Some thoughts on snow-flex

manzear

Member
Snow flex seems like a cheaper way of running a ski resort. When you take into consideration the cost of snow-making, grooming, and negatives of tough weather, the snow-flex could very well be cheaper. Now, I know the initial cost of installing the surface is pricey but, living in Ontario Canada, I could see some small ass resorts installing to ride in the summer months, and creating year-round income. After watching the snowflex edit in videos section, it seems like a lot of fun and a great way to get rid of those summer no-ski blues...

Again, this would work in Ontario because we ski on ant hills....

Have you ridden snow flex? Seems a little slower?
 
that would be sick. even if they just had it on 1 or 2 trails. summer skiing at your own mountain would be awesome
 
I would love some places in canada to get dryslopes. I grew up skiing in the UK so have always skied year round and never thought about skiing as a winter thing. Now im here in whistler and everyone just forgets about skiing in teh summer. I wish they had a dryslope set up here with some rails. It would be so much fun and is pretty cheap to set up. I never thought I would miss UK skiing but, you can ski all year not just when the weather decides you can.
 
I love snowflex. It may be slower but I like how the landings on the jumps can have extra padding and you never have to worry about take-offs getting too worn down or rutted.

There isn't a summer sport I'm into like skiing, so I would love to see it get a lot bigger in North America - basically to the point where the nearest Snowflex slope is as close as the nearest ski resort.
 
i agree that it would be ccol for you guys to ski year round, but snowflex is super hard to hold edges on, it is crazy slow and wrecks your skis like you have no idea. it is fine for small slopes of 100-300m but anything longer than that i think would still have huge maintenance costs in regards to replacing faulty mats and constant sprinkling ( you still keep a massive water bill)
 
most if not all ski resorts pump from a pond in the winter. and the ponds would be full in the summer. and they could just run snowguns without the air to wet it down
 
snow flex is so dope, i love it! It especially awesome when you hit it into a foam pit. I think it would be tight if small resorts started using it.
 
I don't see the small resorts doing snowflex. They already did a big initial investment in lifts and do you see resorts replacing lifts every 20 years? Hell no that's expensive, they just keep repairing them until the bitter end. I don't see them making another big investment into snowflex nor will they get enough people to support it. I don't remember, but what was that placed called in Niagara falls that had a dry slope that went out of business? Didn't last long that is what I remember.

The general population of skiing is the weekend warrior, that is where the resorts make the money. Not on freeskiers. When snow isn't on the ground in the city people don't think about going skiing. Hence why resorts close early in the spring even though they have snow to stay open for another two weeks. They just don't make enough money to keep it running

Unless snowflex becomes cheap to install we won't be skiing in the summer for a while.

 
snowpark Niagara. and they've just got horrid management that doesn't make sense, for example, they're reopening in november. straight stupid.
 
my local hill's park is ran by the schrab twins/claimand they made a summer setup with it, but it wasn't always open.

the problem is it hurts like hell when you fall and it messes up your skis so much we had to do a quick wax almost every time
 
imagine having one at blue, so many kids woyld be tgere all the time and they would probably make some good money eh rich?
 
theres one near my house and its sick, so much funner than my sketchy backyard setup but they just use the same rails as the winter park and the only expense is really the surface which is a one time cost and theyll have income without having to pay for really anything cause theres not even an employee working just at the setup. i think its a good investment especially when your one of the only places the area with one cause people will come from far away
 
liberty snowflex in virginia definitely kills it. its such a fun place to ride, i went to camp there over the summer and it was super fun to just be riding, plus the vibe is really cool because it brings all the people out who just love to ride and want to get some runs in during the summer.
 
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