10 reasons why skiing is better than snowboarding
“Daddy, shall we go on the forest paths!“ is not something you hear very often from a snowboarder. I still remember how much I liked skiing forest routes as a child. The bumps and little jumps directly next to the paths were always the highlight of every ski day.
Snowboarders, on the other hand, do their best to avoid them. That however is not always possible. That is why you often overtake cursing snowboarders with their board under their arm, as otherwise they would not get any further. But nice skiers are happy to help with their ski poles in such situations. ;)
Draglifts and button lifts are usually not a big challenge for skiers (on the whole J). This is not the case for snowboarders: taking a draglift can become painful after a while and staying in the track and keeping your balance is not always easy.
And so annoying (also for skiing friends) is the eternal “sitting around“ and doing up the bindings after every chairlift!
When the lift gets to the top station, then for skiers it is just a matter of stand up and go. Snowboarders limp with the block on their leg to the next slope where they can finally clip their second leg onto the board. Yes of course, for the more experienced snowboarder, this can be done whilst standing, blah blah.
Snowboarders generally have to sit in the snow whenever they stop on the slope. This problem of having a cold bottom is not generally recognised by skiers, as their bottoms tend to stay warm.
Skiing is easier to learn than snowboarding. This is for two main reasons: on the one hand the natural basic position of skiing and on the other hand, the tools we have when skiing – the ski poles. Believe me, I have tried both. ;)
It is called a ski lift, ski resort, ski holiday, Après ski....or have you ever of a snowboard lift, snowboard resort, snowboard holiday or Après snowboard? Well I certainly haven’t. ;)
Snowboarders are more likely to injure their wrists, shoulders or knees than a skier is. When you fall forwards you usually protect yourself with your hands, which can end painfully and which does not usually happen to skiers.
It has been proved that you can get up more speed on skis than on a snowboard. This has primarily to do with the body position. On a snowboard, you can never huddle yourself up as small as you do on skis. This also explains why the highest measured speed on skis came to full speed of 252 km/h, whilst the highest speed on a snowboard came to 203 km/h.
As a skier, you have more possibilities to do tricks in the Snowpark than a snowboarder does. This of course has to do with the fact that your legs are freer on skis than on a snowboard.
A statistic, which evaluated the most popular kinds of winter sports for Austrians showed that 76% of Austrians preferred skiing, whilst 11% preferred snowboarding. That says everything, does it not? ;)
