously walked away unharmed.

“Are there a lot of accidents?” I asked. “This is unusual” said James.

10 minutes later we’re positioned at the take off point and James is marshalling the jumpers to ensure there’s only one on the slope at a time. Alun, one of the British team is lined up for his first jump. As he takes off, his balance looks all wrong, too far forward. He disappears over the crest of the landing hill and I hear some gasps from down below. It doesn’t look good – he went over the front of his skis and landed face first on the slope. Alun is moving, but not much. James heads down to help out, it’s announced that the helicopter is coming in for the second time today and the rest of the day’s jumping is cancelled.

I decide that James probably had enough on his mind without me hanging round asking stupid questions, so made my exit hopefully meeting up with them later today.

Ruhpolding – Ski Jumping – Monday 2nd March

I’m in a dark place. After dropping Torbs off at Zurich airport yesterday I faced a 4 hour drive into Eastern Germany to Ruhpolding to the Masters Ski Jump Championship. What initially looked like a brutal (and well deserved) hangover has metamorphosed into something very much more flu-like. I haven’t been able to keep any food down for almost 36 hours now and getting weaker by the minute.

I originally came here to meet James Lambert, the captain of the British Masters Ski Team, and head further east to learn to ski jump. However that’s looking more and more unlikely as I’m barely able to leave my hotel room at the moment. On reflection I also have a 700 km drive to Geneva by Thursday evening, and at the moment I’m struggling to stand up.

I’m hoping this will be my darkest moment, as there are few places I would rather not be than holed up on my own in a foreboding hotel room, shivering, coughing my guts up, unable to sleep and generally regretting this leg of my trip. Dark times indeed.

The rest of St Moritz

I guess Torbs and I did what we came to do – take on the Cresta Run. After 7 rides I wanted more, but that competitive streak had kicked in and at some point I could have come a cropper. Torbs also left as a member of the Shuttlecock Club with the tie, which I am very jealous of.

Highlights for us had to be the Pioda (hot stone where you cook your own meat) where you could select any animal that took your choosing. We tried Zebra, Ostrich, Kangeroo and Moose to name a few.

We did a bobsleigh run which was phenomenal. We were only passengers in the middle of the bob with a driver and brakeman, but the feeling of pulling 3G through corners was amazing. I’ll get a video up as soon as possible of that!

We also went for a night ski one evening. To be fair, we didn’t actually make it out for the day’s skiing due to a rather large session the night before. One of st Moritz’s ski areas opens up a long run which is floodlit most of the way down. Sadly not all of it, and you spend most of your time dodging drunk Italians ploughing down faster than they really can handle.

On the last night before we left, we crashed the last night of the Cresta Run party. I would like to give lots of detail on what we did and got up to but sadly according to Torbs I was “about as drunk as he’d ever seen me”. This I do remember – we had to bribe our way in, we got charged £15 a drink, we left as it closed, we went down the Olympic bobsleigh run on a tea tray and a broom, I woke up outside our hotel room on the floor and Torbs found my phone hanging from the door in a plastic bag the next day. Apart from that, absolutely nothing. Legend night though.

I’m not sure how I feel about St Moritz though. I’d like to say it was the crème de la crème of ski resorts, but I never really felt welcome. There was no après ski, the average age was well into the 50’s and we never really felt comfortable. I would love to do the Cresta Run again, but I doubt I’ll be going back to St Moritz for the skiing.

Cresta Run

I’m not going to dress this up in bravado, so I will admit that neither Torbs or I slept that well the night before our first day on the Cresta. We’d scoped out the location the night before, and seen the legendary “Shuttlecock” corner from the “Vultures Nest” viewing platform and it looked very fast, icy and dangerous.

We had to be at the clubhouse for 7am to kit-up and get on the riding list, which meant a very unwelcome 6am start. The run only opens in the morning, because after midday it’s too warm and the ice melts too much. On the drive down we spotted a strange looking fellow wearing what appeared to be plus-fours and a tatty jumper. “He’s probably on his way to the Cresta Run” joked Torbs.

As we walked through the changing room we were relieved to see suits of motorcross-style body armour hanging from a rack. We’d both brought back protectors (Torbs broke his a few years ago), and suddenly it looked as if we might have over compensated.

