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NY Times declares snowboarding dead

 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
...or thereabouts

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/07/sports/snowboarding-once-a-high-flying-sport-crashes-to-earth.html?smid=nytcore-ipad-share&smprod=nytcore-ipad&_r=2

I know there is a special place for knuckledragging here but I thought there's more traffic for a bit of "let's have an interesting debate" here.

Think I might make a real effort to reverse the trend by contributing some boarding at the EOSB.
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 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
@Dave of the Marmottes,
Quote:

Think I might make a real effort to reverse the trend by contributing some boarding at the EoSB.

...which I shall be unqualified to criticise. You're just doing this to spite me. wink
ski holidays
 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?
Don't worry I can also board in a very camp way robust manly turns if that will make you happy...
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"snowboard equipment sales are down $60 million annually from 2007"
2008 was the start of a big recession.

"reported flat or declining equipment sales across skiing and snowboarding during the past five years."
So is skiing also dying?

"Preliminary data from this season indicates that although snowboard equipment sales have increased 25 percent across the Western United States, they are down 4 percent nationally."
The West Coast has snow this year. But the East does not. So another way to interpret this would be snow boarding is on the rise, where conditions allow.

In my opinion the author is making up a story to fit a small piece of data. Would be interesting to see how many skiers have lost sponsorship in the same time frame. And how sales of ski equipment have tracked (or not) those of snowboarding. Without that it is very hard to put the story in context.
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 Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Oh no doubt there is the standard journo twisting to sustain a story but I think the hardgoods side is probably true: skiing sell through has no doubt been bolstered by innovation and the spread of the "quiver", boarders don't really need a quiver so less uptake will have a impact. The other side is more anecdotal but I've noticed ski shops with a snowboard section cutting back the retail space they give to boards or in some cases axing it completely.
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Fat skis and skis that go backwards. All the fun of snowboarding without all the hassle of unclipping etc.
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Agreed for Europe based on anecdotal 'how many people I see' evidence. Not for Japan, seemed pretty 50/50 there (again massively anecdotal).
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 After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
@Dave of the Marmottes, good point on the quivers. I never thought of that.
I also wonder if boarders tend to keep their gear longer without replacing it?

Never really notice the board stuff in shops anyway so would not notice if it disappeared.

I guess a better way to look (if possible) is to compare both the absolute and percentages of boarders/skiers days over time. But getting that information may be tricky.
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Been in decline for years in the Alps. Still very popular in the UK however. Seem to be less skiers around now also since the 1980s. Is that true or just perception ?
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I know with the group of friends I go boarding with none of us have bought new boards in the last five years, doesn't mean we've stopped going for a week every year though. Bar buying new boots last year I haven't bought any new gear in recent years. Can't see myself giving up boarding anytime soon either.
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Snowboarding is dead?
I knew him before he was famous.
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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.
Tiso (Blues) shops in Scotland no longer stock snowboards as they reckon the bubble has burst.
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So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
My impression is that we're past peak boarding(*), in Europe and North America. Mind you, I've skied in two board-free resorts this week. wink

* not to say it won't rise again.
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
Shitloads of fellow snowboarders in Les Arcs in late January including a lot of beginners and people having lessons. Also nothing beats a snowboard on a deep powder day, it's great if you can do both skiing and boarding.
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 Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Try Japan-I'd say more boarders than skiers when I've skied in Japan these last couple of years, especially the under 30s.
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 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
When I was a nipper, we used to have two ski rental shops in town. My town is an hour (if you know the roads) from a couple of scottish ski resorts. Now we only have one snow board (and skateboard, surf) shop. Rock on mike, don't ever buckle against the wind (ESP Elgin).
I'm a skier by the way.
And that was a shameless plug.
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 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Was it ever alive to start with? Toofy Grin
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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?
Dave of the Marmottes wrote:
Oh no doubt there is the standard journo twisting to sustain a story but I think the hardgoods side is probably true: skiing sell through has no doubt been bolstered by innovation and the spread of the "quiver", boarders don't really need a quiver so less uptake will have a impact. The other side is more anecdotal but I've noticed ski shops with a snowboard section cutting back the retail space they give to boards or in some cases axing it completely.
It does look like poor journalism. That said, the numbers are there, but I can't see I'd care much about those whatever they did. I think it would be as unwise to project too much into a few numbers - if you'd done that in the early days of snowboarding we'd have long ago caused the heat death of the universe.

He makes a big deal out of half pipe. Natural half pipes are my terrain, but those artificial ones were pulled from Camp Of Champions about a decade ago. I think the kids quite possibly moved on a bit. That's a spectator sport though - it's not necessarily a driver for "skier days" or retail sales.

