Do you own your own skis?

[CruCru]

I go skiing every year (twice this year) and have always resisted buying my own skis. Partly because it's yet another thing to get to the airport and partly because skis seem to improve quite a lot each year. However my husband pointed out that the cost of renting them this year was about half what ordinary skis would cost to buy.

If you own your own skis, what sort do you have? Most recently I enjoyed renting Atomic Cloud 9s (at New Year) and Atomic Redsters (last week). I am heavy for a woman skier (about 100kg) so would need something reasonably stiff. I can ski most things but am not particularly fast. I don't go off piste (too middle aged).

If you own your own skis, how much of a faff is it is get them serviced each year?

Look for a local ski club. Quite often they'll have an end of season sale. You don't even have to be a member but they will have a members only day first so members will get the first pick.

I got my cloud 9s at our local sale, ex demo, only been skied on a handful of times and less than £200.

Yes we have several pairs of skis which now live in the cellar. I stopped skiing at 72, DH still skis but nowadays mornings only. We gave up taking the skis a few years ago. Cost of carriage, servicing and usually lugging them to the airport though we did drive a few times became less attractive.
However we do have a pair of antique wooden skis which are a ‘decorative feature’ despite MN scorn when another poster mentioned having the same.

I think it is okay to have wooden skis displayed if you are (or were) a skier. Still skiing at 70 - that’s impressive.

We have our own and rent for children because they are still young and growing. DH has a pair of Rossignol Bandits (over 13 years old) and he refuses to try anything else. As one of the PP said, gear has not changed much over the years, and often the choice of rental ones is mainly targeted at beginners/intermediate skiers. I snowboard and rental snowboards and boots are in 99% cases too soft/flat profile and I’m very much in love with my board, it took me ages to find the right one. I had my previous board for 9 years so the cost per use was great compared to renting.

Don’t know anything about snowboards but definitely not the case you can’t rent decent advanced skis. I’ve had some fab skis the last couple of years, Stockli lasers, blizzard black pearls, Fischer… just make sure you don’t book the cheapest ones.
I am very tempted to get my own but its just too much hassle to transport them on family trips.

Family of 4, son is 13 and daughter 12. I think we have 20+ pairs of skis between us, although my son accounts for 10+ of those. Although we have somewhere to keep them where we ski, so my son is the only one who travels with them.

We all own our own skis. We do have a cellar of our own in resort too which helps on the travelling (generally go there) but if we go elsewhere it’s only maybe once every few years for a bit of variety and then we either drive (no cost of carriage) or fly ideally Swiss for no ski carriage charges. My current pair are 11 years old. We generally do 20 days a year. I’m replacing them this year as I also need new boots and so it seems a good time given the prevalence of gripwalk boots and bindings now. (Bootfitter chooses the boots, I’ll buy bindings to suit) and the skis are to be honest not as springy as they once were. The whole lot (skis and boots) were probably £1400, so £120ish/yr, and I had the advantage of comfort and familiarity/predictability, plus you can often arrive and ski for the afternoon on arrival day, or the morning on departure day, vs spending time faffing around in the rental shop/finding a good rental shop in the first place.

On the advantages of rental, aside from transport if you are not lucky enough to have a base in a resort, are
You’ll get newer kit renting after the first couple of years vs your own
You don’t have to service them/maintain them/repair them when you smash over a rock off piste.
If you go premium enough you may be able to change them during the week if you get heavy snowfall etc, but this may also depend on if you have a ‘regulars’ relationship with a shop.
If you are improving, you can rent skis that grow with your ability.

Lots to think about but yeah I’ll probably always own skis.

I ski twice a year and realise I need to take more notice of my skis! This year really brought home the difference in types of skis as my Feb skis were just so different to those I had in March. The snow was different, the company was different, but I’ve never noticed so much variation in skis before.

How do people decide what to buy?

I started skiing properly 25 years ago, have owned 5 pairs of skis in that time, and ski probably 12-20 days a year (although in some years I’ve skied much more, never less though.) I would not be without my own skis. I don’t own them to save money, I own them because I like having my own kit.

For me, it’s like this:
Own skis - I have to take care of them, am careful not to ski over rocks and smack them about.
Rental skis - other people have skied them over rocks and smacked them about.

