 Poster: A snowHead
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with the advent of GPS trackers on cell phones everyone seems to be totting up their "top speed"
how fast do you really think you go on when you ski on a blue run, red run, black run?
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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I know I've hit 50mph. It was a bit scary.
A few weeks ago I was on a piste and can honestly say it was the fastest I've ever been on skis, it felt noticeably faster than when we did 50mph. No GPS, but it must have been 55 or more.
The 50mph was at the bottom of Trolles in Tignes, the faster run was a blue or red in ADH.
I'd love to ski the same relatively steep but flat run 3 or 4 times with nobody on it and someone with a proper speed gun.
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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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Clocked myself a few days ago on gps at 89.5kmh.was on gs skis, conditions a tad soft.great fun when on empty piste
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skimottaret, ...I've done 58mph on a mountainbike going down the big hill into Eastbourne, from the end of the South Downs Way. It felt fast. I didn't feel comfortable. It was all under control but there was a small flashing red light in the back of my brain. Because...I've come off at 30 off road and done myself a lot of damage. Only a couple of times in two decades... but that was enough.
When skiing I've done around 50mph and maybe more. It felt fast. I didn't feel comfortable....there was a small flashing red light in the back of my brain. Because...once or twice I have had sudden straight-down 'blam!' incidents - only one or two, but unexpected, in zero visibility contexts. Now, I like being in control on ultra-steeps, and narrows, and bumps - I turn and turn, often putting in ten turns where friends put in two. If you are in competition, speed counts. I just feel that if I am looking to live a reasonable time with my bones and joints intact, I'd rather perfect the turn rather than be down first.
But that's just me....
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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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Monium, If you ski in Wengen they have a speedgun on the fastest part of the Lauberhorn downhill coure. People often exceed 65 mph
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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There's a timed run at Alpe Di Suisi in the Val Gardena valley. I hit 89kmh, my 19st pal on brand new Head Xenon 10s hit 104kmh. 
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Skiing in Tignes in December another  recorded 89kph coming off Palafour and I was leaving him behind fairly comfortably, so I must have been doing a little over 100kph. Was on factory GS skis which felt pretty safe, although I wasn't going to keep that up for long. May have hit something similar on one run in Jan chasing a guide down through Verbier (straightlining a steepish red), but felt much less secure on my Fritschi-mounted Mantras, so bottled before long. I'm just guessing, but I think I ski more typically on-piste in the region of 60kph.
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Are these top speeds when straightlining?
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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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DaveC, my 100s are straightlining or very long radius carved turns. The 60ish would be more GS to super-G type turning down red runs.
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Mach 1.3! No I always bottle it and starting scrubbing speed, no idea how fast but it feels too fast for me. I keep thinking that if I stack it it's going to hurt, a lot!
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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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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| Colin B wrote: |
| Mach 1.3! No I always bottle it and starting scrubbing speed, no idea how fast but it feels too fast for me. I keep thinking that if I stack it it's going to hurt, a lot! |
ditto. Really let it rip once and we all had a big car crash type scenario 
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No idea, been clocked at 121kph once, but I've never been that fast again since.
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You know it makes sense.
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Fast enough for me, nowhere near as fast as some. Hurting yourself quite badly (even in another sport) as a result of crashing at speed tends to have a moderating effect. Plus its rare that grooming is so perfect that you can't potentially hit some cat crap or a ridge between tracks.
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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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skimottaret,
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how fast do you really think you go on when you ski on a blue run, red run, black run?
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 just normal skiing then I would say that most people go alot slower than they think, I see quite a few people on blue runs doing around 10 to 15mph, red runs about 15mph to 25mph. Black runs most people are only doing the same speed as red runs or slower on the steeper sections.
For me I know that at around 70mph my back pack makes hell of a noise and that my goggle strap starts to vibrate on my helmet. For me its only when testing skis that I ever get up to flat out these days, its just to dam quick for most pistes and as others have said its scary!
