 Poster: A snowHead
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@johnE, it was me and my understanding was that the main gearbox seized, abruptly. The individual chairs swung, yes, but the gross effect on the cable was a violent wave of maybe 8m amplitude which when it reached my chair, bang in the middle of two pylons was more or less a purely vertical and very abrupt motion.
I would not want to repeat the experience.
It took, iirc, about two weeks to get the chair in service again.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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@under a new name, Lucky the cable fell back onto the pulleys. I can see that you would be entirely weightless for half the 8m ascent and again for half the descent. Wow.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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@Hurtle, ...can indeed happen. I look at some of the creaking, ancient installations owned by the villages around us, and hope that the annual inspector had their mind on the job the day they were there...
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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| johnE wrote: |
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However, I agree that people not removing their feet from the foot-rest bar in good time makes me wonder if they have forgotten they are coming into the station!
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They are probably asleep. Does anyone else fall asleep on chairlifts, praticulalry the long slow ones in the spring sunshine?
@Mr Marmot, I missed this one
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There is a current topic on this forum about chairlift problems where a SnowHead describes the motor gearing suddenly jamming and the lift coming to an abrupt stop and it being enough to have thrown him out of the chair if the bar had been raised!
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However I am really fascinated how the chair was bought abruptly to a stop. If the cable stopped then the chair and persons sitting on it would continue moving forward (swinging) until their kinetic energy was converted into potential energy, both at the same rate.
I vaguely remeber reading somewhere that in the USA it is not unusual for chairlifts not to have bars. |
@ JohnE. This link will take you to the post:
http://snowheads.com/ski-forum/viewtopic.php?t=136190#3187150
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I last skied in California (Mammoth) aged 12 in 1989. I recall none of the chair lifts as having bars. I remember my parents commenting thar the european lifts had bars and dismay that these didn’t.
As a child, especially as I started using the bigger runs on that last trip, I found it quite intimindating. One chair lift to a intermediate run seemed very high and over forest and rocks.
On an earlier trip, the small kid next to me on the chair lift to a green run, when we were in ski-school, refused to shuffle forward at the top despite my prompting and missed the off ramp. He was left in the chair heading for the turn around shed (which looked to my young eyes like a dark and terrifying maw waiting to shred reluctant young skiers to pieces!)
I also have a memory of being at the bottom of the run amd hearing a shout from above. I looked up to see my younger sister dangeling from my mothers arms, entirely off the chair, while they carefully backed it down to a safe height to catch her!
Last edited by You'll need to Register first of course. on Fri 9-02-18 16:34; edited 1 time in total
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| Wonkyski wrote: |
I last skied in California (Mammoth) aged 12 in 1989. I recall non of the chair lifts as having bars. I remember my parents commenting thar the european lifts had bars and dismay that these didn’t.
As a child, especially as i started using the bigger runs on that last trip, I found it quite intimindating. One chair lift to a intermediate run seemed very high and over forest and rocks.
On an earlier trip, the small kid next to me on the chair lift to a green run, when we were in ski-school, refused to shuffle forward at the top despite my prompting and missed the off ramp. He was left in the chair heading for the turn around shed (which looked to my young eyes like a dark and terrifying maw waiting to shred reluctant young skiers to pieces!)
I also have a memory of being at the bottom of the run amd hearing a shout from above. I looked up to see my younger sister danglying from my mothers arms, entirely off the chair, while they carefully backed it down to a safe height to catch her! |
Quite bizarre with US' sue-happy culture that the ski resorts don't insist on having the bars down. Numerous Americans I've spoken to about it think we're mental!
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@haigie, yup, we are mental. No chair lift safety bars and no guns.
What were we thinking?
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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My US experiences were in the eighties. I surprised things haven’t moved on, frankly.
