In this vlog, Tom Gellie travels to an indoor ski centre in Dubai with his son Archie (and mentions his wife Jenny) to test rental equipment and evaluate the indoor skiing experience. He begins by renting boots, skis, helmets and a onesie, noting the awkward, overly‑upright stance of the rental boots, shin pain, and lack of forward lean. He compares the rental gear to his own race‑fit equipment, highlighting issues such as flat soles, blunt edges, and insufficient ramp angle. Tom describes the indoor snow as a sandy, pellet‑like texture that feels slower and more resistant than natural snow, yet better than he expected. He records run times using the Carv app, noting metrics like turn count and balance. Throughout the day he reflects on how much of skiing performance comes from the skier’s skill versus the gear, concluding that while equipment matters, the skier is the dominant factor. He discusses the training benefits of indoor slopes—year‑round access, repeatable laps, ability to practice carving, jumps, and potential mogul courses—drawing parallels to wave‑pool surfing. Tom also looks ahead to a new indoor ski centre opening in Penrith, Sydney, envisioning after‑school sessions for his son. He ends with a promotion for his own teaching platform, Big Picture Skiing, encouraging viewers to use it for off‑season training. The tone mixes humor, candid observation, and enthusiastic advocacy for indoor skiing as a valuable training tool.
Chapters
It's over 40 degrees, we're in the desert in Dubai, and I'm about to go skiing. Now, I haven't brought any of my ski gear, none of it. No ski boots, no skis, no goggles, clothing, nothing. So I'm going to rent it all, and I'm a little bit kind of worried about that because if you know me, I'm very meticulous about my ski boot setup, my ski tune, everything. But I'm going to just throw all that out, and the reason is I want to go back and see what it's like for people to try out gear that is not really designed or customized for them. I'm also very interested in feeling the snow conditions. I've only skied indoor once in the UK, and that was like 13 years ago. And so skiing indoors, yeah, what's the snow going to be like? The, the length of the run, is it actually good decent training? I've got my son Archie here, and he's actually made it through to the next level of ski racing in Australia. And so it's a chance for him to maybe do some work on his skiing. And Sydney is actually building an indoor ski center out west, so I'm curious for future reference, like what's that like training indoors. So this mission has a few purposes, so tune in, see what happens. I'm kind of nervous to just see, you know, can I ski decent on rental gear? What's the slope like? Let's find out. Here's all of our skis, the edges could definitely use a tune. Archie's skis are blunt as, like, rental boots, baby. Woo! Man, check out the stance these boots are putting me in.
Woo!
Wow, flexy, roomy, flexy. Let's see how they go.
I totally don't look ridiculous.
Archie, what do you think? Is it bigger than you thought?
Massive!
Well, here we are. I feel ridiculous in the outfit that I'm wearing, that is for sure. Uh, we all feel a little bit, uh, silly. The boot setup feels horrible. I feel like I'm standing almost backwards. So a bit of empathy for those people that are in rental boots. If you're an instructor, you need to put yourself in a pair of rental boots again because these things are shocking to stand in. You can't really be very athletic in them, that's for sure. So we're on the chairlift for our first ride in our ridiculous helmets. Yeah, in our ridiculous outfits. This is the least cool I've felt on snow in a long time, that's for sure. Archie and Jenny are laughing at me, and we're about— yeah, we're about to see what it's like, what the snow is like, what this rental gear is like. And what skiing in the desert is like in an indoor center. Make me feel like I'm standing so upright. That's it, bud! Keep going! You're not feeling very cool, are you? I'm probably quite sure it is very hard to take me seriously in this helmet. But having a heap of fun. My hands. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We should have just forked out for the gloves. Could you see yourself doing this kind of after school in Sydney if you had the opportunity?
Definitely. Knowing there's one coming in Penrith soon, I am excited. Like for a Friday afternoon, travel to Penrith, go skiing. Yeah.
Yeah. To be able to ski at any time of the year is pretty neat. And that opportunity to, you know, be able to practice and hit jumps get work on your carving, every different thing. I see massive advantages of that. Can you tell the difference between your own equipment and the rental equipment?
Boots aren't comfortable, skis don't have any edge, they're usually not the perfect height, they feel a bit awkward.
So do you feel like you can't ski as well as you normally ski?
Yeah, like 70% worse.
Okay, yeah. Quite a bit.
