 Poster: A snowHead
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Anybody know if advance,on-line rental of gear is worthwhile,mainly Austrian resorts?
Cheers....great forum.....my first post so .....
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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immer schuss, welcome to Snowheads!
In general, yes - it saves time, you can usually get an online discount by going direct to the Sport2000 or InterSport websites, and if you open a dialog with the shop in advance, you can check on any special requirements, e.g. if there's a particular ski you want to try, or you are 6'5" and 22 stone so need some RSJs with bindings fitted. Plus you can compare the prices from several shops and choose one in advance, rather than taking pot luck with the first one you find in the town, or trawling round all of them to compare what's left. I've never known a shop to run out, but I've seen the racks look fairly thin at peak times, so my assumption is that what's left isn't their best stock, or is in unusual sizes.
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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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Ok, thanks for that will have a look at the intersport shops ,and see what I can find.
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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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Which resort are you looking at? I might be able to recommend a shop.
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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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Schladming,I have used Tritscher before and they seemed ok......
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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OK, I've no experience of Schladming - if you've used a shop before and had good service, I'd go back there. Quality is usually universally high in Austria from my experience, but experience beats price for most people.
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| ousekjarr wrote: |
immer schuss, welcome to Snowheads!
In general, yes - it saves time, you can usually get an online discount by going direct to the Sport2000 or InterSport websites, and if you open a dialog with the shop in advance, you can check on any special requirements, e.g. if there's a particular ski you want to try, or you are 6'5" and 22 stone so need some RSJs with bindings fitted. Plus you can compare the prices from several shops and choose one in advance, rather than taking pot luck with the first one you find in the town, or trawling round all of them to compare what's left. I've never known a shop to run out, but I've seen the racks look fairly thin at peak times, so my assumption is that what's left isn't their best stock, or is in unusual sizes. |
In general no - it restricts your choice too much and you can end-up walking 20 minutes to the other end of town, passing many empty shops with full stands of kit to rent so that you can then stand in a really long queue in a busy shop where the staff are busy and harassed, so you don't get that much attention and a poor choice of kit. You then spend a day finding the boots don't fit well and try to persevere with them only to find at the end of the day having done another 45 minute round trip to go to the ski shop and back you find you have some nasty blisters on your feet. Great start to a weeks skiing not.....
Ok so I'm slightly playing devil's advocate but I'm not the only one not to be convinced by pre-booking - http://snowheads.com/ski-forum/viewtopic.php?t=59126 and
| H&D from Ireland on the reviews section of Snow-Forecast.com for Les Arcs wrote: |
However, this is our second year to come back to Les Arcs 1950 and we noticed some things this year that we were disappointed by. The queue in the ski hire shop (Concept Board Shop) on the Sunday morning was horrendous (our family queued from 8.10 am and were not out until 10.45 am, meaning that I missed an hour and a half of a lesson with a ski instructor. The operation did not seem as efficient as last year and the staff were not as attentive. My son cried and told the assistant that his boots did not fit, but the assistant insisted that they did fit and he wasn't trying to get them on - it was much later on in the day when we realised that the boots were new and there was paper stuck in the toe. Another family member received a pair of boots which should have been relegated to the bin and after the first day she had to change them, but not before she had developed five quite severe blisters which severely hampered her ability to ski for the rest of the week. |
To me the benefit of pre-booking is marginal unless you are going at a peak, peak week. Yes you save some dough but it's probably no more than a good couple of rounds in a bar or one nice lunch on the hill - whereas you run the risk of getting iffy kit/service that could affect your whole trip. Other people have different personal views - you should make your own choice having now seen both sides of the argument.
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bertie bassett, as always, it depends - if there are four shops in a town and three of them are clumped together by the lift with the fourth a mile out of town, I'd never go for the out of town one unless it had been specifically recommended to me. The choice is then between three shops in a row, so my only questions are whether they have the skis I want, and how much it will cost me. I gave up renting boots as soon as I decided that skiing was for me, and would recommend that everyone else does too. For those who want a family package of basic kit at the cheapest price possible, I can see some problems in some places - and caricature though it undoubtedly is, France does seem to be the place if you want to be given rubbish hire kit at high prices.
In a couple of places we've hired from, pre-booking meant we got a 10% discount, and on arrival we found the skis and poles racked up together with our name on them, with the correct binding sole distance and DIN settings in place, and with all of the kit labelled with our names and hire reference on waterproof labels. They still checked the bindings against our boots, but they'd saved us about 15-25 minutes for a party of 4, which was very welcome especially when we arrived at noon on Friday for a 3-day weekend trip. I've never had bad kit anywhere in Austria, but then I've learned to hire something more than the basic package, and I now ask beforehand for a specific ski. Others will no doubt be less choosy 
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