I don't ski enough to justify the cost of buying skis in the household budget, so I just hire when I go. This will be my 4th year in Perisher and with daily lessons I've slowly progressed over the last 3 years of 5-day stays to the point where I can confidently parallel turn and pole-plant. Last year I finished on level 4 lessons and was told that if I was staying another day I should join a level 5 group.

I'm looking at a 9-day mid-August stay this year and I'm wondering if I should hire the basic cheapest skis again or consider the "performance" skis. The decision isn't helped by not knowing what "performance" skis actually are. I guess that they would be "allround" skis rather than "beginner" skis as defined here: http://www.mechanicsofsport.com/skiing/equipment/skis.html

So I'm thinking that "performance" hire skis would be longer and stiffer than what I'm used to (Note: not to be taken out of context!) and maybe a bit more inclined to throw me off.

I wasn't going fast enough last year to have any issues with flexing, but after 9 days this year?

Should I upgrade straight up or go with the standard skis at first and try upgrading as my speed & skill improve? Or am I kidding myself that I'm anywhere near needing to upgrade?

at 9 nines and super cheap deals on current models due to slow US season i would be buy some in from O/S, you would only be a few hundread dollars worse off for the one trip.

if hiring go for performance range, hire off mountain from jindy

I'm no expert, but I'd suggest hiring the standard skis when your first down there, talk to your instructor and get his ideas about length and shape. Then if you hire on mountain or are staying in Jindy, see if you can change over to a performance ski. That way you will have shaken a couple of cobwebs out, got personal advice from someone who knows how you ski and you can then feel what difference a performance ski makes.

Performance skis are probably going to be a bit stiffer but at your level the length would be about the same as you're already using. You probably want them waxed about 3 times for a 9-day trip, too.

Buy skis (boots, poles, jacket, pants, helmet, the lot). If you're going to continue skiing a week or more a year it pays for itself, at least for adults and if you have multiple kids in tow then you can hand kids' gear down. You've probably missed the boat for the sales this season but keep an eye open. You can often pick up a set of better skis than the "performance" hire skis for less than you've already forked out in rentals for 4 years. I figure on a set of skis lasting me 10 years before they're designated as rock-hoppers, so they do pay for themselves if you're going to keep doing this.

So far each year has been going to be the last "for a while". But the plan ATM is to give 2013 a miss in favour of taking my daughter to a Japanese field for a fortnight in Jan/Feb 2014 in lieu of her going to schoolies. Any skis I buy to suit local hardpack won't be worth shipping to Japan for powder. So rental is the go for this year.

Even clothing is a bit of a gamble PA, I've sat at 120kg for a couple of years and have finally started to chisel some off in the last month or so. At 113 today and aiming to be under 100 for my trip in August. Then down to 80 over the next year. I'd try to stabilise before investing in jacket and pants.

But yeah, if I see myself keeping regular trips up I'll buy the gear, I just feel I need a bit more experience before I lock something in.

if worried about your budget, then dont hire on the hill as it costs alot more than the closest town. You should be able to pick up performance skis off mountain cheaper than on mountain budget. From my experience not all rental places are the same especially when some places call" performance skis" as just a new bottom end ski compared to their lower package.

My recommendation is just get the normal rentals, Focus on what your feet and legs are doing, the skis won't make a whit of difference at the intermediate skill level you've described. The turns are skidded at this stage so there is little point in playing with flex or sidecut. The only 'performance upgrades' worth having all come from skill development. That means mileage, mileage, mileage. Put the cash saved into more skiing. Even one or two extra days means more time to integrate those skills into moves that become automatic.

What sly says
I've resisted temptation & we hire fats OS when required. Its all been about time on snow for me. Different skis werent required to get from green to blacks.

Hey sly_062. so youve done a total of 15 days + another 9 to come this winter. In the sceme of things this is not many days to consider purchasing performance boards. All they will do is put you in the back seat, Maybe boots. Why not wait until you've clocked up 100 days.

Hi Sly_062
I agree with most on this thread. The dollar is good for puchacing skis OS, but try to save your cash for when you are turning from edge to edge at reasonable speed on blue runs at least. Then demo as many as possible before you buy. Until then, I would be asking for an all mountain intermediate ski when renting. Something with a bit of stability and width will get you through the death cookies and slush perisher often delivers. Rythm at Cooma had an excellent selection (4 years ago).
As you get better and demo more skis you will be amazed how differently similar skis run. If you buy early you could be very disapointed later.

