If skibikes aren't loaded or unloaded properly on a chairlift, they can either derail the cable or jam it. It's one reason why its a good idea for ski resorts to require certification/license before they can get on their lifts.
Durango Mountain Resort in southern Colorado requires all riders to show certification every time before they get on a chairlift. Its prevented any lift incidents from happening at the bottom and top stations. Other ski resorts that do not require certification to board a chairlift have experienced bottom lift station incidents.
The clearance between the bottom of a chair and the snow surface can vary from chairlift to chairlift at ski resorts. They can even vary during the day due to changing snow conditions at the same chairlift. This includes the top and bottom lift stations.
Some skibikes are designed to be loaded and carried underneath the chairlift chair. Examples of this include the Geary Storm, and the Ultimate Snow Toys 3Ski. These designs may be a disaster waiting to happen if the rider is unaware of the potential to cause damage to the chairlift at either the bottom lift station or top lift station.
After several incidents to its chairlifts, Winter Park Resort in Colorado does not allow them to be carried underneath its lifts. Geary Storm riders are asked NOT to drop their seats, load, and carry them under the chairlift seat. Instead, they must be loaded into the chair.
Watch the loading sequence in the above video to see the loading procedure for this model type.
A local skibiker tried to tell me that this was due to faulty loading procedures and maintenance at Winter Park Resort. I called the head of the Colorado Tramway Board in October 2012. He said that there is no mandatory minimum chair clearance at the loading area in Colorado. Clearances are set individually for each chairlift with minimums and maximums set for each lift.
Winter Park Resort offers lessons but certification is not mandatory to board a chairlift. Conversion kits and homemade are not allowed on the lifts at Winter Park. Leashes are only required on designs that do not immediately fall over upon rider ejection.
Ski resorts that are considering allowing them for the first time should carefully review their certification policy. New or novice riders may not truly understand how they turn and stop unless they've had a proper lesson. This is especially true with freestyle peggers and homemade and/or conversion kit riders.
From 4 years of teaching peggers and skibobs through a resort ski school, I highly recommend ski resorts require certification before riders can board a chairlift. If you would like more input on skibike chairlift safety, please contact Roy Meiworm at Durango Mountain Resort. He'd love to talk to you.
The new freestyle (peg) type are a piece of equipment many ski resorts are unfamiliar with. With proper risk management rules and regulations, they can add a safe new dimension to the guest experience. Those who would otherwise stop skiing or snowboarding due to injury or disease can continue to enjoy the ski slopes.
© 2012 G. Kunkel and A Colorado Skibiker Goes Skibiking. Unauthorized
use and/or duplication of this material without express and written
permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.
Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is
given to G. Kunkel and A Colorado Skibiker Goes Skibiking with
appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Showing posts with label skibike safety. Show all posts
Showing posts with label skibike safety. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Why wear a skibike leash?
For the most part, skibikers are the only people who know about skibike leashes. Most don't like wearing them but some resorts require them.
Wrong information
So why would a ski resort require their use? Believe it or not a few resorts require them because of incorrect information they've heard from other resorts. Things sometimes get garbled in transmission and they require them for all the wrong reasons.
Why would a skibiker balk at wearing a leash? Hey, nothing ever happens that warrants using a leash, right? Not necessarily.
Opinions on where and why should ski resorts require them? And how should they be attached?
Bike design
From direct personal conversations I've had with my fellow ski industry members - some in management, others in marketing - most seem to think that it is bike designs that warrant the need for leashes. Most have heard rumors that there are designs that allow them to take off down the slopes by themselves. Who wants a piece of metal hurtling down the slopes?
On a guesstimate, I'll say 95% of bikes out there will immediately fall over and stop upon rider ejection. If they have on fat powder skis they can take off by themselves. Ultimate Snow Toys 3Skis and North Legion SMX's designs are models that can take off riderless. Snowboard based bikes are also prone to takeoffs but they aren't 'skibikes'.