Sadly, the body armour belonged to members, and as beginners we had to make do with leather elbow pads and kneepads, accompanied by knuckle protectors. And a helmet, which we were helpfully told to “check it fits properly, you don’t want it falling over your eyes halfway down”. No shit Sherlock. The only other thing we were given were stout leather boots with “rakes” on the toes to give you some form of steerage / braking. (Though I later discovered that even if you dig them completely into the ice, they will never stop actually you, just realign your trajectory slightly)

Next stop was the clubhouse bar for the briefing from the Secretary. As we walked in we were blown away by what appeared to be a room full of people wearing plus-fours and slightly ratty jumpers. It was as if we had just jumped back a century into the middle of a foxhunt. Looking more closely, we could spot body armour underneath the outfits creating a slightly perverse hybrid of high tech safety equipment and 1800’s high fashion. (I should also point out that although the ages ranged from late 20’s to early 60’s, there was a pervasive smell of wealth through the room. Not newly made internet or stockbroker wealth, but old-school trust fund wealth.)

The Secretary opened by showing the 10 of us complete beginners a composite X-Ray that had been put together showing some of the injuries over the years. Broken necks, arms, backs, various plates and screws didn’t do a lot to reassure us. He then mentioned some rules, emphasised that we had just signed our lives away downstairs on a small piece of paper, and pointed out that people had died on the Cresta Run. Which was nice.

We were then introduced to our “Guru” who simply wanted us to make it down intact in about 70 seconds (the fastest riders make it in about 45 seconds with a push start). He didn’t want anyone coming out at Shuttlecock as that just wastes one of our 5 rides. (He forgot to mention the potential for critical injury). We were introduced to our 30 kg face-down sleds and shown how in theory we steer using your toes. And then we were off.

The hardest part is the waiting. Essentially you lie face down and ready on your sled as soon as the previous rider goes off. You then have about 60 seconds to stare down the ice track and contemplate what’s about to happen. As your name is announced, the safety man removes his foot and off you go. The sled gains speed, and for the first time you can test your steering and brakes. You have no idea how effective they will be in advance because you can’t test them, so you really have to guess as you go down. The one other time I’ve suddenly realised I’m going to have to learn something so critical so quickly was on my first solo skydive when your parachute opens and it suddenly becomes clear you’ve never been taught how to steer one before.

After one run, 2 of the beginners had already decided they had had enough. Torbs and I caught our “Guru” sloping off after we’d done two runs to do some shopping. “Can you tell the others to try changing hands on Shuttlecock” he said making a motion not unlike a poor 70’s disco move. “Uh, OK” we said, not confident in our Cresta Run teaching abilities after just 2 runs.

But one positive is that once you’re round Shuttlecock (SC), you don’t really have to steer anymore – you’re along for the ride. Post-SC you might get banged about a bit, but you can’t come out of the track. Survive SC and you survive the run. Get it wrong and you’re flying though the air with 30 kg of solid sled towards a protective landing of snow and a bit of straw. The previous week someone had fractured 2 vertebrate coming off at speed.

The thing is it’s addictive. One run and we were hooked. By the bottom you’re doing 50mph + headfirst on ice – that’s a good rush. I’m not saying the butterflies aren’t there beforehand, but you really do relish it. By the end of the second day we had done 7 runs and decided that it was probably time we called it quits. Partly because it was costing 50 Swiss Francs for every hit of adrenaline, partly because we were down to 55 seconds and getting quite competitive, and partly because we knew that you can push your luck a little too far.

Note: I managed (upsetting our Guru) to get my Helmet Camera on during the days, so I’ve included a video of my closest “run in” with Shuttlecock. I over-cooked it and should have been thrown out of the corner (to the extent I had straw stuck under my sled!) but somehow crashed back in and survived. Don’t ask me how, just enjoy….

St Moritz

St Moritz is an expensive place to ski. Partly because they think it’s reasonable to charge almost £10 for a pint, but also because the kind of person that holidays there doesn’t just have to transport his family there on holiday, but also his wife’s fur coat collection, his mistress and however many illegitimate children he has too.

As a ski resort it’s OK. They were having the best snow for 15 years, so you can’t really complain, but it’s nothing compared to the French super-resorts. One big upside is that the clientele don’t really ski that much. Sure, they get a private instructor, have long lunches and cruise a few blues, but it’s more about seeing and being seen. (I should point out that even the ski instructor’s kit is made by Prada – I’m not joking!) This does mean that the off-piste is virtually untouched, all the blacks are empty and you can get a lot of skiing in.

It’s also the first place I’ve ever seen someone arrive at the slopes in a stretched Merc, just in time for lunch.

