Friday, December 17, 2010

Womens Ski Recommendations?



My wife had her first ski lesson last week at Brighton and (thankfully!) loved it. Note that the lesson was administered by Brighton Ski School instructors and not by me. After 13 years of marriage I know better than to try and teach her myself! Plus I really don't know what I'm doing given that I've never had a lesson myself. Anyway, she had so much fun that she almost immediately began asking when she could go up again. Yesterday we made it back for lesson #2 and as before, she had a great time. Speaking of lessons, early season is a fantastic time to go as there are few - if any - other students. In fact, both days she was the only person in her respective group ("First Time" last week and "Learning to Turn" yesterday) which resulted in a 1 hour private. The first time she even had two instructors - how cool is that?!

Last night she asked when she could go up again which tells me that I need to stop renting her equipment and buy some gear. Honestly I wasn't sure if she'd enjoy it, but now that it's clear skiing is something she'll want to continue doing, I need to figure out what to buy. My problem is that I'm inclined to get a mid-fat ski (85-95mm waist, something like the Bluehouse Spark or Line Celebrity 90) and let her grow into it, which I'm guessing isn't the best option for a beginner trying to learn proper technique. In that case should I just go with a lower-end frontside (aka, groomers) ski and then upgrade to something more versatile next season? If so, what is that ski?

1 comment:

Ski Bike Junkie said...

A wide ski doesn't do her any good until she's skiing soft snow on a regular basis. I would get something that's easy to turn--read: soft flexing and fairly narrow under foot with plenty of sidecut.

She'll develop good technique on a ski that's easy to turn, which will make the transition to skiing steeps and/or powder much easier, as she won't be fighting poor mechanics in addition to the terrain.