Episode 24: Billy Morgan, Chemmy Alcott v. Graham Bell, Snow Farming & ‘Inside the Chill Factore’

This episode Iain reports back from the London Ski Festival with interviews with Olympians Billy Morgan, Graham Bell and Chemmy Alcott as well as world-record breaking snowboarder Jamie Barrow.

We have guest reports from Dave in Verbier and Steve in Val d’Isère and Jim goes behind the scenes at the Chill Factore in Manchester, where listeners can claim a 10% discount using the code code (‘SKIPOD10’).

Plus what’s your favourite James Bond ski sequence? Iain and Jim reveal their best 007 moments…

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Show Notes:

• Your lift pass discount code to use at Chill Factore is ‘SKIPOD10’
• Jim’s sunnies were a freebie from Paradiski picked up at the London Ski & Snowboard Festival (2:00)
• This is the Ski Mojo (4:00) Iain was referring to, designed to help you overcome injury and keep skiing:

• Dave Burrows from Snow Pros Ski School was reporting on the opening weekend in Verbier (6:00)
• Iain will be visiting the new freeride ski area in La Rosiere in December
• For snow reports, Iain tends to check J2Ski.com, welove2ski and snowforecast.com (as well as occasional visits to France Meteo). Jim likes to look at WePowder and bergfex.com (9:00)
• The 2019 Tour de France will have stages finishing in Val Thorens and Tignes as well as Grand Tourmalet in the French Pyrenees (10:45)
• The Etape du Tour takes place in 2019 on 21 July

• Graham Bell will be hosting Ski Sunday again on the BBC this winter (14:00)
• These are the great opening credits if you want to get in the mood now:

• Lyndsey Vonn is on her way to breaking Ingemar Stenmark‘s record for World Cup wins
• High Altitude was brilliant, but sadly no longer available on iPlayer (17:30)
• Jamie Barrow also ppeared on Episode 4, when he was telling us about his amazing trip to North Korea (18:00)
• This ‘winter’ he’s heading out to Ski Dubai to break the world indoor speed record for snowboarding (19:00), and then moving on to the sand-dunes…

Yes, they do have penguins at Ski Dubai!

• Iain is thinking about skiing in Morocco…watch this space!
• Steve Angus was a guest in Episode 6 and in this episode tells us about the reopening of the Téléski des 3000 in Val d’Isère (25:30)
• The ski resort in Portugal that’s open just now is Serra da Estrela
• Thanks to Chris for this great review. We particularly liked ‘Always informative and at times very funny!’ (28:00)

• Listen to Iain’s apology for confusing Morillon with Montriond (29:30)
• Courchevel’s ‘snow farming’ experiment has gone ‘reasonably’ well (30:00). Find out more in this excellent article on Bloomberg
• The Ladies Alpine World Cup is coming to Courchevel on 21/22 December 2018 (34:00)

Jim’s ‘snowcompare’ photo of Courchevel

• Iain’s favourite Bond ski sequence is the classic yellow ski suit/ski pole gun and Union Jack base-jump from ‘The Spy Who Loved Me’ (35:30)
• Jim prefers the improvised snowboarding sequence from ‘A View To A Kill’ (37:00)

• Billy Morgan won the bronze medal in the men’s Big Air at PyeongChang Winter Olympics. He became the first British male to win an alpine medal (38:00)
• This was Billy’s flag-waving technique… (39:30)

• Does the film ‘Chalet Girl‘ need a sequel? Tell us what you think on Twitter
• Chemmy Alcott raced Graham Bell head-to-head in the last episode of last winter’s Ski Sunday (41:00)

• Jim went ‘Inside the Chill Factore’ to interview Luke Penrose, Facilities Manager and Richard Green, Director of Operations at The Chill Factore on how they make the snow for Britain’s longest ski slope and how they keep it in perfect condition (45:00)
• Jim’s previous interview in Episode 22 was with Ryan Cooper

Inside the Chill Factore

• If you’d like to visit Jim in La Clusaz, then check out his listing on Airbnb
• We will be discussing ‘A Wall of White’ by Jennifer Woodlief in Episode 25

Watch out for our next episode arriving into your podcast app on or around 25 November.