 Poster: A snowHead
|
| Quote: |
Where can I get the Blackeye TIs for 375 inc a bag? I was just about to order a pair (375 without a bag) but the bag would be nice...
|
I have a £50 voucher for snow & rock after buying my boots from there. I was going to abuse the price promise and get the skis there too.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
|
|
|
|
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?
|
That is excellent. I might want a little more precision with the edge angles personally, but love the idea that you can use hard low-temperature wax to fill those gouges that are not really deep enough to be worth P-tex.
|
|
|
|
|
|
You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
|
|
|
|
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
|
Having just bought skis for the first time this season I'd say go for it. Transport costs halved if you can get two pairs in the one ski bag and halved again if you can leave them in resort between visits. A basic edge and wax is only £10/20. Economic argument can be swung in your favour if you ski more - the more you ski the more you save!!!
My only suggestion is that you buy something you have rented and liked or can try before you buy.
|
|
|
|
|
|
You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
|
| RichTraff wrote: |
This is killing me. Some of you are really tempting me. £375 for Blackeye TI's with bag, minus the £100 what I'd spend on hire. It's only an extra £275 out of my pocket this year.
Mmm, Nahhh. It'd be exciting now but come August I'd be regret I didn't spend that money on a motorbike whilst my skis are gathering dust! Even more so if all my mates decide not to go skiing next year.
Lessons this year. Ski's next year. 100% so if I go for 2 weeks. |
I just read your OP - be careful not to buy something too stiff as 6 ski trips in 8 years does not make you an advanced skier!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
When they are more than 50% off in a sale. Same goes for any additional equipment you require. Also don't feel disappointed in summer buy the motorbike as well. 
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Generally if you are only going to ski for 1 week a year its not worth the effort of buying skies. Boots on the other hand are a must. The only other thing i would say that if you were defently going to buy a pair, you could find an snowdown or a dry slope near you so that you could pratice on & it would feel worth while.
|
|
|
|
|
|
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.
|
Before you need a new pair, as if you buy when you need a new pair it will cost the earth!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
This:
| Jivebaby wrote: |
| I service the family skis, usually my own, but can be up to six pairs at a time, hence the pro-workshop kit comes in useful. |
is the best example of man maths I've ever seen in action. Buy the gear and enjoy it if that's what floats your boat, but servicing six sets of skis a year doesn't justify - what - £400?-worth of stuff. At £15 per service that's four services before you're in profit - and that's before wax/depreciation/new toys.
| Jivebaby wrote: |
| : Iron, Wax, scraper/s, edge tool, de-burrer. brushes, wax remover that's at least £200 (my own toolkit is somewhat more extensive, including a P-Tex gun |
OP, I wouldn't. If you book online, and through snowrental.com through quidco, then 6 days for performance skis in Tignes is €75 less a further 19% = €60. €8 more during half term week.
Your ski carriage somewhere between £nil and £60 return, and £20 for a service, and then you've bought completely the wrong type of skis for the snow anyway.
Even if carriage is free, it's 10 weeks' skiing or more before you're in profit with a £400 pair of skis. By that point will you still be skiing? And that's ten years away, so do you really want antiquated skis? Oh yes, and you've had to lug the bl00dy things through the airport too. And some weeks you'll want to sharpen the edges after 3 days, so that's an extra service to pay for (or kit to buy and learn to use).
Even if you go on three trips a year the maths doesn't change as they're expensive and heavy to ship three times and still need servicing. If on the other hand you're going to St Anton for a fortnight each eyar (where hire is ferociously expensive) then it may make sense.
Go on then, buy your skis, you know you're dying to. And get jivebaby to help you buy some servicing kit too.
|
|
|
|
|
|
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
|
| Quote: |
I just read your OP - be careful not to buy something too stiff as 6 ski trips in 8 years does not make you an advanced skier!
|
Your probably right mate. I doubt I'm an advanced skier at all. To be honest, I don't know the rating system at all. I think I just like to believe that because I'm willing to throw myself down almost slope, piste or off piste, that it automatically makes me above intermediate standard. I know this isn't the case. I've been on 3 ski school week course's prior to my more recent 6 trips but none the less, I've forgotten any technique taught and I guess I ski on instinct now!!