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Poster: A snowHead
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| livetoski wrote: |
For me I know that at around 70mph my back pack makes hell of a noise and that my goggle strap starts to vibrate on my helmet. |
Indeed IME jacket or strap flap will be a pretty strong indicator that speeds are getting high enough much below 70mph. Plus if your skiing somewhere with a pass on your zipper getting smacked in the jaw causes rapid slowdown.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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I don't know. The GPS doesn't seem to work in the bar...
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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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Just under 100kph through the Wengen speed gun once but normally a lot less
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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| Quote: |
I've done 58mph on a mountainbike going down the big hill into Eastbourne
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wow - my legs nearly fell off when I did 30mph on my mountain bike. As for skiing the max I've hit is 32. That was schussing straight down a blue. I seem to be in my comfort zone between 20 and 30 and Blacks are definately slower than reds 
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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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Schuss in Boots,
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I don't know. The GPS doesn't seem to work in the bar...
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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Even if there's nobody else around to kill or injure, unless you're winding your bindings up to pretty much locked to your boots, you're tempting fate warp speeding on a piste, no matter how experienced you are at it. I suspect there are a few posters in this and other threads like these with DIN's set at less than 14 though.
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| Schuss in Boots wrote: |
| I don't know. The GPS doesn't seem to work in the bar... |
You have been clocked at some impressive speeds whilst getting to the bar though.
My GPS clocked me at 50mph once, whether thats accurate I don't know. I do know that I didn't want to hit anything at that speed.
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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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On those short speed tracks on resorts around here it shows between 75 and 85km/h, and it feels slow compared to normal skiing. If I would believe to gps, then normally max speed is around 110-115km/h, which feels pretty close to those speed on those few runs I had with DH skis on ski test tracks and where speed is around 120-130km/h (measured so it gives some reference). So around 100km/h is pretty normal for me... no straight line, but nice long GS turns (not from one side to other side of track) down the black run... with no people on course
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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is that fact that gps has high margin for error re altitude on cheaper bits of kit potentially giving wrong speed readings
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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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D G Orf, interesting compromise & maybe I'm being over cautious then. It just strikes me that avoiding the consequences of a high speed prerelease from bumping around on terrain that would otherwise feel smooth at moderate speeds would outweigh the risks of tripping over your own feet in a lift queue etc. My compromise is a 9 DIN as an 11 stone, 5'8"er, not because I go fast but because some of the big, hard things I could fall onto could potentially kill me or leave me crippled. I'd like to wind them up even more but like you, I think of my knees.
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moffatross, I'm not far off double your weight, my bindings should be at a higher setting because of that, but I've never had a pre release occur, Now with Salomon Bindings I should have them set to at least 8 and has high as 11 for my skiing style, weight, height, sole length etc. At 5'*" and 11 Stone unless you are doing extreme skiing at high speeds you really shouldn't have you bindings set higher than 10 http://www.dinsetting.com/ I suspect a certain amount of modification may come from experience, I've been skiing since I was 3 years old and whilst perhaps too heavy to have any style am more than comfortable within my own limits, what effects me more than anything else is poor light conditions, I really slow down in flat light, on the other hand I can speed up in good conditions to the point where even pretty good skiers have to make an effort to keep up with me.
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You know it makes sense.
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Interesting thought.... Doesn't a gps measure speed from a "great height" uhmm? and do they all take into account contours and gradients?? Hmm!?.. if they don't, won't it be the case when going down say a 40 degree slope it would read considerably slower than actual speed over the snow!? 
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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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GPS in general works in 3d space, so yes for speed also vertical movement maters. But problem is, that sometimes you are skiing in terrain where signal is everything but good (mostly on steep north facing courses surrounded by mountains), and signal on normal consumer devices is like it is. Otherwise GPS is good enough to draw your ski track on less then 1cm accurate... with proper receivers in mostly with proper software (all this is not military classified stuff, but it sure does cost more then 20eur, as you normally pay for consumer gps antennas).