Last edited by You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net. on Fri 9-02-18 16:32; edited 2 times in total
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Ski School in Whistler often puts a small child with a chair of adults. We had one of these the other week, about 3 years old I'd guess. He was constantly moving about, turning around , doing his best to fall off all the way up. Mrs endo ended up grabbing hold of his ski suit and forcing him to sit still. Pretty stressful ride when it wasn't your kid! There was a bar but he would have gone straight under it.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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@haigie, the opint (as I understand it) is that the resorts are concerned that by installing bars they are taking responsiblity and thereby opening themselves up to being sued. Whereas without the bar, you falling off is your own fault.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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| Dave of the Marmottes wrote: |
Bar raising isn't the real issue. The paranoid twunts who slam the bar down before everyone is properly seated however  |
This!
My helmet doesn't have marks on from fall damage, but from numpties pulling down the bar whilst I'm still getting sat down. I noticed that this tends to be a French thing? When I've been on a lift with British/other nationalities they tend to have a look before yanking it down. However, every time I've been whacked its been a Frenchie pulling it down without due care for anyone else on the lift. Of course, this is just my experience, others may have seen different.
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Re small children on chairlifts, is one of the problems that if they put their bottoms back into the seat to ‘sit properly’ they can’t bend their legs at the knees? Sitting with legs straight out obviously not possible with skis on! Just a thought, haven’t seen it as an adult, being newly returned to skiing.
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You know it makes sense.
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@Fridge03, huh, I knd of assume everyone is focussed on getting on board properly and I have no idea who was at fault but friends and I did get somewhat shouted at by a French chap as we nrought the bar down at a reasonable point and he clearly wasn’t paying enough attention to the necessary. He was quite tall it must be said.
Surely you get on and more or less the first thing is bar down? 
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Modern lifts... plenty of time to deal with it all in the lift station.
Leg breakers... well, they are just like Russian Roulette!
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Poster: A snowHead
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| haigie wrote: |
| ... Quite bizarre with US' sue-happy culture that the ski resorts don't insist on having the bars down. ... |
You can easily pull the statistics from the national ski areas association in the US: http://www.nsaa.org/media/310500/Lift_Safety_Fact_Sheet_2017.pdf
They have specific statistics from some areas on restraint bars. There's no question that restraint bars improve safety, but chairlifts are incredibly safe to start off with.
In some states bars are mandatory, and in Vermont it's a legal requirement for users to lower the restraint bar.
I've not had the time to check if wearing your helmet in your car would reduce your risk more than using a restraint bar, but I suspect it may.
And finally they say: "... the ANSI B77 Committee is likely to pass a provision in 2017 to add a regulation [to require restraint bars on all new lifts]".
The source document is $200, but here: https://blog.ansi.org/2016/01/ansi-b771-ski-chair-lift-safety/ they appear to say that's done:
"Additional safety precautions designated by ANSI B77.1-2017 include a restraint bar and safety signs. All skiers [...are responsible ] to lower a restraint bar..."
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Personally I use the bar.
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I never noticed anyone banging their heads on chair lift bars before the invented helmets, I think the two things go together.
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Small children?
In Canada it's common to be asked by the ski school to look after kids on chairlifts as they could easily slip under the bar.
As a single male without a CRB check daily fail readers would think this incredibly risky, but they need to get out more.
I grab them by the collar - that's what they expect.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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As it's usually just me and the OH on a lift, she gets twitchy if we don't raise the bar beyond just about 3/4 the way up. As is her want. On the odd occasion that we get get asked to escort a wee tot, I wish my local lingo was better.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Of course, we’ve all skimmed past the biggest problem with the safety bar. You are all getting on the chairlift, everything is smooth and easy. You are just about to sit down when a skier in the row behind is unable to stop their forward progress and uses the safety bar to stop themselves sliding into the back of the chair in front. This immediately brings the bar down causing all sorts of mayhem and bad temper.
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I skimmed through the article and didn't spot any statistic on chairs with vs without safety bars... Instead found this: "71 percent of all falls from lifts in Colorado occurred on chairlifts that had a restraint bar"
I try to find what percentage of chair has restraint bar vs without but couldn't find that info...
So, what are the data I am missing that points to restraint bars improve safety?