I have all mountain skis - previous 2 sets were Salomons but when I came to change skis last year the Salomons were not getting good reviews for the decorative finished (upper surface was chipping easily) so I went for Nordic’s Santa Ana 88s and can honestly say they are the loveliest skis I’ve ever owned, both in terms of looks as well as performance. They are currently about 400-450 euros on sale with bindings.

It’s no bother getting skis serviced. Usually costs about 15-20 euros once every couple of years, between times DH and I service them ourselves. Plenty of YouTube videos on how to do this.

Wrt rental skis, if you know what you want exactly, you can often get good skis if you ask. But most renters (especially British) are seen as clueless novices when it comes to ski brands, models etc, even if they ski reasonably well (I say this from the pov of someone who has lived in a ski resort and DH worked in a ski shop) so generally tend to get given the bog standard rental skis which are not the best and often in pretty average condition. If you are lucky, and ask nicely, and know what you want, you can get some awesome skis - DS got brand new racing skis this year at first rental place. Later on, in different snow conditions, he picked up good but slightly knackered twin tips. It’s not good enough to know which specific brand and model you want though, you need to be able to say what type you want and know enough about skis to recognise if you are being given what you ask for, as shops will not have every ski on the planet available.

I would always prefer my own skis over rental skis though.

Be honest about your skiing abilities and how you ski, then read lots of articles and reviews, then go somewhere you can test out a few. There are various ski test days held in the autumn in uk ski slopes centres, where experts can help you find the right ski. Or alternatively, take a leap of faith based on the reviews and just buy them. No worse than picking a rental ski at random! Eg I knew I wanted advanced all mountain women’s skis that would perform as well on piste as off piste. I ski confidently, but not hugely fast (am not slow, but not a racer!) Reviews for all mountain skis had performance skewed either more towards piste or off piste, so I picked the skis that got the most ‘in the middle’ good reviews. I have not been disappointed! Plus they are pretty. 😁

I tend to say advanced all mountain when asked (but never convinced they take any notice!). I think in March I said 50/50 piste and off, and the rental guy said you can’t go off as too much snow (Saas Fee 1.5m fell). The skis were so bouncy and nimble and felt so different, it took me a day to adjust. We did 2 weeks in Canada last year and it was all powder so very different to piste.
Would your skis work well in both conditions?

Well I have always had my own skis bought my first set twenty five years ago. But my Dh and I are now in our early 60,s and we really need new skis ours are now ten years old and we ski at least twice a year sometimes three time. But we have decided not to as obviously not sure how many more years we have left (my knees) and also we can’t be bothered moving them around airports any more, also £50 carriage on Flight and then they usually need waxed and sharpened when you get on holiday another £30.

So next year we have decided to hirer.

I Think if you are young and fit then a good idea, I really got my money’s worth out of my last pair.

I definitely wouldn't take a punt based on other people's reviews. For such an expensive purchase you need to ski them yourselves.

I was given a pair of rental Salomon BBRs in chamonix a few years ago and took them back to the shop at lunchtime because I couldn't ski on them a minute longer. They felt so unstable from the second I even just skied off the chairlift and kicked me out of the end of the turns.

I looked them up online and some people absolutely raved about them and some people, like me, absolutely detested them.

If you're bread a snow dome they often have demo days but I don't think there's enough variation in terrain to test skis out properly there.

If you are asking about mine, yes, they are good on piste and in powder.

Are these the Santa Anas and how do you rate them? I was looking at the SA 84s to replace my Black Pearl 98s as I really want a narrower ski now I mostly ski in the Alps.

I love them. My last 2 sets of skis have been Salomons, most recent ones Salomon Constellation Gemmas, and I would have been happy to go for Salomon all mountain skis again, but the reviews were saying that the top sheet of that season’s chipped easily and they looked a bit shoddy quite quickly. The Santa Anas were the closest in terms of performance in test write ups, but I have to say they are even better than the Gemmas (which were my previous favourite ski!) They are very lightweight, carve well, and just wide enough to manage powder. I’ve skied on some fairly choppy wet snow this season, and they just cut through.

I bought my own hire skis and boots a few years ago at the end of the week. Think I paid less than 100 euros for them both. I’d liked them, the boots were comfy. It was March, so end of season. Dh services his and mine skis. He seems to enjoy it 😁. He taught himself via YouTube.

No because the resorts / rentals usually have the newest models, and it’s a pain to travel with them.