In this monologue, Tom Gellie recounts his recent ski session on an indoor slope in Dubai, a city where temperatures exceed 40 °C. Opting to use only rental equipment, he reflects on how the experience differed from skiing with his own, well‑fitted boots and skis. He observes that rental boots are often set too upright, causing a “backseat” feeling for both him and his wife Archie, and urges ski instructors, coaches, and rental technicians to try rental gear themselves and reconsider boot sizing. Gellie praises indoor ski facilities as excellent, consistent training environments that allow repeated laps and focused drills, even if they don’t replicate the deep powder of North America’s western slopes. He looks forward to the upcoming indoor ski slope in Sydney, which will enable year‑round skiing in Australia, and mentions his upcoming trip to London to work with Carv, a ski‑tech company. Throughout, he blends personal anecdotes with broader recommendations for the ski industry.
Chapters
It's over 40 degrees here in Dubai and I went skiing yesterday. I'm on my way to London for some work with Carv and on the way I thought, I just want to ski this indoor slope in the desert. What a crazy experience. But along with that, I also thought it'd be a good chance to not bring any of my own gear and ski with rental gear. And so I filmed a whole video they're going to put on YouTube, but here's a quick summary of, of the experience, like what I learned. So it's been ages since I've skied on rental boots and, and skis. And it's a good reminder. I think every instructor and coach out there should do that, to know what it's like to not ski in like the ideal ski gear that's set up for you. And, you know, while I could still absolutely ski and, and looked okay on video, it felt completely different. Rental boots, I think, are too upright. That's, uh, that's one conclusion I have for beginners. I don't think they should make them that way. I think rental technicians also should sort of be a little bit more perhaps encouraging of not going for such a large boot. My wife, Archie, myself all felt backseat, and it was because of the boots, the way they were set up. So that's definitely one concluding thought from the experience. The other was that the indoor ski environment is awesome, like great for training because you can lap over and over again on a consistent sort of surface. It's, you know, maybe not as great as the snow on the west coast of North America, but, you know, it's still skiing. And, you know, Archie could say perhaps do some like training to improve his carving for some upcoming races. I could work on some drills. I could definitely know that people, you know, could work on specific things. You know, it's not the steepest slope, but it's absolutely enough to work on some fundamentals. Yeah, crazy to be thinking this is like 40 degrees here and you can just go skiing like I did yesterday. Really interesting to go back and reflect on different ski boots. Since, you know, if you know me, I'm super into like getting the right ski boot set up for you, working with your anatomy. Yeah, and I'm excited because Sydney in Australia is building an indoor ski slope, so I'm really glad that's happening to be able to allow people in Australia to ski at any time of the year. I'm definitely going to be one that is going to make the most of that experience. Next stop, London and Carv HQ. I'll see you guys soon. And I hope you're enjoying your summer in North America. And so ironic, Australia is having one of the best ski seasons in a long time and I'm in the desert. So anyway, to the people in Australia, I hope you're making the most of it. All right, see you next time.