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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| foxtrotzulu wrote: |
| Of course, we’ve all skimmed past the biggest problem with the safety bar. You are all getting on the chairlift, everything is smooth and easy. You are just about to sit down when a skier in the row behind is unable to stop their forward progress and uses the safety bar to stop themselves sliding into the back of the chair in front. This immediately brings the bar down causing all sorts of mayhem and bad temper. |
Never had it happen in 30 years
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| holidayloverxx wrote: |
| foxtrotzulu wrote: |
| Of course, we’ve all skimmed past the biggest problem with the safety bar. You are all getting on the chairlift, everything is smooth and easy. You are just about to sit down when a skier in the row behind is unable to stop their forward progress and uses the safety bar to stop themselves sliding into the back of the chair in front. This immediately brings the bar down causing all sorts of mayhem and bad temper. |
Never had it happen in 30 years |
I've seen it happened, once.
Though I wouldn't call it "the biggest problem".
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| abc wrote: |
I skimmed through the article and didn't spot any statistic on chairs with vs without safety bars... Instead found this: "71 percent of all falls from lifts in Colorado occurred on chairlifts that had a restraint bar"
I try to find what percentage of chair has restraint bar vs without but couldn't find that info...
So, what are the data I am missing that points to restraint bars improve safety? |
I don’t think there is any relevant data in that report. Even the 71% figure you quote is meaningless as we don’t know whether the safety bar was actually being used. We do know that over a 10year period Colorado had 227 falls from lifts, of which 196 were as a result of skier error. I.e. the vast majority. I would have thought it’s extremely difficult to fall from a chair, through skier error, if a bar is fitted and used. Not impossible and I suspect many falls happen in the first and last 5 seconds when a bar may not be relevant anyway. Even so, it looks to me as if safety bars probably do increase safety.
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| Quote: |
Even the 71% figure you quote is meaningless as we don’t know whether the safety bar was actually being used.
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@foxtrotzulu, if safety bar "significantly" improve safety, we should see the average number of falls from chair WITH safety bar showing steadily improving as more and more safety bars are fitted and people are using it more.
Not saying safety bars are useless. But the lack of data points to the direction that its effects much less "significant" than people so desperately want to believe. (part of the cause for the lack of data could be that the chairs are so "incredibly safe" even WITHOUT restraint bars, any "improvement" are lost in the ransom noise)
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Was on the Thuit lift in LDA last week, and it seemed to have been built by midgets. I literally (no really, @valais2) had to limbo myself under the bar to get it open or closed - as I found out the first time when my friend managed to lady's front bottom me on the head on both lowering and then lifting it. To add insult to injury, I couldn't even get my skis on the foot rests. Granted I'm tall, but not *that* tall.
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@Pejoli, ... I’ve been in quite a few chairs built 1960s or perhaps earlier, and maybe fabricated in provincial parts of France and Switzerland, and indeed they are sometimes built to much smaller dimensions than contemporary chairs. We were on a leg slapper last year in the Valais and the foot rests were a good 50cms too high for comfort.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| Quote: |
as I found out the first time when my friend managed to lady's front bottom me on the head
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Gotta love the profanity filter! Took me a minute to get that.
Regarding statistics, surely it's not the number (or even percentage) of falls that occur with/without safety bar that's important. Rather the number of falls per 1000 passenger journeys on each type of lift (no bar / manual bar / automatic bar)
Obviously the absolute number of falls from safety bar equiped chairs will increase as they get more common!
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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...and a small side note to the original post ... a problem variation is where the chair has a long flat area to negotiate around the bottom station and if the bar is lowered prematurely, sticks can be abruptly broken in half if they dig into the snow and lever against the seat and bar. Cabane de Bois at Montana has this interesting characteristic and a pile of broken sticks on the side.
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There's a chair in Saalbach that automatically lowers and locks the bar down when you leave, then raises it automatically just before arriving. Got me in a bit of a panic first time, when I thought it had jammed shut...
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You know it makes sense.
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I think most of us on here are sensible skiers and open it late. But I think in France especially I notice that the French like to get the bar up basically as soon as you can see the top lift station.
With the style of lift where the car travels through the top station at full speed it's one thing. It really frustrates me on the top stations where the car slows down to a snails pace. There is clearly loads of time to open the bar whilst everyone is basically touching the ground, there is no need to do it when you're half a mile out. Unless you are a tw@t.