This year I do want to improve my technique and I'm getting lessons. Therefore I don't want ski's that I'll out do in ability in a year or two. A luxury renting can offer I guess!
So back to the point. James the Last, you have a very good argument for renting skis. At the moment we are basing all this on the idea that the Skis are costing £400, the original price for the Blackeye TI's I had in mind. I think we've established it'd be very uneconomical to make such a purchase if only skiing 7 days per year.
BUT lets pretend that the price for those skis was more like £250, say in the sale at the end of the season. I don't mean Blackeye TI's, maybe just something similar. Would we then agree that this is would make it an economical purchase? If not, what price could we agree on in order to making it economically viable?
|
|
|
|
|
|
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.
|
I think the key issue is: do you want to choose the skis you ski on or are you prepared to take pot-luck at the hire shop? If the former is your answer, then how much in terms of cash and hassle are you prepared to commit in order to make that choice.
Get a relationship with YOUR skis would be my response, and learn how to keep them in good nick. Invest!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
...... The main motivation I recall for buying our first pairs (some 15 years ago now) was to justify more ski trips per year to my missus  worked a treat!
|
|
|
|
|
|
You know it makes sense.
|
|
|
|
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
|
| Quote: |
my wife does get a bit annoyed with the blobs of wax which appear on our kitchen work surface when i decide it is too cold to do my ski servicing in the garden
|
Use the kitchen table and then you can wax polish it at teh same time. No doubt there have been other discussions ablout using furniture wax on skis so why not the otther way around 
|
|
|
|
|
|
Poster: A snowHead
|
We ski 2 weeks a year in the alps & 2 to 3
Days up in scotland. Always bought my skis
in the end of season sales, paid £300 for my
Head monsters in march 2009 inc head mojo
bindings (should have cost £650). They will have
been used for 48days of skiing by the time I
get back from Val disere in march.
Ski carriage has never cost me more than £35 return
But mainly has been £30 return. So 7 ski hols @£30
Carriage has cost me £210 plus £300 skis has cost me
about £10.62 per day of skiing or in other words
£63.75 a week. Never seen that standard of ski available
to hire at that price, more like £100-120 per week.
Yes I service myself (mine & my wife's skis) use B&D work mate as vice. Purchased proper wax iron £40. Wax ain't expensive and just use a 99p nylon brush from b&q to brush bases and lint free cloth to polish bases after scraping. Edge tool £20 and that's it. so nowt really cost wise.
Skis have loads left in em and will do easy another 48days bringing my weekly cost down to about £30 a weeks skiing.
Plus as others have said, no queuing in hire shops etc & I guess 2nd hand you would still get about £100 for em at the min.
So for me 3 trips and they had paid for em selves. Well they are going on there 7th trip in march to the alps never mind a few weeks here and there in Scotland. No brainer for me
|
|
|
|
|
|
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
|
|
|
|
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?
|
|
|
|
You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
|
| Quote: |
Even more so if all my mates decide not to go skiing next year.
|
I'd say that if you wouldn't go skiing if your mates "decided not to go" then it's not worth your while buying them. Buy them once you are really hooked - which would mean that you'd go anyway. 
|
|
|
|
|
|
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
|
skis should cost relatively next to nothing for a week or two's skiing. there'sa many a bargain in cyber-space.
hire skis cost an arm and a leg. why throw your money away?
and never buy skis without calculating their real re-sale value. unless you got more wonga than the tv ads!
|
|
|
|
|
|
You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
|
So I've just been through this decision/justification.
Boots are a no brainer - having boots that don't fit really ruins the enjoyment of a very expensive holiday.
Ski's aren't so clear for the reasons above. Having a look through the rental prices (pre-book Intersport) the cost varies widely depending on where you're going and when. In some resorts and times you can pick up top end skis for a little over £65 for a week. In Wengen with the current exchange rate a set of top end skis is £150. The decisions a lot clearer at the latter price than it is the former!
We've got skis arriving this week so my question now are -
- how to get them set up (how much are we likely to be charged)
- how often, where, and how much to get them serviced (or, given we're fairly handy, how to go about doing it ourselves. I figure if you can sharpen a chisel you can probably sharpen a ski edge)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Skis should NEVER cost more than £25 to £30 per week, if they cost any more you're doing something drastically WRONG!
