Papasteeze

Time to start the count down until the first day of winter. 25 million seconds and counting

naaaa.. they are all full of hot air

Okay enough said then, thanks.

They have pushed some snow around from the tubing park, there should be some new jumps as a result.

Humph.. I am confused then yeah yeah yeah - so what else is new, right? I think it is one hell of an interesting piece. The descriptions in the mechanics of Bode's slalom turn really give me something to sink some teeth in... What I am confused with is what is so god awful wrong with also taking a harder look at the principles behind MSRT?

Wanna know why? I approached the CB management both last year and this year in letting them know that without an organized effort Camelback Placed 10th out of 100 resort teams last year. I was trying to get some consideration in notching the racing program up since it was soon to be our home mountain. They weren't interested, they wouldn't even put mention on their webpage. They had a ton of people out there at a national event representing them. They didn't care. Sorry, due to some really silly little issues like not accepting a gift of safety fencing for our racing juniors, I decided that we would give thanks by representing a ski area that was very welcoming to Ridge this year in allowing him 3 days of free gate training with supervision. We try to give a ski area something with merit and value - they won't have it. VERSUS A ski area that went out of thier way to give us something with value, merit and instaneous results. Which one would you represent? There are more reasons, like his best times were in Breck. HOLY CRAP - I just noticed my first post, I forgot that, what happened was a got one of those triple certified in this and that type of coaches who slammed the door in my face. I worked around him a little bit and got in touch with the Director of Competition services. Sort of like approaching a clerk in store versus talking to a manager.

I thought I would add something that is positive and worthy of reading about Bode. Stolen from another board. WHAT MAKES BODE MILLER SO FAST?... Should we be trying to ski like him? When I watch Bode Miller win a slalom race on television it?s often not immediately obvious to me how he beat everybody by two seconds? and I?m a very experienced ski coach. When I review the videotape and I?m still mystified, it helps to refer back to a short list I have in my head of the physical factors behind speed through a course. I ask myself, ?How does that technique: ? reduce friction, ? reduce impacts that slow him down, ? create forces that speed him up, ? help him to use gravity more effectively, ? shorten the distance he skis from start to finish, ? increase (or decrease) consistency.? (Crashing is slow.) It?s a good list of questions, referring as it does to basic principles, rather than just asking whether the racer uses ?approved? techniques. To see what I mean let?s use this list to analyze Bode?s moves. REDUCING FRICTION Bode makes very clean turns. He carves more of each turn than most, reducing skidding friction. He was the first of all of today?s World Cup racers to switch to shaped skis, and he?s learned very well how to smoothly roll those skis way up on edge cleanly at the top of his turns. The resulting very tight arcs require less ?steering? of his skis in a run, hence less drag. Also, he knows when to go straight and close to the vertical combination gates to minimize turning friction, and he knows how to come down on a pivoted ski?s edge with minimal skidding for turns that are very off-set. He is also a master of not allowing his skis to skid at the bottom of his turns: by not overturning and by weighting the tails enough to prevent them from spinning out. FORCE MANAGEMENT--REDUCING UP-COURSE FORCES Bode?s technique reduces impacts that slow racers down, like: pole plant jolts, impacts from slalom poles, and pushes from his arcs that shove him up the hill and slow him down. He knows how to use point forward pole plants for unweighting, balance, and control, but he only uses such pole plants when he has to, because they brake. Bode is tall and clears slalom poles by allowing them to strike his pole guards high on each slalom pole. This minimizes pole plant impacts by increasing his leverage against the return spring and against the moment of inertia of the pole. Being large Bode is relatively heavy and has the momentum needed to minimize the slowing affect of slalom pole impacts. (If you are short and light you are handicapped in slalom.) He reduces negative thrusts from his skis, by not over-turning or hitting his edges harder than necessary at the end of each turn, when the forces through his skis on his body point up course. That?s why he doesn?t create a big extension coming out of most turns, but just moves his hips horizontally across his skis and forward to start the next turn. This move requires that he come out of turns with his butt low, behind his ski-boots briefly, but creates a smooth transition with no hard hit on his edges. He hunches forward to minimize backward imbalance and then works hard to pull his hips forward going into the next turn. (He only extends up coming out of a turn if the course is very back and forth and unweighting is required to allow him to pivot his skis into the next turn without grinding.) He makes good use of his height by leaning in at the top of his turns, minimizing the amount that his mass must be deflected back and forth by his skis as he flows through the course. He?s not afraid to touch his inside hand down at the top of his turns to help him find his balance when tilting in. FORCE MANAGEMENT -- INCREASING DOWN COURSE FORCES He seems to understand how to generate speed after the start and in flatter, slower course sections by pushing against his skis with the proper early timing in each turn. He uses skating steps to accelerate when he?s going very slowly. SKIING A SHORTER LINE As the Austrians began to master short shaped-ski slalom technique three or four years back they learned that the technique of keeping hips low, close to the snow, with feet wide apart generated big edge angles, bent skis and powerful tight carved turns. Unfortunately this got translated by many coaches and racers into the dogma that feet should always be wide apart. However, in vertical combinations where the turns are not greatly off-set, it still pays to stand up a little, get feet close together, and ski as close to the gates as possible, using quick but gentle knee-angulated carved turns. The difference in the amount of turning between different flush lines can have a huge effect on speed. In a flush, a relatively straight, tight line requires far less turning force, racer movement, edging, turning out of the fall-line, and line-length, than one that?s only a little further from the poles. On the other hand, if the gates below a flush are very off-set, running flushes too straight and fast can bring a racer into the next turns disastrously low. These days flush running requires a lot of attention by racers and coaches to find the optimal line for various course sets. CONCLUSION Because his slalom skiing sometimes looks awkward and unbalanced, I expected in my analysis to find many aspects of Bode?s technique inefficient and risky, and not for general consumption. Indeed there are some moves involving excessive rotations and counter-rotations to question. Still, much of what he does makes sense, like: ? Tilting in at the top of wide turns, ? Putting down the inside hand when necessary to help find balance at big lean angles, ?Coming back on his skis at turns? end to get out of the turns cleanly, and limiting extension, ?Running many vertical combinations with feet less than two feet apart. Each of these moves runs counter to some widely accepted coaching dogma and it?s tempting to suggest that we should be teaching every kid or Masters racer to ski slalom like Bode. But few have Bode?s strength and agility, and it?s probably best to first teach a somewhat more balanced and reliable technique? before experimenting with some Bode-like moves. Keep your mind open. Coaches seldom, if ever, discover something new that?s fast, and we?ve set back U.S. racing before by squashing funny looking technique and/or equipment that we should have analyzed and used intelligently, in order to stay ahead of the competition. Remember. You don?t come second in the World Cup with a lot that?s wrong. It?s time to start finding and using the best from Bode. Thanks to Coach Al Hobart for this article.

