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Ski Etiquette questions

skiMEbike

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Jul 29, 2014
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Sorry to take us away from the potty talk, but I'd like to bring the discussion back....So I've seen a couple of times people mention....It's ok to ski the gates, but "ONLY from the top." Aside from the obvious reason of, you don't want to jump on a course where someone else is bombing down the course that you can't see. Assuming you can see the course to the top & no one is on it, is there another reason for this "not being proper etiquette" ?
 

drjeff

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Jan 18, 2006
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Sorry to take us away from the potty talk, but I'd like to bring the discussion back....So I've seen a couple of times people mention....It's ok to ski the gates, but "ONLY from the top." Aside from the obvious reason of, you don't want to jump on a course where someone else is bombing down the course that you can't see. Assuming you can see the course to the top & no one is on it, is there another reason for this "not being proper etiquette" ?
If it's a non timed course, and you can see the entire course - not the end of the world if you were to jump in.

If timing equipment is being used, and in some programs, timed training runs are used, then one jumping in mid course and finishing the course will stop the timing equipment if someone starts from the top while you're on course below them.

Additionally if you were to crash in the course, in a location not clearly visible from above, you could become a collision risk from a racer above expecting a clear course and as such skiing like it will be a clear course - this is why in races, and even many active training courses you'll see coaches positioned in mid course areas where they can see both above and below their location to potentially warn racers coming down ahead of time of a potential issue with the safety of the racing line ahead of them.

As someone who is involved with the racing culture, I can assure those not familiar with it that so much of what is done around course set up, location, outside access to by the general public, etc, while it may not make much sense to non racers, is usually more about minimizing the potential injury risk to an athlete than just about improving the performance of an athlete

Sent from my XT1254 using AlpineZone mobile app
 

darent

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Apr 9, 2007
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nantucket ma
funny how skier safety on a race coarse, is # 1. to bad recreational skier safety is paramount to those few crazy racers blitzing around free skiing!!
 
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