I ski top end skis, rarely more than 3 weeks per ski from new, and buy/sell knowing what they should ultimately cost per usage.
There's far too much ripping skiers off nowadays on top of costly holidays that justifies selective ski purchases.
DON'T rent expensive kit!!
Seek out good kit at inexpensive prices, I just bought some Armada ARV skis from the OEM source out of Asia, they may have "sample" graphics but are virtually the same skis nevertheless.
However, if you are just another gullable ski-sheep, stick to the overpriced Salomon plastic-fantastics "Designed in the Alps" (but produced in Taiwan), rent the K2's with Schizo bindings (at twice the cost of sourcing them in the EU), or pay wayyyyyyyyyy over the odds for boutique manufacturers of "in the know" matched pairs.
Research your kit. You would not buy a Trabant if it had BMW badges, seriously...... would you?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I wonder how the responses would be different if we weren't enjoying this seasons superb snow cover?
There've been years I'd carry my skis to the mountains and still hire some 
|
|
|
|
|
|
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.
|
When is it time to buy skis :
End of season sale at S&R or EB, they are nearly always half price. OK if you are looking for a specific make & model you probably are not going to get them, but if you go early enough in my experience you can get something to suit (piste skis at least).
I once bought my wife some new ski's at the end of year sale, the first time she tried them was on an Xmas trip and as we had drove luckily she brought her old pair. She tried the new pair a few times and could not get on with them, so I put them on eBay and got more than what I paid for them even taking into account eBay fees.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I wouldn't underestimate the benefit of doing it on the cheap. You can get skis cheaper than 1 week's worth of rent if you look...
If you go on ebay you can probably get yourself a half-decent pair of skis with bindings for less than £100. It requires a bit of research and needs you to be open to buying skis a few years old, but worth considering if like me you aren't fussy. I got myself a pair of Dynastars (can't remember which model cos they're in the loft) for about £100 off ebay, chosen because they were recent-ish and very similar spec to the ones I'd hired and enjoyed in both Hemsedal and Megeve.
|
|
|
|
|
|
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
|
|
|
|
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.
|
I'm rather glad to see a few mentions of "Ebay" on this thread.
As previously mentioned by ap96 if you do your research, and are prepared to do some leg work as well there are excellent bargains on Ebay right now!
Today I just bout a pair of Vist 412 bindings with the Black livery and Storm logo for £50. Real cost for these would be in the region of £130. Even taking into account my local friendly ski-tech (Steve at Glide and Slide) who charges £15-£20 for mounting that's a great bargain! I can't decide whether to mount them on a recently bought pair of BNIB Hangl Plates (Ebay £6.50) for a pose on my handmade Lorme skis by Ludovic Lacroix (Ebay last year £140, and worth over £600), or get some Quiver Killer Inserts so I can use on my OEM Armada ARV's. BUT I'm really tempted by a pair of BNWT Scott Venture skis 188 cms (Ebay - finishing tomorrow, no bids yet, £100 start, worth £350 - £400), these pups have venturi tips and tails, slight rocker tip, slight positive camber along most length, these should be decent pow/piste boards. The Vist/Storm bindings would be perfect for these. By the time you factor in just TWO WEEKS RENTAL at a resort like St Anton (SkiSet only get 10% discount) the skis are more than paid for. Next season after a couple of weeks use put them back on the auction site, use supersize photos, make sure the skis are serviced/waxed/sharpened, provide links to review/manufacturer websites, and get nearly as much as you shelled out!
BTW, I got £175 for my Vist GSRace skis a few weeks back, bought them end of 2010 for £125 incl delivery from French Racer/Ebayer.
I've recently worked out that my wife's skis have not cost me more than £150 in total for the past 7/8 seasons, usually 2/3 trips per year. New skis, top end ladies (eg Salomon 3V, K2 t-Nine, currently skiing on more Vist kit - Vist Carbon Premium plus 412 Chrome bindings on an X-Step plate for £200 out of season Ebay!)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I might add, as well, that if I'd been even less fussy, I could have got a lot cheaper (I was particularly interested in buying something similar to something I'd ski'd before).
|
|
|
|
|
|
You know it makes sense.
|
|
Nevisport.com £300 now.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
|
I hire ski's for my two one week trips each year. Roughly it works out at 140 euro's for the two weeks of hire. So depending on exchange rate say about £125 each year.
