Do you appreciate pole clicking?

A snowHead

Can’t see the problem with it. Someone letting you know they are there is always helpful.

Someone skiing or riding like a dick is entirely different regardless of whether or not they click poles.

A snowHead

Like others, in 40+ years of skiing I cannot say I have ever really noticed pole clicking as a thing...

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

only people I've heard do it are those that shout "on yer left"
impressive how my skiing style so obviously shouts "native English"

but then again the clicking might just be my tinnitus

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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

People who “believe” pole clickers are being rude and wanted you move out of their way are just reading too much into something that aren’t there!

Pole clickers only mean to say “I’m here”.

Now, one can infer they’re hoping to pass, which most likely they’re. What you do after hearing the click is entirely your own decision. You can ignore them and continue doing whatever you’ve been doing. And that’s exactly what 99% of pole clickers expect! They can then choose the best way to safely pass you. Very Happy

But if you think they’re being rude, what would you do?

Do you continue on as if you didn’t hear it? After all, you wouldn’t “give in to bullies”, right? wink

But that would be just perfect as far as the pole clickers’ concern. They’ll pass when they feel like it, as you continue doing whatever you’ve been doing. snowHead

Or do you start making wider turns to block them from passing??? That would be rude on your part!!! Shocked

In short, don’t change what you’ve been doing after hearing pole clicks. If you do, you not only “gave in to pole clicking bullies”, you also make it unsafe for both of you! rolling eyes

Yes, I’m a pole clicker. And I appreciate pole clicking! Laughing

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Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

After all it is free

@Chris_n, yes it happens

@SnoodyMcFlude, no it doesn't skew. I'm genuinely interested in whether people find it helpful. It's a yes/no thing (although the thread has deviated)

I have never actually experienced pole clicking..but Yes, I would appreciate it if someone was skiing a lot faster and wanted to get past on a narrow and/or busy piste, and yes I would hold my line to let him past safely.

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

So many people who think it’s acceptable for the uphill skier to tell the downhill skier what they should do.

Quite the reversal of that other thread…

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

So those supporting No got off to a flying start, with those supporting Yes taking a while to catch up - a bit like the Hare and the Tortoise. It now looks reasonably even, with a few "Not bothereds" and one (now 2) reformed characters. Toofy Grin

It's been interesting.

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If you're excluding a group of people who obviously find it useful, that's surely skewed the answer. And is it like smoking where one is always a clicker, even if they haven't clicked in decades? NehNeh

Anyway, yes. For the most part, on a cat track I prefer an audible cue to someone just appearing in my periphery.

You know it makes sense.

@pam w, ahhh, that's how it reads to me, keeping out the clicker riff raff

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

No longer a pole clicker - it’s pointless and potentially meaningless, if not downright confusing, to the recipient.

Besides, with so many skiers/boarders blasting music into their ears, how on earth can I be expected to know whether the “warning” I’m giving is actually heard. So, again, what’s the point?

I don’t ever recall being clicked at. That’s not to say it hasn’t happened…

A snowHead

@Cacciatore,

A snowHead

yes yes

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Can't be anything but a good thing. I definitely appreciate it as it gives me a heads up of someone coming past.
It is very like using a bell when riding a bike and most people would expect that cyclists warn them if passing a pedestrian for example.

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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

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spose it can be helpful... to know when someone more important than me is right up my arrse.

I don't see it as anything like a cycle bell. One is to ask politely to come past where there is no gap, with 2 different modes of movement along the path with greatly differing speeds. the other is either pointless, to pass where there is already space or an "oi, get out my way" instruction.

As a cyclist, i'm 3rd from bottom of the importance hierarchy anyway, so I know my place.

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

@Cacciatore, Laughing

After all it is free

I don't think music has ever rendered me vulnerable or made me a danger to others. The people who ARE a menace are the ones who are constantly alert to the scraping sounds of snowboarders intent on injuring them. Usually beginners, up-tight and unable to do anything sensible about it anyway. If someone is about to crash into you complete relaxation and readiness to go with the flow is ideal. When an inattentive motorist crashed into the back of my nephew's car he had seen it in the mirror and was braced against the wheel. He suffered life- changing whiplash injuries. His wife and kids were fine.