Leaving the UK

Google told us it was 1015km, was going to take 11 hours from Calais and we were booked on the 10am ferry from Dover. So when Torbs called me at 11pm the night before to ask what he needed to pack I should have been concerned. Not as concerned as Torbs though, as I was ordering main course in a restaurant in Covent Garden with my folks.

Not the ideal start, but we made the ferry, had offensively large fried breakfasts headed into France. Two words which are not in Torbs’s vocabulary are “mechanical sympathy” (he managed to drown his last car), and within minutes of him taking over the driving duty, we had a red warning light on the dash saying “Check Engine”. I consulted the handbook, and it recommended “immediately visiting dealer”. Not an option, so we drove on. I took over and the “muppet driver warning light” went out, confirming that the car feared Torbie’s “binary” driving style.

The drive was long, dull and tiring. The last hour or so was spent fighting our way up the mountain in a blizzard at 10 mph. we eventually arrived at 11pm, and crashed out, very aware we were just 36 hours from the Cresta Run.

Speed Riding

Speed-riding is a fairly recent hybrid of skiing and paragliding. The idea is that you ski down a hill wearing a small parachute which gives you lift and the ability to fly for small distances. You can gain lift and use the parachute to fly over terrain. Apart from that, there’s not a lot more to say.

For this leg I'm being joined by Bruce, my business partner.

Ski Jumping

Who can forget the legend that was Eddie “the Eagle” Edwards? Though often considered as a bit of a laughing stock, Eddie was actually a very good skier indeed. He was not only the British National Ski-jumping Record holder, but also the World No 9 in Amateur Speed-skiing (106.8mph) and the Stunt Jumping World Record Holder (10 cars / 6 buses). And let’s be fair he had balls of steel throwing himself 80 meters into the unknown in front of millions of people. He’s also the only individual athlete to be mentioned in an Olympic closing ceremony, when the games president in Calgary said “At this Games some competitors have won gold, some have broken records and one has even flown like an eagle."

I am a huge fan off Eddie because I can see through the plucky loser tag and appreciate quite what he achieved. He was totally self funded, made do with inadequate kit and terribly short sighted, yet he made it to the greatest sporting event on earth and became Britain’s most famous winter Olympian. The downside is that he is also responsible for the IOC introducing the “Eddie the Eagle Rule”, which requires Olympic hopefuls to compete in international events and place in the top 30 percent or the top 50 competitors, whichever is the lesser. So don’t expect to see any other plucky Brits jumping at the Winter Olympics in 2010.

I’ve always wanted to launch off a ski jump. I love the adrenaline rush, and Eddie’s feats have been imprinted on my imagination since 1988. I’m not aiming to get anywhere close to his achievements, but I do want to go off a full size ski jump under my own steam.

Apparently there is not much of a market for 30-somethings wanting to learn to ski jump, and finding someone to help has been tricky. My letter to Eddie the Eagle Edwards has gone unanswered (though I can’t really blame him – no doubt he regularly has crackpots hassling him), the Canadians had a couple of lessons on offer but I’d have to join a class of 8 year olds and most of the Scandinavians I’ve spoken to have been less than helpful.

However, after 2 years trying to find someone to help, James Lambert (who took the British Record from Eddie) has offered to help. He is a member of the British Masters, a ski jumping team of ex-pats based in Scandinavia, and has agreed to meet me at the International Masters Championship at Ruhpolding at the beginning of March. From there, who knows…

Speed Skiing

Throughout my years of skiing I have always loved the speed. When I first learnt at 7 years old, the instructor struggled to explain to me why I actually needed to turn. All I wanted to do was straight-line every slope, then go up and do it all again. To try and slow me down a bit, Dad took me down the Lauberhorn downhill race slope in Wengen. He also demonstrated why I needed to turn by taking me across my first mogul field and had a very big crash. I’ll point out now that Dad made no attempt to stop me or explain what a mogul field is, but he did seem to enjoy watching it happen.

During my gap year I worked in a kitchen washing dishes in Val d’Isere to feed my habit. Every day as soon as I was done, I’d strap on the biggest skis I could find and hammer down my favour slope as fast as possible. Every day, no matter the weather I’d head out. I always wanted to be a downhill racer, but lack of skiing at a young age, and an engineering degree meant it was never going to happen. The closest I got was a few Giant Slalom races with instructors, and an informal, yet highly dangerous race in St Anton against an ex-member of the British Ski Team for his downhill skis. Those skis are now in the Gambia somewhere, but that’s another story.

