Salomon Snowblade

2002-2003 will be my fourth season on blades and I can honestly say that I have never come down a mountain on anything better and I can’t see myself EVER skiing or boarding again on a regular basis! I have a pair of Salomon Minimax 99.9’s and an older pair of 90cm Decathlon own brand [a complete bargain at £60 in an end of season sale]. Both perform brilliantly on-piste, with the 99.9’s having the edge for stability at speed. These things are excellent on groomed runs, allowing you to carve big turns with your palm on the snow and even do full 360° carved turns [well, occasionally anyway]. Even the most timid skier will soon get up ...

Ski boarding is a new and upcoming extreme sport. I rate it almost as good as snowboarding, and snowboarding is amazing! It helps if you've skied before when trying to learn it, and it also helps if you've skated before. I hadn't skied before and I picked it up within two hours on a dry ski slope. It's really fun and easy to learn but also a tad expensive. At the dry slope centre near me, it's £10 a night, and I get about 2 hours. That includes hire of the boots, and ski boards. Then the cost of the actual ski boards ranges from £60, which are most likely to be terrible, to around £250. The best at the moment seem to be Line ...

Having seen the evolution of the Saloman Snowblade over the last few years I finally donned a pair last Christmas... and I have never had such fun!!! At first I found the blade slightly hard to control due to its length (varies from 60-120 centimetres) but soon was having a whale of a time. Instead of traditional ski bindings, the blade features a clip-in, clip-out binding. The boot is placed on a rubber reinforcement in the centre of the ski. The back is then clipped in (fits over the same binding clip as a normal ski would) then a toe clip holds the front of the boot. The blade will fit size 12 (childs) to size 14 boots. Changing the size is easy. ...