Interview with yann, ski patrol member

Yann, ski patrol member at the Col d'Ornon in the Vallée d’Oisans, tested the new Wedze skis, PATROL 95, all through last season. Interview with a mountain professional, who is passionate about his job and driven by his love for skiing.

Yann, ski patrol member

Hello yann, can you tell us more about your career as a skier/ski patrol member?

Like all children in the valley (Oisans) I was put on skis at a very young age, as soon as I could walk. Then I did a bit of ski club during my teenage years but I didn't really like it except when the instructor would take us off-piste and we would try to go back there afterwards with our friends. That's really where it all fell into place, when our group of friends started to explore the edges of the track and then we went further and further. As a ski patrol member I don't have a very classical education, at the end of my master's degree that I decided to get my diploma as a ski patrol member, telling myself that if I didn't find a job I would always have this to fall back on...but in the end it was a stroke of luck: the Col d'Ornon station was looking for a ski patrol member at the same time I quit my job and I've been up there ever since, it's my 4th or 5th season!

Can you tell us about your daily life and about your relationship with skiing?

Being a ski patrol member in my small family resort means doing a lot of things at once! There are two sectors on the resort, one is more suitable for beginners and the other is steeper with a nice black piste. From my chairlift I can see the Alpe d'Huez and its whole mountain range, and I have a beautiful view over the whole of Oisans - my kingdom you could say! Outside my working time I like to have a change of scenery and ski to Alpe d'Huez or La Grave. I have a hard time saying no to the ski lifts, I love skiing and doing a lot of downhill runs so much that I'm very addicted to the ski lifts [laughs]. In ski touring, for example, the descent is very short and I find it frustrating. At La Grave, there is a lift that takes you to a very wild area where you can find beautiful slopes, it's practical and it lets you do some good descents.

A really perfect day is: blue sky, bright sunshine, -10°, 40 cm of fresh snow fallen from the day before, no wind.

So what would be
your ideal day of skiing?

A really perfect day is: blue sky, bright sunshine, -10°, 40 cm of fresh snow fallen from the day before, no wind. That's really incredible! If you add to that a good team that you can have a good laugh with, that's true perfection. That's really my vision of freeride skiing: powdery snow, a sense of freedom, independence, choosing your own slopes and enjoy the moment as much as possible with your friends.
For me, the mountain is a place of freedom that is easily accessible (depending on where you live, of course) thanks to the pistes, but freeriding gives you a little something extra, it's a bit of an adventure. You need to manage your safety, your snow plan and the itinerary, but most of all, the good times are even more intense when they are shared and everyone is full of energy.

All winter you tested patrol 95, what was your role in their development?

I arrived in this adventure during the test phase, my role was to test the skis in real conditions for a long time. I had to be able to ski for a lot of days in a short period of time and as a ski patrol member I have to spend about 100 days in ski boots per winter so I was the right person to test PATROL 95. The idea is to see how the skis age and to say how you feel on the skis exactly as they are, i.e. as they will be sold.

So can you tell us more about these skis, the patrol 95?

They are very good all-round skis with good grip, the tip is well made so it can be used in powdery snow. Technically, they zig-zag very well, move in the turns and are very manoeuvrable. But I lied a little bit when I said that I tested the skis as they are, I actually moved the binding forward... I found that the centring of the skis was not optimal, it was too far back, so I moved it forward. I gave some feedback to James (product manager) about this point and after several other remarks the centring was moved forward by 1cm with two other reference points (-1cm for more stability / +1cm for more manoeuvrability) to adapt it to as many skiers as possible. Other than this point which is now settled they’re really good skis for a ski patrol member that I can take in all conditions without them letting me down. There is no need to bother having several pairs, the PATROL 95 can come with you on your holidays, no matter what the conditions are on site you will not have to worry about anything. Off-piste with 20cm of snow, spring snow, when it hasn't snowed for a long time, on-piste... this is the pair that you can take everywhere without difficulty. When I talk about them, I like to say “they’re reliable little skis"!

The technical part

Skis from 2010 or earlier were centred far back with a lot of heel and a strong base so the heel would lock in immediately. Today, the problem with modern skis is that with the rockers and the materials we use, the ski is more flexible so the heel support is very different. To maintain my position on these skis, I move my binding forward. It is therefore not easy to please everyone when centring skis. Fortunately, it is very easy to adjust and find a custom centring. This observation allowed us to highlight this adaptability but also the advantage of selling the skis in their basic form.

Yann, ski patrol member

So if there's one thing we should take away, it's that they are multi-purpose skis?

Yes, that's right! It's very hard to make multi-purpose skis because in my quiver, I have about twenty pairs, some of which are very sharp and are good for certain conditions, but with multi-purpose skis you have to be able to fulfil several conditions at the same time and therefore several technical problems.
PATROL 95 has never let me down except on tracked snow where it was more complicated, they have a hard time holding their own. These are skis that have been made to have the widest possible range of use so it's hard to get them to be at the top of every range but that's the problem with versatile skis in general. You should take away that in my job as a ski patrol member these are very good skis, for a person who doesn't want to worry in the morning when you go skiing they’re also very good, it's fulfils all our expectations from this type of skiing.

Cedric piatek

Digital leader

#powderday

Jérémie & Marius - The Swiss Knives

Skiing, kite surfing, mountain biking, hiking, climbing ... if it's on a board or in the mountains, we're there! Over the winter we completed an important assignment: testing the future freeride skis from Wedze, Decathlon's skiing brand. So we're going to tell you a bit more about us (and blow our own trumpet a little) and about the skis that we've been pushing to the limit.