Last January we went to Canada and I left my skis home for exactly that reason.

We has pretty much Australian conditions for the whole trip. They recommended a wider set than I usually ski here (for the powder) and they were hard work everywhere other than in front of the snowmaking guns. I shoulda taken my own skis.

But granted, that's not the way it's usually going to be...

My advice is to stick with the normal ski's and to save your money. At your level, you won't get much benefit from the performance ski's. Keep concentrating on learning more. If you find you need them, then there might be a cheaper option in a local shop to rent. Not all rental outlets cost the same price; shopping around is a must when you are on a budget.

Absolutely.

The thing to remember is that you improve quickly at the start, and slower as time goes on. Not only do you need to replace your skis as you improve, but your boots as well (you tend to go for a stiffer flex). The first thing to buy, if anything, is boots. A decent boot will outlive a few sets of skis. Pony up the cash to have the boot fitted by someone good and get foot beds.

When you rent, let the know that you are a level 5. They will normally reach around the back of all the other skis and bring out the newer hire skis, and put you in a newer boot that hasn't been softened up so much. If you walk in with your own boots, they are likely to pull out better skis automatically.

What a difference a day makes - the general run of advice has turned around just as I've been starting to consider buying in :-)

Let me put my comment about "household budget" into perspective. When I came home last year I went to a reputable (AFAIK) ski shop to look at boots. I generally got good advice in line with what I've read online. While I was there I ran a casual eye over their displays of skis, most of which were priced at $1500 and up. I looked at a couple of Australian online stores and generally found their offerings to be in the same price range. So I said "f*** that, skis are too expensive for me!".

Having spent a few hours today trawling through overseas reviews and stores, I see quite a few good and highly-recommended intermediate skis in the US$300-500 range, which has been giving me some serious second thoughts. FWIW I've come up with suggestions like Blizzard Magnum 7.4 or 7.6, Rossignol Bandit B1 or 74 (B2 at a stretch - perhaps a bit ambitious), Atomic Smoke TI and K2 A.M.P. Photon.

But I take the point about needing more miles and I understand the benefits of custom-fitted boots so boots are definitely my top priority.

What might be different this year is the conventional wisdom of hiring off-mountain. With the early bird discounts on hire through Perisher (eg 34% saving for 7 days), I'm inclined to hire on-mountain and see if I can try some of the skis I mentioned earlier after I've been there a couple of days and just see if I'm up to them. That way if I struggle I can always switch back to something less ambitious.

Thanks for all the advice too! I like to hear and understand POV's that I mightn't have considered. This has all been very enlightening.

Not sure what this means, do you mean they'll throw me on my arse? Or do the skis take control, leaving me as a passenger?

Sly-062 I totally understand where you are coming from and I think what you are saying may be feasible, since according to the Perisher marketing machine they have invested big money in new rental stock.

Not sure what the individual 'rules' of each hire place is, but I used Rhythm (in Japan in March) for a hire board after leaving my tired and worn oldie behind in Zermatt in January. I wanted to trial a few different boards with a view to purchase so the performance package was perfect for me - I could swap the board over as many times as I liked for different ones (and different bindings also - which I did!).

Obviously with Rhythm being in Cooma that is impractical in Aus, but the on mountain hire joints may offer the same.

Edging the ski at the end of the turn will bend it into an arc, and this stored energy is released as the ski flattens and transitions into the next turn. This creates rapid aceleration of the skis, which, if you're not ready for it, causes the skis to get in front of the skier. That's called 'sitting in the back seat'. What you want of course is to be in the driver's seat - balanced on the middle of the ski.

Skis for advanced skiers will mostly have a stiffer flex pattern, especially from the boot to the tail of the ski. This accentuates the energy release at the end of the turn, and skilled skiers and especially racers deliberately use this to maintain high speed. Getting on a pair of these early in your career could be a handful, and there aren't really any other benefits of use to you at this time. Boots are generally the first thing you should buy. My main advice though is not to worry much about equipment. Skill development is the best investment of all.