All you can do is keep your feet on the footrest. Opening the bar with somebody's feet on the rest is fairly difficult. (My problem is I'm too tall and can't get my feet on the rest at all, so I just have to lean on it).
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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If the automatic release releases when it's in the top station, then lift it up in the top station if it's a detachable. Plenty of time.
Bit earlier if it's a fixed grip.
Proper weird that other lift riders are panicking that they can't lift the bar up 3 pylons before arrival. Yeah, my feet are still taking a rest. Even if I take a snooze, the detaching and deceleration of the chair will wake me up with enough time to lift the bar before the disembarkation point.
There should be more auto-locking / auto-release bars (will teach people to control their sticks better). And there should be more heated 8er chairs. And fewer gondolas.
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Poster: A snowHead
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| abc wrote: |
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Even the 71% figure you quote is meaningless as we don’t know whether the safety bar was actually being used.
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@foxtrotzulu, if safety bar "significantly" improve safety, we should see the average number of falls from chair WITH safety bar showing steadily improving as more and more safety bars are fitted and people are using it more.
Not saying safety bars are useless. But the lack of data points to the direction that its effects much less "significant" than people so desperately want to believe. (part of the cause for the lack of data could be that the chairs are so "incredibly safe" even WITHOUT restraint bars, any "improvement" are lost in the ransom noise) |
The trouble is that we have no idea whether safety bars have significantly increased in number in Colorado over the period and, even more importantly, whether people are using them much more. Anecdotal evidence suggests that bars are fairly common but very rarely used. As you say, chairs are extremely safe but I was a little surprised that Colorado had as many as c.20 falls per year. Maybe it depends what one calls a ‘fall’.
Incidentally: https://www.denverpost.com/2017/01/30/7-year-old-girl-falls-from-chairlift-at-colorado-ski-resort/
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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@dp, you can’t get your feet on the rest as you are too tall, half the time I can’t get mine on as my legs are too short. I just move them out of the way when time to raise the bar. Totally agree that there is no need to open the bar half a mile from the top, and whopping it down before everyone is ready is just rude. If there are other people on the lift with us we always look along and say OK? before lowering it.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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| Quote: |
Anecdotal evidence suggests that bars are fairly common but very rarely used.
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@foxtrotzulu, I don't know where you got your "anecdotal evidence". My years of skiing in Colorado (minimum 10 day/year, some years as much as 30-40 days), I observed if the chair has bar, it's down between 1/3-2/3 the time. (Less used mid-week, non-holiday, most used during holiday periods) That's far from "rarely used".
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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| andy wrote: |
Bit earlier if it's a fixed grip.
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Agree with a fixed grip one it's ideal to lift up a bit early, so if anyone is having a tard moment you've got time to recover it before it's too late. With detachables, opening it before you get to the end is a dick move and there is no need for it.
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| And there should be more heated 8er chairs |
Or you could apply Rule 5...
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| And fewer gondolas. |
Personally I think there is space in the world for gondolas. Sometimes. A chair is often better, but when it's snowing heavily and freezing cold, a gondola can be a nice way of grabbing a moment of shelter, a bit of chocolate and a place to adjust your gear without the feeling you're holding anyone up!!
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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| Quote: |
Personally I think there is space in the world for gondolas. Sometimes. A chair is often better, but when it's snowing heavily and freezing cold, a gondola can be a nice way of grabbing a moment of shelter, a bit of chocolate and a place to adjust your gear without the feeling you're holding anyone up!!
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Absolutely! It sometimes make the difference of skiing vs NOT skiing. Or the difference between skiing a couple hours vs skiing a full day!
That said, I recently started dabbling in telemark. I noticed the extra faffing taking the ski off and back on with a manual binding quite a bit more. 
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@abc, exactly. I find on tough days when the weather is poor, if you can run your day to use the gondolas a bit, they can provide a great space to have a little chill for a moment, top up your energy, adjust your gear etc and help you stay out longer. Just the 5 minutes of shelter and sit down can perk you up without having to stop for a (extortionately overpriced) coffee.
Fair to say though that cable cars, on the other hand, can suck on a fat one.
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FAQ