Quivers? These days I usually only carry a couple of boards - a metal race board for the piste and a glass powder board for the back country - but that's still a quiver. If you mean "novice snowboarders don't need a quiver" then that's true, but the same probably works for skiers.
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From the article..
Quote:
As snowboarding expanded from an outlaw sport banned at most ski resorts to a popular addition to the Olympics, it did so at the expense of Alpine skiing. Participation in that sport has been in free fall, with two million fewer participants than 20 years ago.

So skiing is dead right Puzzled
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 Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Dave of the Marmottes wrote:
...or thereabouts

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/07/sports/snowboarding-once-a-high-flying-sport-crashes-to-earth.html?smid=nytcore-ipad-share&smprod=nytcore-ipad&_r=2

I know there is a special place for knuckledragging here but I thought there's more traffic for a bit of "let's have an interesting debate" here.

Think I might make a real effort to reverse the trend by contributing some boarding at the EoSB.



Good to see NYT keeping up with the latest trends wink

The global snowboarding market has been shrinking every year for the past decade, since at least 2006, and will continue shrinking for the next decade through 2025.

Skis have gotten better, lighter and fatter.

And -- like bicycles and skateboards -- anyone over 28 on a snowboard looks absurd.

Half the population is effectively excluded from boarding.
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Poor article.

With those assumptions it must have been the science writer moonlighting.
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Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
...and they've been predicting the "Death of Snowboarding" for 25 years. Numbers might be down, but there is more progression going on in snowboarding right now than any other scene.

Nike was never accepted as a Snowboarding brand no matter how good their kit was or how many riders they sponsored, they just couldn't get their heads around the inability to buy credibility, Quicksilver had been hemorrhaging cash for a decade or more. Using the x-games ratings as a bellwether for snowboardings health is rather spurious too, it misjudges how people consume content on the internet - rather than subscribing to events most people just grad clips off of their followed channels.
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 After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
I think the snowboard hardgoods industry definitely had a race to the bottom as every man and his dog could establish a "Brand" and email some graphics out to a Chinese factory to be applied to generic boards. Illicit Snowboarding (RIP) had a pretty good article on the number of brands and price point for one particular board. The last board I bought was a Lamar (throwback name but now in some stable with Morrow etc) from a general sports retailer in the US for relative buttons. OK it might not last forever but it is good enough & met my basic requirements of wood core, sidewalls and a bit of rocker at the time. I recently saw the same chain clearing out women's boards for $60 (boots and bindings $30 each) - so a whole set up for $120.
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philwig wrote:

Quivers? These days I usually only carry a couple of boards - a metal race board for the piste and a glass powder board for the back country - but that's still a quiver. If you mean "novice snowboarders don't need a quiver" then that's true, but the same probably works for skiers.


Never mind novices.

Given how small a proportion of (UK) skiers even own their own skis, I would be very surprised if as many as one in several hundred have a "quiver" of more than 1 set.
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Yebbut the UK perspective is hardly global - given this is a US article where there are significant quantities of local drive in market skiers. Our holiday model is different, we are constrained by in many cases air travel etc etc.

People who will never buy are hardly a consideration in retail sales (OK maybe they are 1/20th or 1/30th of the cost of a rental set up)
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In the middle of the 90s the split in Sweden skis/snowboard was about 80/20. By 2010 that had fallen to about 90/10. Those figures are based on actual measurements of activitiy in resorts, although I've rounded them. I don't have any more up to date figures, but anecdotally, snowboard has lost even more ground to skiing since then. I don't see many snowboards in the hills I ski and most of the local ski shops have either stopped stocking snowboard gear completely or give it pretty little shelf space.

A quick look at the competition scene shows a similar picture. There is a parallel national competition series for snowboard and skiing slopestyle, with the competitions taking place on the same day and slope. This makes a direct comparison fairly straightforward, since the effort needed to get to the competition is identical, regardless of what you ride on. So far this season the snowboard startlist has been a small handful and everybody runs the final, whereas skiing has a limit of 60 competitors (some rounds have been fully booked, with skiers turned away), with the top ten qualifying for the final.

Snowboard isn't precisely dead in Sweden and there are still some very talented riders. But the numbers are very small. As far as competitions are concerned it's reached the point where it's pretty much on a level with other minor branches of snowsports like speedski and telemark. And from an everyday perspective I probably see as many people on telemark equipment as on snowboards.
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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.
Some entertaining comments on the TGR version of this thread:

Is skiing dead?

"More like it rode down into a low spot and is now wallowing out in chest-deep snow."

Laughing
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 So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
I don't think actual snowboard participation has been declining in recent years, but sponsorsip etc is a fickle thing and may change as the sposoring companies go for different markets.