Yeah.
Do you love your helmet and your onesie?
Yeah, yeah. I would, if I could speak to the manager, I would say, can you swap out the terrible helmets?
Yeah, the boots are really upright. Oh, crash. Yeah, so I really have some empathy for people learning and trying to get in a good stance on their skis because the ski boots definitely are not set up in the same way as more advanced boots. They're more upright, put you on your heel more. You really have to push forward in front of the cuff, pushes you back to upright. Yeah, you don't feel as well balanced, do you? So we've got a few runs to get adjusted to this, but it was fun, I think. So fun. So the snow, have a look at this, it's really quite sandy, like texture, um, very, yeah, like sand, flour and sand, a bit of wetness mixed in with it. That's what it feels like. So I've actually had Carv running only for a couple of runs. In the beginning it was a bit hectic getting the family ready, the rental gear and everything. Yeah, a couple of runs in there, a 1:32 and a 1:39. Just fun having like stats on stuff. I think that's why I really enjoy, enjoy Carv. Not really trying to crack a high score here, but having, you know, how many turns I've done and just metrics on balance, and especially with the different gear, it's just kind of cool. I'm gonna have a look at that later on tonight at So that's 4 runs in, a lot of fun. And the gear, so like, I gotta say, I'm kind of surprised. I thought I was going to ski worse in it than I'm feeling. So I think that really points to the fact that it's the skier, the skill you've got, that is the most important thing, not your gear. I'm certainly missing like the, the close fit, the support, the angles for sure. The angles is probably the worst thing. It's not the flex or stiffness. It's, um, yeah, it's the fact that I feel really upright. And actually, if I like try a dolphin turn, I feel like I get backseat. There's not a lot of support at the back of the boot. The edges just not feeling sharp is, uh, is not great. Terrain-wise, I wish it was a little bit steeper and the snow was a bit faster because I feel like that's a limitation. There's only a certain amount of speed you can really get into, especially in the afternoon. This— the snow is kind chopped up. So yeah, it would be cool to try it in the morning when the snow's a little bit quicker, see if you could get some carve turns happening. So yeah, gear is really important for sure, and I think it's not so much the, uh, the close fit actually, it's the, it's the angles that I'm missing from my other boots, like the, the forward lean, maybe a little bit more ramp angle. These feel really flat, extremely flat, um, under the sole. So I wish there was a little bit more forward lean and higher ramp angle. Sharper skis, I wish they were sharper. I don't mind the sort of softer flex, but just not having any grip, sort of, you can't tip it over as far and trust it. So I'll tell you what, some insight. I've only done like 4 runs, but shin bang, if you ever get pressure at the top of your shin right here, I'm getting it right now. It's when the ski boot is very upright, as you can see. And you flex forward in quite a loose-fitting boot, all the pressure— I can feel it— is right there. It's not spread out down the whole boot. It is right at the front of my shin right there, and it's already hurting after a couple of runs. I'm not even trying to push that hard. When I flex my ankle, I feel there. So that is usually the problem. It's, it's this point here putting all the pressure. Yeah, and so an upright boot is really not good and a lot of the time the cause of, uh, of this shin bang. That's it, bud! Keep going! So training at an indoor ski slope, what do I really think? Well, it's been 6 runs and I've had a great time. Our time is running out, it's been kind of a little bit busy. I think we hit after-school period, but Archie and I don't want to stop. I kind of could definitely be here all day, and having access to a ski slope where obviously we're in the middle of the Middle East, like desert area, is like amazing. It's a great way you can work on skills like developing your edging, your balance, like your short turns. Be so cool if there was like a mogul course down here. I know I've seen mogul courses at indoor slopes as well, as well as terrain parks. Like there's this one section down there that all the kids are hitting this one jump on. They're just straight lining to that one point and hitting this mini jump. So yeah, indoor ski centers, I'm, I'm a fan. I'm gonna go and enjoy my final run down here and leave the final conclusion to after I've reflected on the whole experience and, uh, yeah, sort of gotten out of this rental gear, this silly looking helmet, back to +40 degrees outside of this freezing cold fridge. Skiing in the desert! Done! So what a blast skiing indoors. So here I am the next day in the pool. It's over 40 degrees again. I just wanted to reflect on the whole experience now I've had time to sleep on it. So first of all, on rental gear. Well, like the first thing was we all noticed when we got in our boots and just stood on those skis, we felt backseat. And we've all got quite a lot of experience, my son, my wife, myself. We know what it should feel like to stand