Racers can't ski the mountain

i just said no to you. no as in i dont agree completely with what your saying. the coaching you get and feel from racing is impossible to replace. i think young the kids that are shreddin it in the park will kill it in comps but like big mountain skiing, the majority arent going to be able to hang cuz they dont have the fundamental basics down. and the not so basics as well. soooo i think the kids of the future are going to have to take a piece of racing and use it whether they join a team or just get a good fucken coach that can tell em what will help them charge.
 
thats a load of bull shit. I have raced since i was 10. Give you great fundamentals. i free ski now and progress faster than most of my friends because of it.
 
where does everyone get the idea that racing is going to make them break out in big mt. faster than a park rat...yes it gives you good fundementals on how to carve up a mellow groomer, but not steep variable terrain. I myself learned how to ski when i was little, did the whole ski school program, switch to snowboarding, then switched back to skiing 4 years ago and i can safely say im a strong, better skier then the majority of my schools racing team, For me whats made me good at skiing is experience, not just sticking to one form, getting out and hitting the whole mountain
 
Yay Buck Hill. I like Buck because it doesn't lie about itself. It says Hill in the title. There's so many other places in Minnesota that call themselves blank mountain. Let's be real, except for Lutsen, there are no mountains in Minnesota.

On a side note....

This is from buck hill last year.

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You want to know why kids from Buck hill are better than kids from out west? We are not spoiled like the kids from out west are.

Most racers from minnesota have spent 99% of their lives skiing chop ice, and nothing but. We ski every weekend that we go out mostly in sub 0 weather. While kids from utah complain about 15 degree days, we wake up at 7am so we can spend one hour in the park before the landings turn into solid rock ice. Kids from out west only get excited when they get 10+ inches of fresh snow, we piss ourselves when we have 2 inches of actual snow to ski on.

 
most good racers can ski the rest of the mountain very well. it teaches you the basic fundamentals of skiing. Tons of sick big mountain skiers were racers before
 
man racing give great technical skills it helps alot when you run into different snow conditions and obstacles when u in the steep and deep
 
yeah but theirs a different side besides saying they arent good a t skiing cus they practice on a small mountain.

if you hike a rail a buttload youll get good at it

if you ride a t-bar and lap a course youll get good at it.

in both sports you get better by repitition, the more repetition esencially the better you understand it and can do it
 
How is this a bad thing? As long as people are having fun with skis on their feet it shouldn't matter.
 
i think skiing is skiing and no matter what your doing, as long as your making turns your improving. i just dont like to race its a personal preference
 
The other reason is ROPE TOWS. Buck Hill has a high speed rope tow for the race hill. In a two hour practice those kids get at least twice the slalom mileage as anyone out west (slalom course isn't a full run, 15 minute chair ride, etc...). The good athletes can then transfer the slalom skills to the speed events (we can't really practice those here).

We also have a major metropolitan area to pull athletes from (MSP). Resorts don't have that. Any time you can pull athletes from a larger pool of talent, you get more stars.

Hyland (20 minutes from Buck) as has a good race program and the park has a rope tow. Hyland puts out some good snowboarders and skiers. Zach Marben came out of Hyland in the last few years and he has the current Snowboarder cover shot. Yeah MN.

In short: ice/ruts, rope tows, population, "harsh" weather and some good coaching is doing the MSP good.

--rick
 
plenty of racers cannot ski outside the race course and plenty of park rats cannot ski outside the park. nuff said.
 
I hate racers because they always try and cut the lines and think they are hot shit and own the mountain in their skin suits. Theres too many kinds of skiing to say someone able to do one type is better than someone able to do another. You just cannot compare park skiing to racing to moguls because they are all different...
 
i gotta give props to all the kids doin it at buck hill and nice pics tramdan.

i was cruising home after destroying the bowls yesterday and this racer steeze guy was doing these huge across the run racer style turns at me. I couldn't help but laugh a little.

time to ride

 
HAHA, this thread is funny. I think it's the person more than anything. Either you got it or you don't. Yea, you can learn and train but you will only be so good if you don't have it. Just like anything else. You can hit baseballs for hours, that does not mean you will be the next baberuth or the next barry bonds.
 
man, you really gotta know what racing is before you try and bash it.

racing isnt just turning around gates (well, it is, but theres way more). i can say from experiance, that there are some hard fucking courses out there. in any given course, you may encounter:

-knolls (nolls? sp? the bumps you can nose butter off/catch a bit of air) that you gotta seriously suck up to stay even close to the ground

-ruts- these things are a bitch- they are basically just gigantic divits where most of the people ski through (right in the line where you should be - that is if th epeople you ski against are any good haha)

-turns (obviously)

-massive steeps- there fucking steep, and when your going fast its not as easy as you think to stay up while trying to not catch air off a knoll, which is probably there to make the course ahrder (meaning, it will launch you if you dont hit it right) with ruts...

