Please move if this is the wrong place to post. I have built a backyard ski and rail. If anyone want to practice together, please let me.know. I am located in sydney northshore.
That is awesome @Freizeit More power to you for committing to the cause. I look forward to your first video.
@Freizeit ,if you offer a free resort map of your place @DidSurfNowSki will be over to ski with you real soon.
The world needs more people like you. I did replace "crazy nutters" for "people" as I wasn't sure if you'd take it in the intended way. Love it and want to see it get BIGGER. Great cheer squad too.
Don't worry, it's a joke on @DidSurfNowSki who has an excellent and well presented collection of resort maps, only of places he has skied of course. Yours would be a very unusual and unique resort map.
My son and his mates were all over this when they were teenagers. I helped them build a takeoff ramp and they built a mini rail park in our slightly sloping back yard. We would pile into my old truck with snow shovels and head to the local ice rink, fill it up with "snow" from the zamboni and then shovel it all onto the ramp and rail runouts. Was even better once they got their drivers' licenses and could do it themselves. The other popular backyard session was practicing flips and spins on the trampoline. We rounded off the edges on an old snowboard and he would strap in and stay out there for hours working on moves. Snow not necessary but a bonus.
Apart from saying that I'm impressed and you are totally insane all I can say really is that you need a bigger back yard, a much bigger back yard
I am desparately looking for the dry ski slope but can't find it anywhere in australia. The US company called msnow won't ship here either.
Not so much snow as shaved ice. The rotating blades take off the top couple of mm carved up by skates and the shavings are stored in a hopper on the zamboni. Afterwards it is dumped outside to melt, that is what we would take for the back yard sessions. Looks like snow but coarse and granular, worked fine for sliding. Sadly this too has become a thing of the past. In today's energy and water saving world, zamboni snow is dumped in a melt pit inside the arena, filtered and reused for icemaking. Waste heat on the return side of the arena's freezing plant is used to facilitate melting. All commendably efficient but no more piles of snow laying around in summer for kids to use.
Neveplast have installed in Australia. I'll pm you the MD's email and you can ask if here is any in Australia. There should be some off cuts and samples here somewhere. He's a super nice guy so won't be upset if you email him.
Wow this is awesome @Freizeit! Have dreams of building my own backyard set up as well so its good to see an Aussie who's successfully executed one. Can i ask if you have any guidance or lessons learnt from your build that you can share? Also the astro-turf options are overwhelming which turf material did you end up buying? did you do any research to decide or was it just what was available at your local hardware store? Thanks in advance if you have any wisdom to share!
i have finally got the dry ski carpet installed. its extremely slippery, i am literally flying off the ramp. took me some time to get used to the speed, but its definitely worth it. thank you heaps. i will post some photo or videos (may be with a 180 on the rail, haha)
a few things 1. dig holes and use concrete to hold the posts 2. dont make the ramp too high above the ground. 50cm max. 3. make a smooth transition 4. use the cheapest turf. it will work. i can offer some onsite guidance if you live in sydney. cheer and good luck to the project