We do a trip in late Jan/early Feb, then five weks later in mid March. We have always hired ski;s since we started skiing in 1999.
However when we were on the March trip we all got different ski's to the ones we had asked for when we booked, and this tends to happen most times  Same standard but different model.
So you end up spending a haf day getting used to the feel of a different ski
Well i have just bought some Dynastar Outland 80's from Decathlon, skis, bindings, poles and a ski bag £271 the lot. From memory to hire the outlands from ski set is around 80-110 euro depending on resort.
Therefore after two years skiing with them i have just broke even. We drive so do not worry re cost of transporting skis. A service for edge and wax at Decathlon is around £24, hardly a fortune.
So i would say if you ski twice a year or more and can get a decent set of skis in the sale, then its worth it, dont think i would pay full price though
|
|
|
|
|
|
Poster: A snowHead
|
I've been thinking about this too. My conclusion is that easyjet ski carriage charges + internet discounts on ski rental mean that for me it makes almost no *economic* sense to buy skis - £50 round trip for carriage vs average £60-70 for hiring top of the range skis for a week with insurance, even before servicing. Doesn't make much difference how often I go - what would change the economics is using a carrier with more reasonable charges, longer trips, storing skis in france, or more US/Canada trips where ski hire seems much more expensive.
Last week in les menuires I swapped from Scott Neos for off-piste, to new Rossi GS skis for the fleche to SL skis for the chamois. All freshly serviced, and the (consumer) race skis were 2012 models. I paid around £80 for 9 days inc insurance, and I didn't need to lug skis all over the place.
I probably will buy skis, but for skiing, not economic reasons.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
|
This is an intersting discussion and of course the argument varies with who you are; for example the levy charged by some airlines does not apply if you drive or use the train, the argument about servicing costs depends on wether you service them yourself or pay someone to do it for you (Last time I paid was 10 euro in Les Arcs a month ago) and of course rental rates vary a lot.
However one question remains - how long to skis last for? I read one American article a few years ago that said they only lasted for 100 days before they lost their bounce. Most of my skis last about that long but few longer. What is everyone else's experience?
Also what do people mean by a week? Is it 7 days? Usually when I say I am going for a week I get 8 days skiing in.
|
|
|
|
|
|
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?
|
IMHO, if you get on a pair of rentals and think to yourself, these edges need done, these need a wax, they are too soft, they are too fat, they don't feel right or anything similar, then I'd say you were at the stage that you can appreciate what you want in a ski. When you get there, there's nothing like your own pair of skis. I've skied on high level rentals, and they have been good skis on most occasions, but you can't always be sure they will suit you. Certainly use the high end rental option to try out different kinds of skis and see what suits you.
Fwiw, I don't consider the economic perspective. Skiing is an expensive hobby, and when you consider the total cost of everything, the cost of carriage over the cost of renting really isn't that big a deal.
|
|
|
|
|
|
You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
|
| feef wrote: |
IMHO, if you get on a pair of rentals and think to yourself, these edges need done, these need a wax, they are too soft, they are too fat, they don't feel right or anything similar, then I'd say you were at the stage that you can appreciate what you want in a ski. When you get there, there's nothing like your own pair of skis. I've skied on high level rentals, and they have been good skis on most occasions, but you can't always be sure they will suit you. Certainly use the high end rental option to try out different kinds of skis and see what suits you.
Fwiw, I don't consider the economic perspective. Skiing is an expensive hobby, and when you consider the total cost of everything, the cost of carriage over the cost of renting really isn't that big a deal. |
This.
I've gone from a "I'm not going to buy skis. Ever" to owning 2 pairs of skis in the space of a season. Actually, scratch that, it was 2 months. 
Is it expensive? Yes. But if one is spending a fortune (ish) several times a year (more than 2 weeks) to go skiing, one might as well have their own skis. Having rented and now having my own, I would never go back.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
|
A=B+1
A= number of skis needed
B=number of skis owned
|
|
|
|
|
|
cran
cran
Guest
|
Now is a good time to buy skis... just buy them...
In fact buy several sets, as you need at least 3 pairs (park/piste/powder) 
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
FAQ
'