Your weight is a consideration in your ski purchase as well. So maybe wait until next year.

I agree with the person who said to speak to the instructor, but you may as well go with what the store recommends for you in the 'performance' range.

Hi S62, like a lot of folks here have said as a bit of generalisation, performance skis are going to show their true benefit when you start using the edges either on a steer turn or a carve turn.During the pivot stage of turning when you keep the skis pretty flat and skid the tails around, performance skis won't make much difference.

The vid at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Fs2jkOA74o will give a good indication of when edges come into play. (the vid is done by a regular poster on here but we won't hold that against her! Ga'day LT)

Some more vids that could be helpful for your skiing are the Darren Turner series http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eG1uDU0rSLw&feature=relmfu
or the Warren Smith series
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k4c87HEOAQ&feature=relmfu

Once you look at the links above, you'll see the links to more vid by these guys.
There are plenty of other vids on youtube but the ones mentioned will give you good visualisation of whats going on and are pretty much up tp date with current teaching methods.

They'll also give you a good idea of when performance skiis are going to be of benefit.

I've always hated hiring off mountain. If I hire off mountain I'll hire in Sydney. Several reasons for this :

1 - the second time I went skiing, day 1, up to the top of the main quad at Perisher FV. Three turns later, the binding parted company with one of the skis, which proceeded to travel about half a kilometre down Pretty Valley. Took it back to the hire shop at FV and they swapped it, no questions asked. If it was an off-mountain hire I'd have had to either drive back down (losing most of a day by the time you fart around getting changed into driving shoes, waiting for skitube, driving down, swapping, driving back, waiting for skitube and changing shoes again) or make a new hire at FV and hope I could argue the money back on my way home.

2 - A few years ago, went down with a mate who'd hired at Rebel. The pickup at Jindy was supposed to take 5 minutes and the gear return about the same. That was true, but what they never mentioned was the hour-long queue to get to the 5 minute process. By the time my mate walked out of the shop at Jindy with his gear I could've been doing turns at Thredbo - it pretty much lost us the free half day sunday afternoon. We wasted another hour returning the gear making us much later getting home.

Boots - definite good move. Get them for this season if you can.

Clothing - as soon as your weight stabilises I'd get clothing because the rental gear is rarely much good and if you buy sensibly at the sales it'll pay for itself in a year or two.

Skis - I reckon you should get something once you feel like the improvement is only slight after each trip. IMO the average one-trip-per-year intermediate or advanced skier spends the first 4 days getting back to where they were last year, so after this 9-day trip you probably won't see a lot of improvement year-by-year. That's the time to buy skis. I've been skiing for 16 years and probably only have 130 days to my name - I bought after about 20 days of skiing, ensuring that I bought skis that would cope as I improved (Atomic 9.22s), and only replaced them last season. I'm very happy with that decision - those skis served me well and saved me heaps in hiring costs.

Thanks Hipo (not)... damn I hate watching that video!

On the plus side I'm on GS race skis and I do what I was asked - and usually the video is my first attempt at actually doing the demo required. I still think I'd do better at those demos these days... but....

Me I prefer Phil Smith to Warren... but horses for courses I guess... IIRC Phil has been trying to preach skill based learning to BASI for years...

In past years I took a middle option. As we were staying at Ski Rider, we hired all our gear from there. The first year we got caught behind a busload of schoolies in the hire shop and just made our free Sunday arvo lesson. The next 2 years we arrived earlier (overnighting in Cooma rather than Canberra) to ensure plenty of time. They were happy to kit us out at 10am Sunday. We had minor issues with boot sizing a couple of times and heel wear on one boot. Not enough to be showstoppers, so we were always able to exchange gear at the end of the day. But if we had a showstopper it would have been easy enough to get back to Ski Rider during the day and get it sorted.

I was under the belief (correct me if I'm wrong) that gear hired from the Perisher outlet at the Bullocks Flat terminal could be exchanged at any other Perisher hire shop on the mountain? That was my original plan....

...until I went looking for boots online and found that I could put together a ski/pole/boot package ex Vermont for not much more than the local price of boots alone. I've tried enough hire boots to know the make and size that work for me. With orthotics they should be even better. So this year I'll have a fresh pair of Dalbello Aerro 6.9's and Blizzard Magnum 7.4 IQ's to play with.

