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Articles from Homeboy's Skiing Blog

No Snow in December - What Can You Do While Waiting for the Snow 2007-12-15 17:45:06 Come on, this is unbelievable! Ridiculous! It is December 15th. and we have no snow here in Helsinki (Finland)! I do not know what to say, this is so unreal. Al Gore seems to be right, the climate is changing fast. Back in the 80’s it was much different. We used to have a real winter in December, nothing like this. In my home town in Lapland temperature used to go below -40 celcius degrees few times a year, but nowadays that phenomenon is very rare. I saw two Finnish researchers discussing in television about the climate change, and they said that according to a worst case scenario 40-50% of the planet will be like in a desert. It sounds bad and I believe in climate change, but I cannot comment about that statement because I am an amateur when it comes to climate change issue. All in all, it looks like skiing in Helsinki is not going to be a popular hobby in few decades. May be surfing will take over from skiing. Not bad actually.. While waiting for the snow, I do some other thin ...

Didier Cuche Won SuperG in Val Gardena in Italy 2007-12-14 17:49:11 Swiss Didier Cuche took the first position in last Friday’s men’s superG in Val Gardena in Italy. This was Cuche’s seventh victory in the World Cup. Today’s race was interesting because American Bode Miller, who took the second position, was only 0,02 seconds slower than Cuche. Didier Cuche made a mistake in the beginning, but was able to ski fast and take the leading position. Third was Marco Büchel from Liechtenstein, who was also very fast. Büchel lost only 0,04 seconds to Cuche. Race continues in Val Gardena with men’s downhill skiing on Saturday. Friday’s superG results are below. Val Gardena, Italy: Men’s superG: 1) Didier Cuche Switzerland 1.36,62 2) Bode Miller USA 1.36,64 3) Marco Büchel Liechtenstein 1.36,66 4) Didier Defago Switzerland 1.36,84 5) Erik Guay Canada 1.36,86 6) Patrick Staudacher Italy 1.36,91 7) Benjamin Raich Austria 1.36,92 8 ) Hermann Maier Austria 1.37,08 9) Jan Hudec Canada 1.37,12 10) Hannes Reichelt Austria 1. ...

Yeah Dude Ski Movie - Yet Another Great Ski Movie from Poor Boyz Productions 2007-12-13 17:43:33 Yeah Dude is absolutely a superb ski movie from Poor Boyz Productions. Just check out the clip below. Are you familiar with Poor Boyz films? As they say in NewSchoolers.Com, “PBP’s movies follow a formula: The world’s best riders + sick locations + sick action ? filler = the best ski movie of the year“. Yeah Dude gives the best drugs for skiing addicts. World class riders conquerring the mountains in Haines, Alaska Omaha, Nebraska Denver, Colorado Calgary, Alberta Mount Shasta and California Schweitzer Mountain, Idaho. What I really like in this video are those awesome newschool tricks, stunning powder skiing and very well selected music! Now, I hope my wife reads this, because Yeah Dude is something I would like to receive on Christmas. Just imagine yourself waking up early on December 25th. You make some good coffee and switch on your brand new Yeah Dude DVD. You take it relaxed and start watching one of the best skiing films.. Sounds good for me. Poor Boyz Pr ...

Listen To Music While Skiing - Audio Helmets a Rising Trend 2007-12-12 17:45:29 It was around 1999 when helmets became to skiing and snowboarding. First they were used by radical dudes skiing the backcountries, but in a couple of years ordinary skiers realized that it makes sense to wear a helmet. Nowadays only few people ski without a helmet, at least here in Europe. That is good, I like it. It really makes sense. Back in 1999 I was skiing in Chamonix with a dozen of other enthusiastic Finnish skiers. We crawled the backcountries day after day and we went skiing only if there was fresh powder. Yep, 1999 was an incredible season. It was on those days when I used to listen to few great metal bands. I thought I could take my portable CD player and listen to those bands while skiing. A fabulous idea, I gotta do it! Next day I went skiing Plan D’Aguille which is on the right side of L’Aguille du Midi cabin lift. I went up there with guys and switched on my CD player. Good headbanging music started to flow into my ears.. I turned my skis down and started su ...

Learn To Ski - Skiing Beginners Tips For Skiing, Part II 2007-12-11 15:22:58 In my previous article of learning to ski I discussed about the motivation to skiing and renting equipment for the first ten times of skiing. I also pointed out the meaning of reading books and watching DVD’s of skiing techniques. All those are your bricks and mortar for a good basis of your skiing hobby. In this second article I jump directly to skiing techniques. I am going to provide you beneficial tips for your very first days of skiing. If you ever hire an instructor, you will hear these same tips from him/her as well. These are not invented by me. Instead these tips are generally known as good practices for learning to ski. I learned to ski by myself because my parents never had money to hire an instructor, but I have tuned my skills later on with these same tips. I encourage you to hire an instructor (such as Megeve-Mike who talked here about taxi transfer to Megeve) if you can in order to learn to ski the right way. If you do it alone, just like I did, there is a high ris ...