Requiring a leash on the ski slopes is really only needed if the bike design allows it to take off down the hill by itself. I've seen more snowboards without leashes take off down the hill riderless. I've never seen a skibike take off down the hill. I only know of one direct incident of fat powder skis causing a riderless bike.
So where should ski resorts be concerned with skibike leashes?
Ask experienced safety-conscious riders and they'll tell you the ski chairlift. Skibikes dropping from chair lifts have happened due to a variety of reasons. A heavy skibike falling from a chairlift onto a skier below could result in serious injury to the skier and the rider.
It's not any one style of skibike dropping either. Skibobs and peggers have dropped from lifts. What seems to be a common denominator is lack of experience, bike weight, and lack of proper lift loading knowledge.
Colorado Tramway Board regulations
The Colorado Tramway Board governs ski lift safety in the state of Colorado. It has the strictest safety policies in the USA. Many rules and regulations have been developed due to past incidents.
There is no official skibike leash use policy that I know of issued by the Colorado Tramway Board. I have been told that it has been recommended that the leash attach to rider while riding on the chairlift.
Roy Meiworn, who was the head of lift operations at Durango Mountain Resort for many years, countered this recommendation with an official OSHA policy that forbids this practice. If the bike falls, it may pull the rider off the lift with it. From what I have heard, this is exactly what happened in the spring of 2011 at Powder Mountain in Utah with a Skki Trikke. While not a skibike, people often confuse a Trikke as one.
Safety-conscious skibikers are not opposed to using a leash on the chairlift. Where they attach while on the lift is another matter. Most agree the best place for a leash to be attached is to some point of the actual chairlift. That way if the bike falls, it does not drag the rider off too.
Require certification
Requiring skibike certification (license) before one can use a chairlift is one policy that many ski resorts have instituted to insure chairlift safety. Resorts that offer certification offer standardized lessons that teach lift loading and unloading procedures as well as safe operation. Skibikers must pass requirements to obtain the certification. The certificate must be shown before loading the chairlift every time.
Durango Mountain Resort has allowed skibikes for many years and institutes a mandatory certificate to load their chairlifts and does not allow homemade skibikes. Manufactured conversion kit skibikes are allowed. Leashes are not mandatory. I have been told by DMR staff that skibikes have never dropped from their chairlifts.
Where to attach them on the chairlift
After four seasons of skibiking at a major Colorado ski resort and teaching lessons for the past four seasons, I have some experience with the plus and minuses of leash use. I have ridden extensively at another smaller resort that requires them and that they be attached to the rider.
From experience, I'd say the best practice policy would be to require leashes on the chairlift but that they be attached in some manner to the chairlift. I know what most lift managers would say to that - heck no! OSHA regulations seem to prohibit attachment to the rider and I think they supersede Colorado Tramway Board regulations.
At-risk riders
Small women and kids do not always have the strength to hold onto a skibike while on the chairlift. Age limits could be used for children but what about women riders? The bike drop at Powder Mountain happened to a woman.
The popularity of skibiking in Colorado is growing exponentially. People are now used to seeing them at many ski resorts and they no longer turn heads. An official policy for skibikes needs to be developed and communicated to ski resorts by the Colorado Tramway Board.
Visit the Colorado Passenger Tramway Safety Board at http://www.dora.state.co.us/Tramway/
© 2012 G. Kunkel and A Colorado Skibiker Goes Skibiking. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to G. Kunkel and A Colorado Skibiker Goes Skibiking with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Wrong information
So why would a ski resort require their use? Believe it or not a few resorts require them because of incorrect information they've heard from other resorts. Things sometimes get garbled in transmission and they require them for all the wrong reasons.
Why would a skibiker balk at wearing a leash? Hey, nothing ever happens that warrants using a leash, right? Not necessarily.
Opinions on where and why should ski resorts require them? And how should they be attached?
