Telemark Talk / Telemark Tips Forum

Doing big turns on intermediate slopes, I lose more speed than the alpine skiers. I can not work out why!

Any technique suggestions on how to maintain (even accelerate through the turn)?

Thanks.

On NTN, telemarked 4 weeks a year for 8 years, more than decent alpine skier before that.

Julian

What's Your weight distribution?
Are the ski edges cutting snow make the same sound when You parallel and tele-carve?
What do ski tracks say?
Is Your stance low or high?

My experience is quite the contrary: I'm faster, almost exclusively. Locally, only experienced 35-40 y.o on freshly waxed GS WC RS skis can beat me But then I do hear very well

Weight distribution probably 60/40 favoring the downhill ski.
My stance is probably on the low side when fully powered up in GS turns.
I definitely carve looking back at the tracks.

I do not/can not go as fast as the local Austrian boys! I seem to loose more speed with each turn.

Again, any suggestions appreciated.

Julian

I was focusing on this a few years ago when I had noticed a similar situation. I took a short clinic with Weston D and he noticed I was skidding the beginning of the turn initiation and then hooking up the carve. I worked on early angulation of the lead ski and things have been improving since.

DaHeel wrote:I was focusing on this a few years ago when I had noticed a similar situation. I took a short clinic with Weston D and he noticed I was skidding the beginning of the turn initiation and then hooking up the carve. I worked on early angulation of the lead ski and things have been improving since.

I wouldn't say early angulation. You certainly want to be on edge early, and more importantly on a clean edge, but you need to resist angulating for as long as possible. Inclining and stacking above the fall line will allow you to generate more force because you are transmitting the forces more through your skeleton. As little time angulating as possible will be faster. Also getting forward and projecting downhill will allow carrying energy from turn to turn.

(I hope your season is going well Daheel!)

nstelemark, I pondered what You said and all I can tell is that it makes sense, I've used it but in extreme-G turns (when I can barely resist downward forces) it is really, really hard (almost impossible for me yet) to maintain proper distance between leading and trailing boot. It almost looks like I'm paralleling in softish boots, even though weight distribution and body position isn't like in alpine technique.

Maybe I'm too weak? Or that's just cause I'm newbie - spent too little time trying?...
Are there some aspects in this that I must look/feel deeper into?...

Edge hold, speed & control are good, though (after all, that's my main concern), despite I've maybe 15cm spacing in extreme G turn like that (when I think I should have at least 40). Go figure...

Now this is a really, really interesting topic...

While I don't have any problem about going fast (I *love* speed!), I have to admit that long radius turns are my main weakness...

I was just talking to a local tele-racer here the other day and he mentioned that his coach tell them to try to make the front/downhill leg as straight as possible... I'm not sure how this is possible but I'll give it a try today...

I should try to get him in front of my camera for a demonstration... That would be cool...

Thanks for the tips!

LoveJohnny wrote:Now this is a really, really interesting topic...

Yep when you have to ski groomers you might as well try to make it fun!

I was just talking to a local tele-racer here the other day and he mentioned that his coach tell them to try to make the front/downhill leg as straight as possible...

Thanks for the tips!

This is another way to say you need to stack as much as possible - ie use your skeleton rather than muscles to resist the forces being generated. Like a lot of telemark concepts - ie ball of foot flat on the ski, they are ideals rather than reality but the concepts are still sound.

There are some really good resources here on modern race technique and they are (mostly) applicable to tele as well:

http://www.youcanski.com/en/coaching/incline-to-win.htm