Perched 1,500m up on a very sunny south-westerly facing mountain shelf way up above the Rhone valley, Verbier is a fairly attractive place set in the massive ‘Four Valleys’ ski realm in Switzerland. Although the English visitors make up around 10% of total visitor numbers many chalets are Brit-owned and English is essentially the first language spoken here.

With proximity (170km) to Geneva airport translating into weekend crowds, and various relaxed local property laws Verbier has many construction sites, thankfully building expensive properties that abide by local ‘sensitivity’ laws. Low-rise chalet-style chalets typify the atmosphere of this resort. Characteristic of many of ski resorts in the country, Verbier, Switzerland is expensive, plenty of cash being required to savor the evening entertainment whether you dance at the Farm Club or eat at Pierroz.

The Four Valleys ski area has 410km of piste and 94 lifts, accessed with speedy hands-free smartcards, at heights from 1,500-3,300m. The longest slope is 16km. This area is spread really wide meaning you’ll be hard pressed to travel its full length in one day. Being held up in another resort when the lifts close here can be costly since you’ll need to pay for a taxi or bus back, as no free transport between resorts exists.

Verbiers principal lift station at Medran operates two gondolas traveling up to Les Ruinettes, just above the regions limited tree line. At this point you are able to take the modern Funispace up to snowsure Les Attelas, at 2700m. From this lofty vantage point you can then asses your own skill levels and proceed down the pistes/ and or off-piste that takes your fancy. Those that are experts can take yet another lift a little further up to Mont Gele to experience some great freeride-only terrain. Intermediates tend to travel down the pistes either left to La Chaux, right and downwards to Lac des Vaux, or straight ahead in the direction of Les Ruinettes and Verbier. These pistes are all super for intermediates. Weekends do tend to see the hordes from the cities descend though.

La Chaux, half way up the mountain from Verbier whisks up to 150 people in its jumbo cable-car to the Col des Gentianes. Another often crowded line-up for a cable-car exists at the Col des Gentianes which ferries people further up the mountain to the highest part of the Four Valleys, Mont Fort at 3,300m. Blacks, reds or off-piste are the runs possible down from this magnificent viewing spot. Down to Tortin and the rest of the Four Valleys there is firstly a piste festooned with 1,300m worth of steep moguls.

Mont Fort happens to be Verbiers only recognized black runs, every other black run is classed as a ‘ski itinerary’. Proceeding to well known off-piste runs is often no more difficult than checking out the area for the nearest ‘danger’ signs. Intermediates need not be worried though, since Verbier has plenty of gentler off-piste and challenging ski runs elsewhere. Beginners on the other hand should think twice before going to this resort since the nursery slopes on the golf course just above the main village are quite snow-unsure, this resorts biggest draw being the off-piste powder on offer. Savoleyres is a much easier resort to go to if you are a beginner, with a lower mountain peak of 2,350m and a wide selection of laid back red and blue pistes.

Albeit a lot of money has been ploughed into Verbier long queues and skier packed pistes often dominate the lifts and lower home-bound slopes, particularly when the snow quality drops. South facing slopes mean that Verbier ski conditions on its lowest slopes are not the best at retaining their snowfall throughout the season, snowmakers filling an effective role along approximately 50km of such pistes.

A whole host of eateries are dotted about the Four Valleys, from self service and big sun terraces through to rustic advance booked seats high up and with great views. All can get crowded and so should be timed appropriately.

A superb snowboard park sits at La Chaux, containing a large number of rails, boxes and kickers. The world renowned Bec des Rosses can be ventured upon if you want some thrilling and seriously challenging experts-only freeriding action. It is on the northern face here that the O’Neill Xtreme competition takes place.

All manner of off-slope activities exist from the Verbier Sports Center with its heated swimming pool, Turkish bath and sauna, solariums, climbing wall, squash and tennis courts, to Valmont’s Spa or groomed hiking trails and toboggan runs. In-resort busses are free with your ski-pass.

Verbiers nightlife is just as amazing as its skiing, something exists for everyone, from the cheap and cheerful to the downright expensive and quirky. Drinking is well catered for with a great variety of bars and pubs, whether it be Offshore Verbier with its own pink VW parked inside (great for post-ski drinks) to the Pub Mont Fort or Taratata. The loud and brash water holes can be found near to the more cozy and intimate shindigs.

In terms of places to stay everyone tends to chalet ski Verbier. Prices range from the outrageous for the exclusive with all manner of extras, to relatively cheap BnB chalets. A place called the ‘Bunker’, once an old atomic bomb shelter, with no natural light or windows is the cheapest bet.

