hire or buy

iam thinking about buying ski's and boots. is this a wise move over hiring
or not. comments would be appreciated

In article , philip.hall33
@ntlworld.com' says...
iam thinking about buying ski's and boots. is this a wise move over hiring
or not. comments would be appreciated

Buy boots, hire skis from a decent shop. Find one that will let you see
the range you can choose from rather than using the tour operator's
default. Unless you get a really good end of season sale offer, of
course.

How many weeks are you planning to ski each year? If you're, like me,
one week a year, maybe two if Swmbo will give me the pass, hiring is a
sensible option as it would take 10 weeks' worth of hiring to justify
the cost.

Boots, on the other hand, are worth buying.

--
Hywel

iam thinking about buying ski's and boots. is this a wise move over
hiring
or not. comments would be appreciated

Buy boots, hire skis from a decent shop. Find one that will let you see
the range you can choose from rather than using the tour operator's
default. Unless you get a really good end of season sale offer, of
course.

How many weeks are you planning to ski each year? If you're, like me,
one week a year, maybe two if Swmbo will give me the pass, hiring is a
sensible option as it would take 10 weeks' worth of hiring to justify
the cost.

Boots, on the other hand, are worth buying.



What he said....

I.

philip hall wrote:

iam thinking about buying ski's and boots. is this a wise move over hiring
or not. comments would be appreciated


Is it your first holiday? If so, hire stuff and see if you like it,
first. It's an expensive sport if you don't like it.

If it's not your first holiday, then buy boots first. You can be in them
for 8 hours a day on holiday, so if they don't fit properly, it can ruin
your trip. Boots bought from a good shop with a properly trained boot
fitter will help your skiing improve. If you're in the Midlands, a damn
good one is Lockwoods in Leamington Spa. The boot fitters there are
miracle workers!

Whatever you do when buying boots, don't go for fashion, or price, or
style. Go for what fits properly!!! No point paying £500 for glow in the
dark, wonder boots that pour you a beer and sing a lullaby if they kill
your feet within minutes of putting them on. Between you and the boot
fitter, find several pairs that fit the best out of as many pairs as you
can and then go from there. A decent boot fitter will get you the right
pair.

After that, if you want ski's, my advice would be to buy in resort. It's
usually cheaper (not always so go prepared with information!) and you'll
get to try them before you buy which means you won't spend several
hundred pounds on skis you don't get on with. But ask yourself if you
really need to buy. If you're only going to ski one week a year, the
answer may well be no.

Schneck

thanks for the comments. i am considering buying boots and hireing the ski's
"philip hall" ' wrote in message
...
iam thinking about buying ski's and boots. is this a wise move over hiring
or not. comments would be appreciated

philip hall wrote:
iam thinking about buying ski's and boots. is this a wise move over hiring
or not. comments would be appreciated


In addition to the (mostly) useful coments already posted I would also
consider the types of trips you go on. If you are planning weekend trips
or short visits to places then spending an hour or 2 queuing in the shop
can seriously eat into a morning's skiing (my assumption being you would
arrive late on a Friday for instance, so you can't sort them the night
before).

On the other hand if you are planning one or 2 week-longtrips per year
then hiring skis will make sense. I'm not really sure what the
break-even point is for hiring versus buying, but when buying consider
the cost of a decent service could easily be €30 or more, and you'll be
doing this once a season at least depending on how much use you get out
of them (actually, does anyone know what the cost of a full tune is in
Les Carroz btw?).

Boots I would buy, no question. The effort to get a pair of boots to fit
is as big an investment as the cost, so buy a good pair and take the
time to get them fitted properly. Then pray the airline don't loose them.