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Follow me on the path to finding your first gear set for telemark skiing. Where to start and what to look for is what this episode is all about
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First of all I want to tell you that I love your podcast Rene! Very inspiring!
I am a 33 year old guitar teacher from the north of Sweden that just started telemarking. I used to alpine ski in my teens and then my jazz music interest started to take over my life and I did my 10 000 + hours of practice on the guitar to be able to apply to music collage with the goal of becoming a guitar teacher. This caused a 10 year hiatus in my skiing. I have been aware about and curious of Telemark skiing but have never met anyone that I could ask to teach me, and the leap seemed great so I never per sued it, although I have wanted to since the mid 90-ies. When I have checked out telemark gear it seemed all too expensive for my teacher salary, but just 2 months ago I ran into a pair of scarpa T1 boots and rossignol skis with rottefella riva3 bindings at a local flea-market, while shopping touring skis for my kids. The boots had one rivet missing, but I fixed them, and the skis and bindings are about 10 years old, but hardly used. The boots are really comfortable, nicer feeling than any alpine gear I’ve tried earlier.
Now I have been telemarking 5 times (2 of them while trying to teach my kids 4, and 7 years old how to alpine) and today I linked some turns and I think that I am hooked for the rest of my life. It felt like I connected to the mountain and the snow, rather than trying to tame it.
Nowadays I do actually have a friend, a fellow guitar teacher, that telemark ski so I hope to take him to the mountains soon, so he can help me to learn faster.
Again, Rene, thank you for your podcast and blog and keep up your good work!
/Josef
Hey Josef,
Wow, what a great story. You’re actually lucky to be starting telemark. It is the most amazing feeling to discover.
you HAVE to check our tutorials, a great help to start your journey as well
absolutetelemark.com/telemark-lessons
Enjoy.
Hi Rene,
What is your view on NTN bindings?
Bjorn
Hi Bjorn,
I really love to power the Rottefella NTN has to offer. The Freeride binding is a pain in the touring mode so this one is a resort binding with occasional side country travel. The Freedom as a better tour mode and it’s quite ok for the occasional BC traveller.
The Step in is great and the overall build as made it’s proof.
Like any binding, it can still break, but it’s generally tough.
The Feeling is where a lot of people split in loving or hating these bindings. The lack of freedom when going low is very restrictive and take some getting use to.
Hope this helps
Rene
I picked up some 2nd hand Linken bindings along with a Telebry release system which I’m just setting up on an old set of skis for resort use (moving the previous BD 03 cable bindings onto new touring skis for backcountry use).
Your thoughts on Linken+Telebry?