I cycle on shared paths and it's the dogs on long leads which are the scariest. I always pass them v slowly. I do ring my bell when approaching a gaggle of pedestrians, dogs and push chairs strung out right across the path. Sometimes they look very annoyed at having had to gather themselves up a bit. It's hard to ring a bell without sounding peremptory.

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@pam w,

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

Wow I’m certainly nervous and wary of those behind me. After having a clean break of my arm, torn bicep, shattered shoulder, concussion and facial lacerations from a reckless collision into my back, I thought It was quite reasonable to feel that way.

Turns out I’m just a menace despite being a really competent skier.

Fair play never far away from nonsense on SH’s.

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As a snowboarder, I don’t usually carry poles in my hand - they tend to be strapped to the pack.

I find the best way to do something similar to pole clicking is to silently ride up behind the downhill party, and then aggressively engage my razor sharp magnetraction edges, making a noise similar to a Stuka about to make a bombing run.

If this polite message doesn’t get the point across, I’ve got one of these clever black diamond packs that has a one handed axe release, and I can quickly reach round and grab my axe, and just give the downhill skier a gentle tap on the back of the helmet, which usually works, but failing that I can just use the pointy end to give them a prod in the back.

@jirac18,

(not laughing at your horrible accident, obviously)

You know it makes sense.

@hang11,

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

Yes. I'd rather know someone is there than not. Self preservation tops manners.

A snowHead

A snowHead

@pam w,

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

I've skied with people who are very nervous of what's behind. They really are a menace because they keep tensing up and slowing down, trying to look behind them and careering all over the place. I always tell them it's the job of the skier coming down behind them to keep out of their way. "But what if they don't?" they ask. I just shrug because there's nothing sensible to say. Luck of the draw, I say. Are you constantly fearful of drivers hitting you from behind?

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I’m nervous of what’s behind.
I don’t slow, I don’t tense up and I don’t career all over the place. I know it’s the uphill skiers responsibility and I never ask “but what if they don’t”.
No I’m not fearful of drivers, I’m wary.
I’m not fearful of being hit from behind but I am wary of others and nervous of anyone flying up behind me.

I still fail to see how that makes me a Menace which you seem quite keen to double down on.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

And as for your theory on being oblivious and therefore completely relaxed on impact from behind that also is frankly nonsense. I had absolutely zero idea or knowledge of the presence of the woman who collided into me until the point of contact. I couldn’t have been more relaxed. I’ve played enough rugby to know that had I known it was coming and fully braced it would have been she who ended up in hospital and not me.

Maybe if she’d clicked her poles I’d have had chance to jump out of the way? Toofy Grin

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Well you clearly aren't a menace,@jirac18 but being nervous of what's behind (that you can't do anything about) seems to detract from your
enjoyment of skiing, which is a great shame. The people I describe are a menace, not least to themselves, because they are nervous and worried and, if they are beginners, prone to do something daft, such as simply stop in the middle of a busy piste. And they go on about "that awful scraping noise", are unreasonably prejudiced against snowboarders and generally a bit of a pain!

I try to be tolerant of them, and have really been very kind and supportive skiing with lots of beginner friends and relatives who came to stay in my apartment. My sister in law, the daftest of them all, was going in front of me up a very busy two-track draglift at half term (I was only skiing at half term because it was the only time they could come with teacher daughter). As is often the case on a drag lift, you go "over the top" and then let go. But my SiL had decided that the two streams of traffic disappearing out of sight "over the top" were being dropped off a cliff and so let go on the final slope up. She didn't fall, she got off quite deliberately. I had to dismount with her, into the central reservation, and get her off her skis, toss them through the people coming up, shove her over and then get us through about 50m of soft unpisted snow back onto the piste (an easy green). She was constantly panicking about snowboarders too.

I have been, as I say, kind and supportive and didn't moan at her AT ALL at the time, but just talked her quietly through what we had to do. I was positively saintly, in fact. But it does get up my nose if people suggest that listening to music makes me a menace! And there are plenty of threads on snowheads suggesting just that.

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

Been skiing today in Zell Am See, many more years into my skiing journey and followed someone snow plowing down a the full width of a track, back in the day I would have clicked, now have better skills to slow down, so why ruin her day?

After all it is free

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Clicking other skiers is downright rude. It conveys only one message:

GET OUT OF MY WAY!

If you don’t have the skills to pass safely, hang back until the piste becomes wide enough for you to make your move.

Help!!

Do you appreciate pole clicking?

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