People most likely to enjoy this resort are those seeking intermediate to expert challenges, great snowboarding, quality off-piste and serious après ski partying. Claustrophobes, anti-capitalists and those on a budget may well find this place hard going.

Those great people at Lib-Tech Snowboards have gone and created some seriously powerful innovations, again.

Seemingly on a quest to push the limits of snowboarding technology further than they already have, behold ‘Mage-Traction’.

This award winning advancement to board design takes the traditional two contact point practice of standard boards edges and adds another five. In effect you have a snowboard with seven evenly spaced wavy bumps along the full lengths of a boards longest edges, from tip to tail. Slight in size, these are nevertheless heavily significant in terms of control, reportedly making ‘ice feel like powder’. Edge hold is very effective, when you loose any contact points at any moment you know there are a whole load more working for you.

Such is the grip on the pistes and park that you are able to detune the board and it still holds great, even on icy pipe transitions or kickers.

This technology allows increased control over the whole mountain from corduroy to deep pow, all the pressure radiating outwards from these seven points. Cambering and sidecuts used on ski’s were what led to the current shape of snowboards, power transferred to the tips and tail. Two feet on a board meant that the edges between them formed a so called ‘dead area’ where pressure was not easily applied.

Magne-Traction has three points of contact between the feet providing the deepest and most aggressive control. Two contact points exist between the feet and the board tip or tail, these being progressively less aggressive. Control is back around the feet where your balance is, rather than at the ends where turn initiation normally begins. Additionally the tip and tail become less catchy which translates into them enabling more lift and less nose diving in powder, and also being improved freestyle buttering machines.

Buy one of these and those slopes are going to be afraid!

With winter just around the corner again I thought I’d post this up here to get us all in the mood for what will hopefully be an awesome season. I personally hope to get more riding in than ever this winter!

If you like park, especially rails and fast rotations, you should check out this little 3 min clip from their snowboarding films; just click the play button below… enjoy! ..

Big mountain riding gone MAD!!

This year saw the opening of the third largest indoor snowdome in the world, in Dubai of all places.

It is estimated that in a single day an average of 3500 people will pay around $40 each for two hours on the slopes. Numbers of people arriving are expected to reach 5000 per day on busy days.

Burton, alongside other snowboard manufacturers have fully endorsed this venture, snowboard camps having been staged in the dome, hosted by some of the worlds best riders, Sani Alibabic and Gigi Ruf. Everything is available for rent from the board and bindings to the necessary clothing. Lessons enable anyone whether they are an expert or beginner to learn to snowboard at the next level.

Quite how this venture will fare remains to be seen. An even larger snowdome in Tokyo had to be disassembled due to lower than expected numbers of people turning up to use it. It seems as though very few people in Dubai have ever seen snow let alone been skiing or snowboarding.

The boots that you wear when snowboarding will make a huge difference with your ability to control your snowboard and your comfort on the hill. You will quickly find that cold, sore or wet feet will destroy a day of snowboarding faster than anything else will. When it comes time for shopping for your snowboarding boots it is important to… [Choosing Snowboarding Boots]

Freebords are simply the nuts. You have more than likely heard of longboards, the elongated version of skateboards. Well, longboards are supposedly known for their similarity to surfing. Great for surfers who can get to the waves or when there just isn’t any. So what about for snowboarders who have no snow? Welcome the Freebords!

At first it may seem impossible to be able simulate snowboarding on concrete via a skateboard style system, but the guys who have created the Freebord have got it cracked. It’s hard to understand until you see it in action. Jump over to the Freebord website and check out the video clips: www.freebord.com

Here’s a little exert from Freebord Manufacturing, Inc.

Snowboarding is a mix of carving and sliding motions, but conventional skateboards aren’t designed to slide. Freebord changes all that. You can hug a tight turn or drift a long, gentle slide; slide the board into fakie or float a 360. Right down to the feel of its weighting and edging, the Freebord ride is snowboarding on land. Master a trick on the street, then take it to the slopes next winter.

Freebord’s inner two wheels simulate the snowboard’s base–using spring-biased casters that can swivel 360 degrees–while the outer four wheels simulate the snowboard’s edges. By keeping weight over the board’s edges you can carve turns. As you apply more weight to the base, your board will start to slide. To execute 180’s and 360’s, unweight your edges.

Freebords look unbelievable.. check them out at www.freebord.com

If anyone goes to Val D’isere and gets a load of new snow providing good off piste I highly recommend checking out the off piste to the left (when looking down from the top) of the solaise express chair. You have to go on-piste for a short while and cut off to the left. You get choice of a wide & clear valley to the far left, great for long cruising turns, or slightly nearer to the piste you get some great tree runs which are fantastic if they are not yet tracked out. I know this run is low down but if it is a foggy day and/or the resort is still avalanche blasting then this is a good bet early on in the day.

