Anyone out there ski at Huntley? What is the artificial-turf, classic track thingee depicted in this video? (Clik the first link; the story starts about 15:38 into the video.) Is this a homemade thing? Where can I buy some for the summer?!
FasterSkier Forums » Training
Dryland in Scotland
(3 posts)-
Posted 1 year ago #
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Before snow making became common I heard of some minimal snow zone ski areas using AstroTurf to facilitate skiing under low snow conditions.
Try:
http://astroturfsnow.com/Edgar
Posted 1 year ago # -
The original surface used at Huntly was a plastic mesh used as a ground stabiliser ground constructions. It was called ENKA and was moulded into tracks for classic technique. This isn't manufactured anymore and there are just some striding 30m lanes of it left at Huntly now. About 6 years ago the Huntly Ski Centre was refurbished and we used an "astroturf" carpet surface with a 1" pile. This doesn't have diagonal tracks cut but we have found this doesn't cause problems for classic technique. You can't skate on it unless there is a frost. We use a deeper pile "astroturf" surface for a small downhill mat (~35m long hill). There is about 300m of this new "astrorurf" type surface that is used for classic technique. We have small undulations and a 2m climb over a bridge. The surface works best when it is wet and even better when there is a frost. Of course it is nowhere as good as skiing on snow but we have found it an invaluable aid for training. Many of the current crop of British X/C skiers learnt to ski on this surface. Unfortunately we got our new surface before we saw another artificial surface manufactured in Italy - you can skate on this stuff http://www.nevepast.com.
For skating we have a 750m tarmac rollerski track.
Hope this answers some of your questions.
Posted 1 year ago #
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