Speed Skiing is a fairly simple sport. Essentially you find the steepest hill you can and point straight down. No turns, no brakes, just as much straight-line speed as possible. To put some numbers next to it, a typical holiday skier might do 20mph down a normal slope and can hit 40 mph on a “shuss”. If you fall off a tall building, then terminal velocity before you splat is about 125mph. The world speed ski record is 156 mph. My best to date is a rather antisocial 70 mph on a public ski slope measured on a GPS. My target is to break the 100mph barrier.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_skiing

Cresta Run

The St Moritz Tobogganing Club is an ancient institution dating back to 1887, which every year builds a icy track for members to throw themselves down. It’s steeped in tradition and remains one of the most exclusive clubs in the world. It’s also unlike any other bobsleigh / sled track in the world in that you it is designed to spit you out if you go too fast. All other tracks consider this to be too “dangerous”, whereas the Cresta has an unbanked corner called “Shuttlecock” which is you attempt to go too fast will simply throw you and your 30kg sled onto a highly advanced landing point of soft snow and straw. Oh yes, and you do all this headfirst reaching speeds of 50mph+ for beginners. It has killed people, and even as recently as last year one rider lost part of his leg halfway down. Ouch.

Transport to the Alps - November

Right, first things first. Transport. Flying out to the Alps is the traditional method of heading on a ski trip, but doesn’t give me a lot of flexibility. In addition, most airlines will also charge you the price of a small estate in the Cotswolds just to carry a tennis racket, and BA even refuse to carry my surfboard at all now.

And I’m going to have kit, and lots of it. As any bloke knows, the amount of “kit” you’ve got is crucial. There is no such thing as “too much kit”. If you’re female and disagree, just take a look at your shoe collection and ask whether there’s space for another pair of Jimmy Choos. And I have a lot of ski kit. 3 pairs of skis, ski boots, ski poles, a snowboard and snowboard boots to start with. Oh yes, and a stuffed badger.

I’m a big fan of “challenging transport”, having towed a caravan across the Sahara Desert, a Rickshaw coast to coast across India and a £91 BMW 2,000 miles across Europe in 5 days. My first thought was up the challenge a little more and take some entirely inappropriate transport. My Vespa immediately sprung to mind, but there’s a very good reason why you’re more likely to see Lord Lucan in a ski resort than a motorbike. Next idea was my beloved MGB roadster, but I’ve had to discount that because it’s a) Not waterproof and the heater has broken b) Dangerous to drive in the wet, let alone on snow and c) Less reliable than an Italian politician.

So it appears I have bought another car. I was very careful in my research, deciding exactly what I needed. Four wheel drive of course. A big boot to fit lots of kit in. Leather seats, because I’d never had a car with leather seats before. And a twin-turbocharged engine with a bonnet scoop, because I’m a bloke.

So still extremely hungover last night, I trekked down to Croydon and bought a 2000 Subaru GTB estate car with 144,000 miles on the clock. That’s quite a high mileage for a car with a very highly tuned (and supposedly quite fragile) engine, in fact it’s about the same as driving around the earth 6 times. Spare parts will also be a bit of an issue, because the model was never officially sold in the UK. For some reason Subaru UK never imported it because they didn’t think there was that much of a market for 170mph estate cars.

I also took the sensible step of not taking it for a test drive because I wasn’t really legally sober yet. And I looked at it in the dark, because of some train delays. However, due to its particularly dishevelled appearance and astronomic mileage I got it for a song.

I look forward to picking it up and seeing if it actually drives. I never said I’d be that practical.

Update:

Turns out the car is purple. Which is a bit of a surprise, but also a lesson on why not to buy a car in the dark.

The Plan

Over the course of 4 weeks I’m aiming to “do” the Cresta Run, learn to Ski Jump, learn to Speed Fly and break 100mph Speed Skiing.

For the first leg out to St Moritz in Switzerland for the Cresta Run, David “Danger” Torbet will be joining me. “Torbs” is my flatmate and loves a challenge. He also broke his back skiing a few years ago so shouldn’t really be doing this. [His middle name really is Danger after I changed it by Deedpoll for his birthday a few years back. His mum still hasn’t forgiven me.]

After that, it’s ski jumping. Then the others. I’m aiming to be back in the UK about 5 weeks later for the beginning of April.