shhhhhhh

Just adding a photo to this Breckenridge photo. This was about valentines day.

This was his February training grounds in Breck.

Vail as a JIV - what a dream

sooooo joining me for shots at 2am before race day is out of the question? huh? Drop the kids at the ski team room and make laps on cliffy was my MO for 15 or so days we were at CB OOOOPS - sorry for the Hijack Think. so, upload some pics!!

There was great article on her in Ski Racing that Ridge I read to use as an example of what an olympic ski racers life was like. Props to her. I really like her, now I would like her even more if she would join me for shots at the bar.. KIDDING!!!!!

I hear ya, big wheels turn slow. But when I take a look at what BC has accomplished in 2 years it will take CB 10 years and even then, they would still be behind. BC seems to make wrongs right, CB on the other hand easily tells their customers to go some where else if they don't like something. BC listens, CB slams doors. Tell me why cliffy or some other top to bottom trail can't be used for training? They are always clogged with people that shouldn't be on them. The ski team has a lot of open slots and more are apparently opening up. However I don't know the numbers. Does anyone go to CB for the park? not that I am aware of. Why do people go to CB over other places? Conveinence of the location. NorthRidge, shopping, restaurants, etc etc. Yeah there are improvements, but they are miniscule and cursory at best in comparision with the leaps and bounds that Blue and BC have made.

Freakin global warming....

I am with you however, I have pushed Ridge enough this year. He has to want to do these different events and he wants to go to Steamboat with his friends. I scouted for info on the Piche thing and even went so far as to contact the airlines about changing flights in the event he wanted to race up there. He made his best SL skills progress after 3 days at Breck training on gates as evidenced by his finishes at RT in comparison with the only other SL runs he had this season, which were at Elk. He is taking 2 clinics at Steamboat with some accredited coaches one on one. This was supposed to a building year for him, and quite frankly I have not seen that much improvement compared to last year. The season is not over! Time to regroup and reflect. Training in a team atmosphere may be distracting him, I really am not 100% sure, but there does seem to be a trend and correlation that one on one training produces better results.

I heard that! 8-10 runs first thing in the morning are fun to do quickly, after that it is so boring.. Western trips for me are to try and do a different trail every run - I head as far out and away as early as possible and work my way back always stopping to take it "all" in

Ahhh - IMO - its just that they are the biggest ski area that opens the latest, closest the earliest, still has a crappy park, thinks they already do too much for the ski team, let's employees park in the best spots runs lights all night, will post billboards for alchohol but won't allow temporary event safety fencing with logos, the list is long. I dunno, I just feel as they don't care to really improve anything substantially because they don't have to. That sucks for us avid snow lovers.

I noticed comments on the Flying Dutchmans newsletter along the same lines.

Who did that? Yeah by a few individuals. No biggie, its the same old debate that has been going on here forever. Most don't participate.

Welcome back! Bear for us on thursday night.

you'll figure it out some day, I have faith. You make it sound like I am racing. duh....... In the meantime, I won't ignore racing parents who have experienced those invitationals in comparison to a week in Steamboat and Nastar? An honor? No, it was an achievement by placing well in the Derbies that Ridge wants to pass on.

They could do something as simple as the Laurel lift next to the condos for a reduced park ticket. What the big deal - they have tons of year around staff, they just don't have any desire to keep anyone happy. I wonder how the once or twice a year weekenders rated thier experience this year?

I spoke to a half dozen parents at the derbies who had kids who went to New Hampshire. Not one of them said that when compared to skiing at Steamboat should Ridge go to NH. Ridges comment, was no, he didn't want to lose another weekend standing around. Do you know if they post results? Do you have a link?