Travelling to Southern California? - Check Out This Option for Accomodation 2007-12-10 17:33:48 While spending my Sunday by surfing in the net, I came across with San Diego beach house rentals website. I noticed that they provide vacation rentals throughout Mission Beach and Mission Bay as an alternative to staying in a hotel. They have hundreds of options on the ocean front and the bay front, and they also have general information on the San Diego beach communities. San Diego or Mission Beach California is a major summer tourist destination in Southern California. If you are planning to travel there, I recommend you to check out these San Diego beach houses. Personally I would love to stay next to beach and enjoy my breakfast on a balcony. I think my wife would like this one :). If you prefer Mission Beach, you can pick up your accomodation in here in Mission Beach vacation rentals. I don’t know much about San Diego, but I could consider a vacation in there. Anyhow, I am too busy in my job right now. It looks like my trips to United States will only be business trips to B ...

What Types of Skis There Are? - A Quick Guide to Various Types of Skis 2007-12-08 03:00:22 Very good morning! It is our national day here in Finland and I am on a holiday. What is the best way to spend your holiday? Wake up early, make some coffee while other still sleep, open your laptop and write an article to your skiing blog. Ok, may be it is not the BEST way to spend your holiday, but I enjoy writing very much. I write this while I drink my two huge cups of coffee. The winter has arrived in the Alps and the Rocky Mountains, and the masses go skiing. For many of those this is the very first time with skiing. William from US sent me email and asked about skis for beginners. Based on our discussion with William I decided to write few words about the types of skis and which skis are good for beginners. As there are very many ways to ski, there are many different types of skis. A ski designed for certain purpose does not work well for another purpose. A ski designed for a beginner does not work well in racing and vice versa. Skiers can be categorized into three groups based ...

How To Make Your Own Skis? - A Cool Site About Making Your Own Skis 2007-12-07 03:00:17 Ever dreamed about building your own skis? Your own “pro-model”…the exact lenght, measurements, flex, graphics…how cool would that be? I for sure have made hundreds of skecthes in the margins of school books and papers, meeting memos, advertisement etc. The reality is though that I am no handy-man. Maintaining my MTB is as technical it gets to me.Anyhow, I’m really interested about the design and innovations in ski (and snowboard) technologies. Luckily I have friends that can build stuff and there are also lots of small boutiques and indipendent custom ski makers who can build your dream guns from your specs. So, designing/engineering your own skis migh not be as complicated as it sounds first. Check out SkiBuilders.Com! Paging through the forums might give you some great ideas. There are also pictures and specs of some pretty wild and innovative skis. An element of passion is tangible in this site - I can only imagine the feeling you get when you are ...

Skiing in Finland - Five Good Reasons NOT to Ski in Finland 2007-12-06 03:00:06 Recently ago I wrote five good reasons to ski in Finland. Today I tell you five good reasons NOT to ski in Finland. It is nice to live in here and we have pretty good ski resorts here in Finland, but there are also good reasons to go skiing abroad. Finland is a nice country with lots of wilderness, but it is not a dreamland when it comes to skiing. Let us find out why. Reason 1/5 - Ski Resorts in Finland Are Tiny The sad fact is that the ski resorts in Finland are tiny and not even comparable to those in the Alps, Rocky Mountains and in Norway, as examples. Skiing in Finland is done in small hills which are usually 400-600 meters high. For example, my “home hill” which is just few kilometers away from my house, is 55 meters high. Yes, only 55 meters! They sell T-shirts with text “Talma Glacier - 5500 cm”. Because the resorts are tiny, enthusiastic skiers like we in HomeboySki.Com look for more challenging runs. They go to the Alps, Rocky Mountains and Norway. S ...

Jon Olsson Videoblog Post 18 - Jon Olsson Trying to Make It to 2014 Olympics in GS! 2007-12-05 07:39:20 Marko did a review about some of the best ski blogs online a few weeks ago. I would like to add Jon Olssson’s videoblog to the list. Jon Olsson posts clips to his blog during his skiing season. Here is a pretty good interview about Jon’s view to videoblogging and his skiing career in general. What really got my attention was his post number 18 - the guy has made a bet about participating the Olympics 2014 in GS! We will see… but for sure Jon is one of the most versatile skiers ever. I am pretty sure this guy can make it to the Olympics, but only only IF he is about to train really hard… Might be too hard to focus on both disciplines (freestyle and racing) at the same time though? Check out this clip and make your own conclusions. In my opinion his form is pretty damn good ...