right. And the boots didn't put us in that position. They were really upright. And, you know, there was sort of resistance, you know, even though the boot was soft, where it wanted to sit you was more upright. So I could overcome that, but I had to really kind of push on the front of the boot, which I don't have to do in my regular race boot. I guess reflecting on this, I think rental boots should actually be less upright. I think there's a problem there. So if you're an instructor and you are helping people and you see this, realize that they're struggling inside that boot to stand properly, and a better fitting boot like their own boot is going to make a huge difference. Because it's not hard to flex your ankle, okay, but it is if the ski boot is trying to push you back up. Second thing, I wish the skis were a little more tuned. Archie definitely noticed the difference there. It was sort of harder to trust the skis. So we know what we can do when a ski is sharp, we can lean it over further. And I could see in Archie he was holding back. I certainly, it took me quite a few runs to sort of want to really try and, uh, make a carve turn because I didn't want to feel silly and fall over. So yeah, some sharper skis, rental gear, you don't quite get that, um, that, that fine-tuned sharp edge. Hey, but you know what, we had a great time still, so we could still ski. We were laughing, We wanted to keep going. I could still work on things. So I think that points to the skier really is like the main thing in the whole mix, you know. Yes, your gear is really important, but I think that just kind of contains you to either like a certain ability level or allows you greater scope to improve. In my own gear, that's what I felt. If I had it, I could have done, you know, faster, more high edge angle turns, archy too. I could have been in a better position. So So yeah, overall still fun, not, not going to stop you, but it just has a limit. Now the snow, we definitely all noticed there was a difference in the feeling of the snow. And man-made indoor slopes, like the, the snow is more like a, a pellet, like a frozen pellet, as opposed to like a six-sided, uh, real snowflake. So we could feel the difference there, but it was still like great skiing, sliding around. There was just more resistance, so sort of harder to, to pivot and turn. And a little bit more friction and slower to ski. So maybe perhaps with some, some better skis and better wax, you'd eliminate that to some degree or make it easier. But yeah, the snow quality overall, I thought was like— it was much better than I thought it was. So one of the reasons for doing this trip was because Sydney is building an indoor ski slope, so near to where we actually live, and I can't wait to have access to skiing at any time of the year you know, be able to take Archie down there to do some training, to be able to run a camp, to be able to work on some drills. And indoor ski slopes, I think, are fantastic for that. You know, you can do lap over lap over lap. You can go, you know, right in the evening, early in the morning, during the day, different times of day. So you kind of take away the weather factor. So that's a huge upside in my opinion. I came here to find out, would I utilize indoor ski slopes for my own ski training and others? 100%. I mean, you look like at the successive wave pools for surfing and how people can just practice on a consistent place there and in a repetitive environment where they can get over and over laps on a wave. Same thing with an indoor ski center. So if you've got access to that, I think that is a huge benefit. So I'm a big fan of indoor ski slopes for that, and I'd love to come back and, you know, try some drills and see which are the best drills I would use, you know, worthwhile training at an indoor slope. So indoor ski slopes trumps the best of all the sort of simulations of the real thing of skiing. And I've tried rolling mats, side-to-side simulators, inline skating for skiing, all those. Indoor skiing for sure trumps them all. So you've got to try it if you haven't yet. And rental gear, well, I'm glad I don't have to rent gear very often. I'm glad I have my own stuff. But it's a perfectly fine place to begin with. But just know that you get a whole lot more control, you get a whole more comfort, and you can stand in a much better athletic position, which allows you to progress at a greater rate and to higher levels where you have a whole lot more fun when you have your own gear. And if you're the kind of skier that enjoys improving and learning about everything, I've created a platform, Big Picture Skiing. And the reason why is because I love teaching, I love discovering everything there is about skiing. So how to ski moguls better, how to carve better, how to get the most out of my gear, what to do in the off-season. So I've created a platform that is designed to help people like you improve at any time of the year from the comfort of their own home through an app. And so I encourage you to go check it out there, that's where I put all my best videos, tutorials on how to ski better, so bigpictureskiing.com. But otherwise, thanks very much for watching, I've loved making this video, and maybe I'll see you out on the slopes sometime soon. Catch you later.