Visit the Val D’isere website for webcams and up to date weather reports: Val D’isere Website

I’d love to hear what anyone else is experiencing this winter where ever you are or are going. Share with us your holiday/season resort experiences. Which parts of resorts are best, which resorts have good parks, anything you like. Just click the ‘Comments‘ link below and submit your own words to appear on this site so we can all benefit from each others experiences and knowledge.. go on don’t be shy

Till I write again have fun this season!

Bataleon’s triple base snowboard technology starts off as a single flat base between the bindings area and progressively turns into three separate base surfaces the nearer you get to the snowboards tip and tail. When you look at the basic idea behind the technology it does seem like a logical step forward for snowboards, but as with all thing the proof is in the pudding.. does it really help make a better ride?

I have yet to ride a Bataleon triple base snowboard (but greatly look forward to it when I get the chance!) so I can only refer to comments from their website and other sources at the moment. The Bataleon website states that compared to a conventional flat-based snowboard, triple based snowboards provide the following over their ‘flatter’ counterparts:

• Smoother edge-to-edge transitions
• Faster glide and greater stability
• Greatly reduced chance of catching an edge
• Enhanced edge grip and release
• Greater forgiveness in tricks and landings

That does all sound very impressive and if I was back learning snowboarding again the one attribute ‘greatly reduced chance of catching an edge’ on its own would sell me on them straight away!!

Bataleon’s triple base snowboard technology provides improvement specifically in the following circumstances:

• When passing through a curve/transition a normal flat-based snowboards steel edges at both the front and rear will carve to deeply into the snow, braking and resulting in vibrations due to the edge grip being too strong. Bataleons triple base snowboards provide a smaller angle at the front and rear of the board which reduces this problem. This softer approach gives a higher speed.
• Riding in a straight line with a Bataleon triple base snowboard you have less friction due to less base surface being in contact with the snow. Less friction equals more speed. The front and rear edges are raised which will provide a smoother more relaxed ride as well.
• Landing jumps on a flat-based snowboard always has the risk of catching and edge. Triple base technology allows only the parallel edges between the bindings to be active against the snow and so the risk of catching an edge is greatly reduced.

How the triple base technology is achieved:

1. Front - The triple base is made up of right, centre and left surfaces. From the flat middle section of the board towards the tip, the right and left gliding surfaces gradually take an increasing upward angle. At the transition to the tip the uplift reaches its maximum, usually 3 - 4 degrees.
2. Middle - The base is flat from edge to edge like a conventional board.
3. Rear - The triple base consists of right, centre and left gliding surfaces - a triple base. From the flat middle section of the board towards the rear end, the right and left gliding surfaces gradually take an increasing upward angle.
4. Tail - Usually the same shape as the tip, but sometimes shorter

The above image illustrates the difference in flat base surface area between the Bataleon triple base snowboard on the left and the more traditional flat-base snowboard on the right. The light grey areas are the raised sections and the dark grey areas are the flat sections of the snowboard bases.

Basically I think these boards are extremely revolutionary, very promising and I hope I get to try one this season!!

Sandwich Snowboard Construction
This technique is the most expensive method because of the labour involved. Each of the layers in the snowboard is manually placed on top of the other, which is where it gets its name from… sandwich. These can be foam or wood core. The sandwich snowboard construction technique is the most precise method resulting in strong, lightweight snowboards.

Cap Snowboard Construction
This snowboard construction method is used more than any of the others these days. Cap snowboard construction involves the topsheet being wrapped over the sidewalls of the snowboard and joining the metal edges. The Cap construction method is really a bit of a cheat because it is actually cosmetic; the actual snowboard construction will be one of the three other types of snowboard construction. Cap snowboard construction is reported as increasing the torsional stiffness and improving the edge control of a snowboard.

RIM (Reaction Injection Moulding) Snowboard Construction
The RIM snowboard construction method is less expensive than the Cap & Sandwich methods. The core material is placed into a mould along with the base material, edges and topsheet. Resin is then injected into the mould and this bonds the different components. RIM snowboard construction is known to be the most durable construction technique on the market. The flip-side of the durability is that these snowboards tend to lack the springy flex of a laminated snowboard and are usually heavier.

Polyurethane Injection Snowboard Construction
The polyurethane injection snowboard construction technique is usually used in the lowest priced snowboards on the market. This method is similar in construction to the RIM method, however rather than having a separate core component, Polyurethane (PU) foam is injected into the snowboard to form the core. Polyurethane injection snowboards are lighter than their RIM counterpart snowboards but they can often have short lifespans because they can lose flex, snap, camber and overall performance after a single seasons usage.