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Poster: A snowHead
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| primoz wrote: |
| GPS in general works in 3d space, so yes for speed also vertical movement maters. But problem is, that sometimes you are skiing in terrain where signal is everything but good (mostly on steep north facing courses surrounded by mountains), and signal on normal consumer devices is like it is. Otherwise GPS is good enough to draw your ski track on less then 1cm accurate... with proper receivers in mostly with proper software (all this is not military classified stuff, but it sure does cost more then 20eur, as you normally pay for consumer gps antennas). |
Cool, so phone apps etc. Might not be that clever!?
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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I haven't skied with a GPS, but I subjectively reckon I hit well over 50 mph on a wide empty blue/red with super G sized turns. I find that kind of skiing quite exhilerating in the right conditions. But most of the time I probably ski around 30 mph ish on piste.
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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: |
When skiing I've done around 50mph and maybe more. It felt fast. I didn't feel comfortable....there was a small flashing red light in the back of my brain. Because...once or twice I have had sudden straight-down 'blam!' incidents - only one or two, but unexpected, in zero visibility contexts
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valais2, do I infer correctly that you do 50 mph in zero vis?
I've never clocked my speed with a GPS, but I was surprised a few months ago, driving down a road here which has a piste alongside it, at about 25 mph, that very ordinary skiers were doing the same speed or faster, and it was a pretty flat piste. They were certainly going slower than I'd normally be going down an emptyish blue piste (they were approaching a spot where they had to take skis off and walk across a road) so I suppose 30 mph is pretty normal.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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D G Orf,
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I'm not far off double your weight, my bindings should be at a higher setting because of that, but I've never had a pre release occur, Now with Salomon Bindings I should have them set to at least 8 and has high as 11 for my skiing style, weight, height, sole length etc. At 5'*" and 11 Stone unless you are doing extreme skiing at high speeds you really shouldn't have you bindings set higher than 10 http://www.dinsetting.com/ I suspect a certain amount of modification may come from experience, I've been skiing since I was 3 years old and whilst perhaps too heavy to have any style am more than comfortable within my own limits, what effects me more than anything else is poor light conditions, I really slow down in flat light, on the other hand I can speed up in good conditions to the point where even pretty good skiers have to make an effort to keep up with me.
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So far I've only had one pre-release at speed, very strange feeling as, on a normal pilot error type fall even though you only have a split second, you are still semi prepared for whats to come and most of the time you can make some sort of recovery, on my pre-release I didn't have a clue where I was, one minute I was skiing down a steepish slope doing gs sized turns nicely under control, the next I was going end over end backwards, leaving my once outside ski up the mountain for some kind soul to fetch! lucky no damage except to the contents of my backpac.
Interesting thing is though, I was probaby the weakest skier in the group, as the guy in front of me with similar build was skiing much more directly down the falline and I was keeping up using more slope so obviously going faster over the snow, I was putting a lot more pressure/effort on my skis because of this and probably helped in the pre-release, the moral I guess is the very experienced guy in front on a 5.5 din (over 50 years) was covering the same amount of mountain as me on my 6.5 din and has no such problems! 
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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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Errr.....how about.................not fast enough? 
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I ski every trail at atleast 100kmh
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When I was in St Anton there was a chap in our chalet who said that he'd done 125kph down Happy Valley (a blue run)... How we laughed!!
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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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Blue run doesn't mean much... Both tracks from top of Moelltal glacier are marked as blue, but you can easily come in range of 115-120km/h there. But then again, there's no way you can make 60km/h on blue runs around Alta Badia for example. So marking track as blue, red or black doesn't really mean it actually is steep or not.
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this is turning into a bit of a whose is bigger competition.. old men trying to be cool
i'm very uncool and skii very slowly btw
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