Skiing in Finland - Five Good Reasons to Ski in Finland 2007-12-04 06:49:20 Yesterday I discussed about the top five ski resorts in Finland. As I said yesterday, there are few good ski resorts in Finland providing family skiing, backcountries, pretty active nightlife as well as some new-school type of skiing facilities. I recommended spending your next skiing holidays in Finland, but I did not say why. In this article I provide you five good reasons to ski in Finland. Reason 1/5 - Skiing in Finland is a Different Experience Skiing in Finland is different from skiing in Central-Europe because of the smaller resorts and colder arctic climate. It is colder and darker here, but the nature is beautiful, pure and wild. There are not as much tourists as in bigger ski resorts in Central-Europe, which makes skiing in Finland peaceful and enjoyable. When skiing in Finland, you can experience a real sauna and original Lappish culture. In order to experience a little more exotic and magical skiing trip, consider skiing in Finland, above the Arctic Circle. Reason 2/5 - Fin ...

Why Not Skiing in Finland? - Five Best Ski Resorts in Finland 2007-12-03 17:30:15 I have a question for you. Have you ever considered skiing in Finland? Let me guess, you have not. That would not be surprising because skiing in Finland cannot much compete with skiing in Norway and in the Alps. Anyhow, there is some good skiing in Finland, even though our “mountains” are tiny and choices are limited. There are good resorts for family skiing and there are even backcountries for those looking for powder. This article introduces five best ski resorts in Finland. Even though those resorts are tiny compared to ski resorts in France and Austria, many skiing and snowboarding stars come from Finland. So, there must be something good in those resorts. Let’s find it out. I have rated the resorts for families, freeskiers, party-animals and Lapland-fans. Rating is from 1 to 5, 1 being as “not good at all” and 5 being as “excellent”. Finland Ski Resort #1: Levi As the biggest ski resort in Finland, Levi provides an arctic skiing experienc ...

Quick News From Alpine Skiing World Cup - Aksel Lund Svindal Still in ICU 2007-12-02 14:27:32 I am sitting here at home and watching men’s giant slalom from Beaver Creek. Finnish Markus Sandell took just the first position. There is a very nice weather in Beaver Creek. Man, I wish I was there. No, I am not there skiing in Beaver Creek. I am here in Finland, watching the melting snow and rainy weather outside. What a winter! I heard about Aksel Lund Svindal from the commentator. He said that Svindal is still in intensive care unit but is in a stable condition. His biggest injuries are in his face and he needs probably several operations. Benjamin Raich visited Svindal today in the hospital. He had exactly four minutes time to visit. Doctors did not give more time than that. I assume it must be difficult for Svindal to speak because of the injuries. Check out my yesterday’s post for a little more about Aksel’s crash in Beaver Creek. The commentator said also that Aksel Lund Svindal’s father has arrived in Beaver Creek to be there with his son. Svindal is w ...

November Poll Results 2007-12-01 17:46:05 November poll is now closed and the results are here. The question in November was “Alpine Skiing Champion 2008 Will Be..”. There were only four votes, so probably this poll was not too interesting. Those four were given to Svindal, Ligety and someone else.  Two of the votes were given to Aksel Lund Svindal, who most probably will not win this year, due to yesterday’s crash (I will write more about this accident soon in news..). One vote was given to Ted Ligety, and one vote for someone else. It was interesting for me that nobody voted Bode Miller. Thank you for those votes. Let’s see who will be the champion this year. Check out now the new December poll. It focuses in your skis. Please tell us which skis you have or like. We will use this information when we pick up skis for testing and review. ...

Alpine Skiing World Cup in Beaver Creek and Lake Louise in This Weekend 2007-12-01 17:30:38 Austrian Michael Walchhofer took the gold medal in men’s downhill in Beaver Creek. Walchhofer took his 12th World Cup victory with time 1.13,74. Second was Steven Nyman who had difficulties to keep control after 70 meters jump. Aksel Lund Svindal crashed in this same spot in training. It seems that Svindal will not continue this season anymore and therefore will not compete for the gold medal. Nyman’s time was 1.13,79. Walchhofer was the first non-US citizen winning in Beaver Creek since 2002 when Stephan Eberharter took the gold medal. Walchhofer was very happy with his victory because this is one of the most difficult races in the whole world cup. Third one in Beaver Creek’s race was Swiss Didier Cuche with time 1.13,84. Although Svindal crashed and injured himself, he is still leading the world cup. American Lindsay Vonn won ladies downhill in Lake Louise. Second in this very cold race was Austrian Renate Götschl and third one was Canadian Britt Janyk. Temperature ...