Over the last 5 years I have been doing a survey on the same lift in Les Arcs, counting the number of boarders and skiers. It has remained steady at the 5 - 10% over that time. True the boarders have tended to be older than the skiers, which could explain the shift in sposorship. It is rare to see a boarder under 30.

It is monoskier that has been in terminal decline. Now I only ever see one or two a day.
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
All the snowboarders grew up, got a proper haircut and pair of trousers that fitted properly and got proper jobs. One even became Prime Minister of Canada!
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 Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Very few snowboarders in the Dollies, but even fewer telemarkers. I only saw 4 other Telemark skiers all week.... and two of those were from the Lake District club.

Lots of strange looks from Germans, Italians and eastern Europeans at my bindings. Great if you crave attention. Rubbish if you want to ski 'incognito'

Perhaps something we should champion more is the continuing wide diversity of British snowsports. Cool
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All the major sponsors jumped on it as it progressed towards the Olympics. Most of the smaller companies were bought out by the money making giants.

The bubble burst and now they are leaving. Good

As for it being in decline, well I didn't give a monkey's when it was getting popular.

I love snowboarding, less gear to carry back from the bar. wink
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 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Personally I'd say snowboarders have bigger quivers than skiers, I don't know one snowboarder who only has one snowboard and everyone I go away with tends to take a minimum of 2. Plus snowboarders tend to rent equipment far less than skiers I was away with 50 other snowboarders a few weeks back and only one of the group rented kit.
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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?
Rented snowboards are shite. They are ancient.

I bought my first one 10 years ago. Lent it to a mate this year but I think it may be destined for the stairway wall.

My other board is 6 years old and I have no plans to replace it yet.
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Quote:

Plus snowboarders tend to rent equipment far less than skiers


Yeah cos you get given rubbish stuff and there is hardly any choice.
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 Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
alex_heney wrote:
Given how small a proportion of (UK) skiers even own their own skis


What's your source on that? Anecdotally, even single skier I know owns their skis.
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@dogwatch, anecdotally very few skiers I know own their own skis. Be interesting to know if anyone has got any real stats on this
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johnE wrote:
I don't think actual snowboard participation has been declining in recent years, but sponsorsip etc is a fickle thing and may change as the sposoring companies go for different markets.

Over the last 5 years I have been doing a survey on the same lift in Les Arcs, counting the number of boarders and skiers. It has remained steady at the 5 - 10% over that time. True the boarders have tended to be older than the skiers, which could explain the shift in sposorship. It is rare to see a boarder under 30.

It is monoskier that has been in terminal decline. Now I only ever see one or two a day.


Boarders older than skiers ?? How many over 50 boarders do you see ?
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 After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
Peter S wrote:
Very few snowboarders in the Dollies, but even fewer telemarkers. I only saw 4 other Telemark skiers all week.... and two of those were from the Lake District club.

Lots of strange looks from Germans, Italians and eastern Europeans at my bindings. Great if you crave attention. Rubbish if you want to ski 'incognito'

Perhaps something we should champion more is the continuing wide diversity of British snowsports. Cool


In passo tonale end of Jan there were stacks of snowboarders , didn't look like a dying sport to me !
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@dogwatch, @dobby, I'd tend to agree that relatively few British skiers own their own skis. I've just been away for 2 weeks in two different groups of friends. Out of a total of 19 skiers only one owned his own skis. The ability level ranged from solid intermediate up to expert and everyone their has skied at least 20+ weeks in their life. Most ski two weeks or more a year. The group also included a guy who used to ski for GB and his wife who was a ski instructor in Sweden (neither of them still own skis). Out of the 19 I'm pretty sure that all but two people used to own their own skis.

@Markab1971,
Quote:

Boarders older than skiers ?? How many over 50 boarders do you see ?
Very few, but the age demographic is different. Skiers tend to go from three to 83, while the boarder demographic is much narrower. Of course there are outliers, but broadly speaking there seem to be very few boarders under 25 and not many over 45. My son and his mates wouldn't be seen dead boarding.

I didn't actually count the boarders over the last couple of weeks in 3v and Paradiski, but we all commented on how few boarders we'd seen.
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Quote:

but we all commented on how few boarders we'd seen.


Nice bit of confirmation bias there for you wink


Quote:

but broadly speaking there seem to be very few boarders under 25 and not many over 45.


Yup because very few people switch over from skiing to boarding. Especially once you are older. So, say, if you were 20 in 1995 when boarding was super popular, and decided to try your hand at snowboarding, you'd only be 41 now. Much more unlikely for oldies (who would be even older now, even older than 45 wink ) to have every switched over to snowboarding, hence less likely to see any massive oldies on a board.
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