Bike design
From direct personal conversations I've had with my fellow ski industry members - some in management, others in marketing - most seem to think that it is bike designs that warrant the need for leashes. Most have heard rumors that there are designs that allow them to take off down the slopes by themselves. Who wants a piece of metal hurtling down the slopes?
On a guesstimate, I'll say 95% of bikes out there will immediately fall over and stop upon rider ejection. If they have on fat powder skis they can take off by themselves. Ultimate Snow Toys 3Skis and North Legion SMX's designs are models that can take off riderless. Snowboard based bikes are also prone to takeoffs but they aren't 'skibikes'.
Requiring a leash on the ski slopes is really only needed if the bike design allows it to take off down the hill by itself. I've seen more snowboards without leashes take off down the hill riderless. I've never seen a skibike take off down the hill. I only know of one direct incident of fat powder skis causing a riderless bike.
So where should ski resorts be concerned with skibike leashes?
Ask experienced safety-conscious riders and they'll tell you the ski chairlift. Skibikes dropping from chair lifts have happened due to a variety of reasons. A heavy skibike falling from a chairlift onto a skier below could result in serious injury to the skier and the rider.
It's not any one style of skibike dropping either. Skibobs and peggers have dropped from lifts. What seems to be a common denominator is lack of experience, bike weight, and lack of proper lift loading knowledge.
Colorado Tramway Board regulations
The Colorado Tramway Board governs ski lift safety in the state of Colorado. It has the strictest safety policies in the USA. Many rules and regulations have been developed due to past incidents.
There is no official skibike leash use policy that I know of issued by the Colorado Tramway Board. I have been told that it has been recommended that the leash attach to rider while riding on the chairlift.
Roy Meiworn, who was the head of lift operations at Durango Mountain Resort for many years, countered this recommendation with an official OSHA policy that forbids this practice. If the bike falls, it may pull the rider off the lift with it. From what I have heard, this is exactly what happened in the spring of 2011 at Powder Mountain in Utah with a Skki Trikke. While not a skibike, people often confuse a Trikke as one.
Safety-conscious skibikers are not opposed to using a leash on the chairlift. Where they attach while on the lift is another matter. Most agree the best place for a leash to be attached is to some point of the actual chairlift. That way if the bike falls, it does not drag the rider off too.
Require certification
Requiring skibike certification (license) before one can use a chairlift is one policy that many ski resorts have instituted to insure chairlift safety. Resorts that offer certification offer standardized lessons that teach lift loading and unloading procedures as well as safe operation. Skibikers must pass requirements to obtain the certification. The certificate must be shown before loading the chairlift every time.
Durango Mountain Resort has allowed skibikes for many years and institutes a mandatory certificate to load their chairlifts and does not allow homemade skibikes. Manufactured conversion kit skibikes are allowed. Leashes are not mandatory. I have been told by DMR staff that skibikes have never dropped from their chairlifts.
Where to attach them on the chairlift
After four seasons of skibiking at a major Colorado ski resort and teaching lessons for the past four seasons, I have some experience with the plus and minuses of leash use. I have ridden extensively at another smaller resort that requires them and that they be attached to the rider.
From experience, I'd say the best practice policy would be to require leashes on the chairlift but that they be attached in some manner to the chairlift. I know what most lift managers would say to that - heck no! OSHA regulations seem to prohibit attachment to the rider and I think they supersede Colorado Tramway Board regulations.
At-risk riders
Small women and kids do not always have the strength to hold onto a skibike while on the chairlift. Age limits could be used for children but what about women riders? The bike drop at Powder Mountain happened to a woman.
The popularity of skibiking in Colorado is growing exponentially. People are now used to seeing them at many ski resorts and they no longer turn heads. An official policy for skibikes needs to be developed and communicated to ski resorts by the Colorado Tramway Board.
Visit the Colorado Passenger Tramway Safety Board at http://www.dora.state.co.us/Tramway/
© 2012 G. Kunkel and A Colorado Skibiker Goes Skibiking. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to G. Kunkel and A Colorado Skibiker Goes Skibiking with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
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