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
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
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