Ski-tandem

Thirty five years ago around mid April, my friend François Chauplannaz and I were both eking a living, teaching skiing in Avoriaz, France. We actually had a lot of great times and never lost one single opportunity of thinking of some new ways of having even more fun. Back then, I had a pair of 213 cm Duret skis that I wanted to share with someone, just like a tandem bike. So I invited François for the ride, and we both mounted our own bindings on these skis (one pair of Marker Simplex and turntable for him and one pair of Look Nevada I and turntable for me.) I had picked the “brakeman” position on this apparatus and gave my buddy the leading post because he was a bit shorter than me and, that way, I still would be able to see over his shoulders. Because I was also heavier, it caused the entire setup to severely over-steer and it was one of these cases in which the “tail was wagging the dog.” One would have thought that like on a tandem bike, less effort would have been required, but it truly was hard work to stay standing on that contraption as we could feel a lot of torquing of varying intensity and seldom going in the same direction; thank god, the skis were strong! Another challenge was that we had to separate to ride the chairlift, taking with us half-a-pair of skis each. Riding the Poma - and we had quite a few at the time - required that you’d glide on a single ski, which also was quite tiring. At any rate, we used the ski-tandem several times, and mostly on the Arare, intermediate ski run where we literally were a show-stopper. For one thing, we were much younger and more handsome at the time and significantly less decrepit than we appear today. Unfortunately this new shared form of snowsport never really caught on, and for that - as an American now - I suspect a “conspiracy theory” was at work, in which we were strongly discouraged by a lift company fearful that too many tandem riders might only require one single ski pass to gain access to the lifts and thus dramatically affect their bottom line, or something like that. In retrospect, we may have lacked perseverance and had we stuck to riding tandem, François and I would be quite famous today, and after doing movies, writing books and making paid appearances, we’d probably be retired either in Hollywood or Las Vegas, but “c’est la vie,” no point of crying over spilled milk…