lowrider Posted July 16, 2021 Report Share Posted July 16, 2021 1934-2021 Who didn't want to be him ? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barryj Posted July 17, 2021 Report Share Posted July 17, 2021 Quite the Legend.... and innovator of Heli skiing....... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boardguru Posted July 17, 2021 Report Share Posted July 17, 2021 Sad to hear, I always wanted to go to Wiegele World. R.I.P. Mike Wiegele. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philw Posted July 29, 2021 Report Share Posted July 29, 2021 It wasn't unexpected, this last couple of years. He was still pretty much around until then, although he hasn't been running the place for quite a while now. You can still go if you can get into Canada. He was a crazy Austrian guy, but he wasn't bothered about where you came from or what you rode: his business always treated poor snowboarders like me just the same as they treated the richest old school skiers. That's why he got most of my heli money. In fact he's still got some of it and I'll be there, Covid permitting, to collect on some of it in December. I'm sorry he's gone, but he had about as good a run as any of us can expect. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neil Gendzwill Posted July 30, 2021 Report Share Posted July 30, 2021 Hmm. Given the amount of heli hours you log, I suspect your definition of “poor snowboarder” and mine differ by quite a bit. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lowrider Posted July 30, 2021 Author Report Share Posted July 30, 2021 I suppose in times to come our sport will be measured in terms of carbon negative or carbon positive but for now I bow to the guys that measure the season in vertical . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philw Posted July 31, 2021 Report Share Posted July 31, 2021 On 7/30/2021 at 7:53 AM, Neil Gendzwill said: ... I suspect your definition of “poor snowboarder” and mine differ by quite a bit. Yes, perhaps I should have said "relatively poor", or "from an ordinary background". When I first visited Wiegele I arrived on the Greyhound and flew standby. I used overnight bus to get there to save the cost of a night in a hotel. I had to work the numbers hard to make it happen, and it was a "once in a lifetime" deal. Mike treated people with private jets and watch-winding machines the same as people like me. I liked that, so I made some money and went back. It took me a while to earn enough to even deal with down days as a concept: you avoid that if you fly standby. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Speedsnowboarder Posted August 4, 2021 Report Share Posted August 4, 2021 On 7/31/2021 at 2:03 PM, philw said: Yes, perhaps I should have said "relatively poor", or "from an ordinary background". When I first visited Wiegele I arrived on the Greyhound and flew standby. I used overnight bus to get there to save the cost of a night in a hotel. I had to work the numbers hard to make it happen, and it was a "once in a lifetime" deal. Mike treated people with private jets and watch-winding machines the same as people like me. I liked that, so I made some money and went back. It took me a while to earn enough to even deal with down days as a concept: you avoid that if you fly standby. Hi Phil, sorry for contacting you this way but I could not find contact you somewhere else.... My name is Peter Bittner and I am a former speed snowboarder. We met at Goldeck in Austria. you shot some awesome pictures of the event and I was wondering if you have some pics in your archieve ? Would be nice to hear from you again .... Greets, Peter Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philw Posted August 5, 2021 Report Share Posted August 5, 2021 Hi Peter, Good to hear from you! I seem to remember you offered to lend me one of your boards, but having looked at the steepness of that slope I decided my nuts were not of sufficient diameter for the task in hand. Yeah, I have a bunch of pictures - eg the one enclosed here, if that works. You're welcome to them of course. There's a personal message system here - send me one of those with your email in it and I can get you some images. My system says that was 2005, Canon 1Ds (I need to write that down so I don't have to look for it again later!). P 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corey Posted August 5, 2021 Report Share Posted August 5, 2021 I got a little scared just looking at that picture. Wow! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lowrider Posted August 5, 2021 Author Report Share Posted August 5, 2021 It's never the going fast that scares me it's the sudden stop ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lordmetroland Posted August 6, 2021 Report Share Posted August 6, 2021 10 hours ago, lowrider said: It's never the going fast that scares me it's the sudden stop ! At that speed, it’s not sudden… 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patmoore Posted October 21, 2021 Report Share Posted October 21, 2021 I was clocked at Davos at 55 mph (88 kph) on a Volkl 168 Renn Tiger but that photo looks insanely fast. What speeds do those guys reach? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neil Gendzwill Posted October 21, 2021 Report Share Posted October 21, 2021 On 8/5/2021 at 9:12 PM, lordmetroland said: At that speed, it’s not sudden… Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philw Posted October 22, 2021 Report Share Posted October 22, 2021 Those guys were clocking well over 132km/h. From what I recall the courses are designed not to be record-breaking, so the design maximum is about 200km/h anyway. The guys at 132 km/h were on essentially inflatable boogie boards. I kid you not. I often have to keep my mouth shut when people talk about the incredible [literally] speeds some people [not here] claim to have achieved on open piste. Those speed-slopes are crampon hard and roped-up access is the only safe way. The speed-test section is a 100m bit about 1/3 down. The bottom 2/3 is for deceleration and the bottom 500m or so is protected with massive house-sized bouncy castle barriers to reduce the impact. I only saw one crash, and the guy crashed right at the very bottom. It was the biggest, gnarliest, nastiest crash I've ever seen... I thought he'd nearly stopped (he had), but of course he was still doing the sort of speeds you never see on a public piste, hence he hit those house sized barriers hard. I have no doubt that some of the people here have bigger nuts than me and would be able to ride those slopes, but it is an order of magnitude faster than most people will ever experience. They steer with their fingers, obviously don't edge the board, and aren't allowed to stand up until going slow enough not to be blown over. I seem to recall that there are regulations for the board size/ design, and that the bindings are different. That Kitz crash looks pretty bad, but note that the fences there are small... the seep ski ones are massive for a reason. They have had fatalities in speed skiing, which I think is one reason that they limit the maximum speeds. --- Peter you can get me through publicview.health also if other routes aren't working, but try not to look like a spammer! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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