The skis will probably be better than me for quite a while, but the reviews generally rate them more forgiving than some others I looked at, so I hope not to be overpowered by them. And the available sizes were a bit patchy so I've gone a little short for my current weight at 163cm v's suggested 170cm+ on the basis that as I trim down and build skills they will end up a good match.

I've even caved in and ordered pants & parka from the US after finding that big fittings are basically special order (ie full-price) locally in brand names (and not available in no-name ebay ranges) but commonplace over there. While not as cheap as mainstream sizes, there is still enough volume to keep them reasonable. And I reckon they'll be easy enough to shift on ebay when I need something smaller.

How tall are you? Im no expert but at 100kg or even 80 I think the 171s would be a much better choice. As your skills develop and you ski faster you'll want longer skis not shorter. At any rate they should be easy to turn!

Yep 163cm is nearly my shortest pair(I do have a 155cm slalom).

I'm 160cm tall...

They should be easy to turn though as you say

At full stretch I just make 175cm / 5'9". 163's will come to eye level. Last year's hire skis came to below my mouth. They would have been 155 tops, maybe only 150. I had a ball and progressed a long way on them too.

At my stage in life easy turning rates higher than outright speed. It'd be different if I had 25 fewer years in my account and ambitions towards black runs and BC. Realistically I'll spend most of my time cruising blues at medium pace, especially this year.

I know the skis are better than that so if I do push on a bit further in future years they shouldn't let me down.

Wow...I am used to seeing mates with WAY longer skis than that, usually as tall as them at least. I wonder what they will stick me on for my first ski lesson this year.

sly_062 I know boards are different and all, but that was the way I started. My first board was a bit undersize for my height and weight, but it was recommended by the board shop guy as a great beginner board, and it was...being fully cambered with none of this fancy catch free edge tech or rocker that helps out now, the lesser size really made it easier to progress. 2nd board was longer, 3rd will be longer still. You may go the same way - hold onto these for a few years, improve and buy again. Have a ball - a snow ball ;-)

On the jacket and pants sizes: Yes what is available in Australia is shocking! Not everyone is a skinny young thing that wants low rider pants. I have trouble outfitting #3 son - he is 110kg, 6ft2 and a hulking musclebound monster of a just turned 15 year old. He does carry extra weight - always has done (and I mean since birth!) ..genetics..poor bugger is so much like me it is not funny - but he trains a minimum of 2 hours a day, sometimes a shite load more. You can't be a Rugby Tight Head Prop or a Water polo Centre Forward being a skinny runt.... however the Aussie ski industry doesn't seem to acknowledge that very well at all. And it is worse for girls. I am at the top end of being able to buy off the shelf in most ski shops in Australia. Generally the clothing sizes run small for standard also. Even in fashion conscious Europe they did it better and more options available in larger sizes. I am currently organising a bucket list trip for some Snow Virgins and this is going to be a problem here. One friend only fits into my current ski pants (so I need to lose weight to justify buying a new pair for me), and another can barely get them done up, which means it is going to be hard to find her anything to fit! Frustrating.

Send an order and I'll bring it home MB - or ship it on...

Thanks LMB. Similar progression with skis. There are sizing guides on the web which factor in weight, experience, etc for selecting ski size. Then there is a simple rule-of-thumb for sizing: chin height for beginners, nose for intermediates, forehead + for advanced. So yes, be prepared for what look like undersized skis.

I found a good range of big & tall sizing at skicloset.com and ended up buying Columbia Bugaboo pants & parka way cheaper than anything I found here with any sort of brand name on it. The wrinkle with that is Columbia gear sold in the US can't be shipped overseas, so I had to use one of the repackagers. I did get free postage to the repackager's warehouise though. I also found bigmen.com very helpful. If you email them your son's chest, waist, hip & inseam measurements (I did mine in inches) they'll shoot back sizing recommendations. Their pricing is a bit more expensive however, but I guess they don't need to clear out last season's stock as urgently as specialist ski retailers. You could always ask them to pricematch.

I'm sure there'll be similar resources for women. I started with just googling "buy big mens ski parka" and had good leads on the first page. Best of luck!