my point is- whipping it down at 50 or so mph (which is a reasonable speed for some courses (gs/super g), if not slow) with knolls, ruts, hard/sharp ass turns, all on the steepest trail on the mountain, is NOT easy. trust me, i raced for a long time and i can say this is true. it definatly helps me ski all mountain, and the two out of the 3 best freeskiers at my mountain raced growing up (one actually still races at his high school...).

if you dont belive me, watch the jon olsson video blog of his first race- watch his skis- to make GS skis (which are fucking stiff, belive me) shake that much you gotta be going over some serious shit.

heres the link to the JO video blog thing i mentioned:http://www.jon-olsson.com/videoblog/

NOW, as to not be compleatly biased: kids who ski park definatly do have more controll on things like being in the air spinning and stuff off of park features. this may mean that they are better in CERTAIN aspects of the skiing all mtn (maybe dropping cliffs for example).

Also, growing up as a racer- me and my friends would DAILY chinese downhill (race down any trail basically fighting eachtoehr w/ poles and stuff- its good fun), cruise the park (with twins of course... well at least me hahaha) and ski all mtn.

and to all of the kids who think they can ski faster than most racers at their hill- well, you probably either took lessons as a kid and can ski pretty well, raced a shitty racer, didnt race anybody and are claiming that statement, or can beat them straightlining it down a hill (which i still doubt). Race them through any type of course- it is their domain and they will win, just like you will prolly be better then them in the park or whatever area of skiing you excel at.

basically- racers CAN ski all mountain better than the average park rat (in my opinion of course)
 
where did you people come from?
hell 5 years ago if i would even think of mentioning racing, kids would try and tear anything i said about it apart. Now ns members are actually promoting racing. Its cool to see that the maturity has actually come around here. props
 
theres a pretty good generalisation right there.

im sure there's lots of park rats who can ski the rest of the mountain also. I'm in the park 95% of my time and i still believe i can ski the rest of the mountain. I've been skiing for 13 years and only 3 of those have been park, and im sure theres many others like me that are the same. I think alot of park rats become park rats, because there bored of the terrain they can ski already at there mountain.
 
i beg to differ...one of my friends who use to race can kill it all around the mountain, i personaly think that if i wouldve been into racing i would be a better all around skier cuz they teach you a shit ton of stuff.
 
Racing is one of the best things you can do to improve your all-around skiing, and most racers slay the rest of the hill unlike the 'backseat bandit's who never leave the park and ski dragging their poles behind them
 
I think that racing was actually pretty hard and kind of fun, but I hated the training. Absolutely hated it. That's why freestyle is so much more fun, there's not much that limits you, except for your ability which can always get better.

Racing has helped my skiing so much, I really appreciate having done it now but while I was doing it I was kind of slacking off. I could have been much better and probably would have been able to ski some lines way faster and harder.
 
Me too, I never raced for the hill team, but I did do a few things in school and always won. Carving and pushing into turns can natural to me. But I still agree that putting your kids in racing for a few years is a great basis for skiing. Coming out of that to freestyle will help with nearly everything you want to do.
 
as far as teaching young skiiers fundamentals of skiing, you can't beat racing programs in most areas. racing has an broad infastructure in place that teaches kids the fundamentals of good skiing technique, that can be applied to any other discipline. until the day when freeriding instruction is widely available to young skiiers, racing will be the place many good skiiers get their core instruction from. i wish that i had been in a racing program when i was younger, so that i would have solid fundamentals that would make me a much better skiier than i am now.
 
Bull shit. I've skied with "mogul" skiers and they aren't better than racers when it comes to big mountain lines, or trees, or just skiing in general.
 
hey, now... some of us have been encouraging others to race for a while now. sure, it sucks balls to spend a day standing around the top of a course in a GS suit freezing your balls off, but the skillz you learn from racing, if applied to the right terrain, can make up for every shitty moment in the gates. just suck it up and go race- it might kinda suck, but you'll be glad you did.
 
ugh my computer is retarded. but anyways, racers don't just race. they'll train gates whenever the conditions allow, but when it's puking or it's not groomed or whatever then they'll freeski. like today i went up and the ski team was just freeskiing. to race well you have to be able to ski all different terrains and stay in control over really shitting conditions. racers definitely don't just ski "manicured" snow. when i was on the team our coaches pushed us, took us backcountry when we were like 10, skiied all mountain.
 
who the fuck cares?

do i care if somebody can "ski the mountain" better than me? No.

As long as I'm having fun, which is riding park, I am going to continue to do it.

And if somebody wants to talk shit and say they are "a better skier," go for it, I really don't care.
 
wow dude you basically took the words outta my mouth. now i have only been skiing 8 years, 2 of which i can say have been dedicated to park. i got lessons when i was younger and i am a really good all mountain skier. i have messed around on the race course trying to beat racers times, and it is really hard. although i can beat most (my mountain has a shitty race team) some are realllly good. last year i just got plain bored with the mountain, it was basically too easy so i turned to park like you. but i will say that racers definitely can ski the mountain, and better than most other people on it.
 
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