Skiing Archives - polychromelab

The Snowstorm and the Jacket

8. April 2015/in adventure

Wearing Outdoor Jackets the Right Way on a Skitour

Marc is an outdoor sportsman. He searches for sports experiences all year long and doesn’t want to get sick. So he aims for wearing outdoor jackets the right way. He loves extreme conditions and that’s why he’s happy about heavy snowfalls around Easter to go skiing: in about a few minutes he looks up his destination, equips his skis with skins and starts the car.

There Marc notices that snowfalls are getting stronger and temperatures are sinking. Because of effort on the way up he chooses to wear a baselayer and a polychromelab Alta Quota 3 layer jacket on the cooling silver side. Marc won’t freeze this way, because at his skitour to the top the jacket keeps his body warmth inside the jacket despite high breathability of the inner layer membrane. The result is that on one hand Marc doesn’t have to sweat and on the other doesn’t become hypothermic.

After all his efforts he doesn’t get rewarded at the peak: the snowstorm gets heavier and heavier and he decides to wait for a clear sky. Marc easily reverses his Alta Quota jacket to warming black side and additionally puts an a fleece jacket underneath it. But weather won’t get better and his body emits a lot of warmth. So he’s happy about choosing three different layers of gear and making comfortably some pictures.

Half an hour or so later there is still no silver lining. Marc doesn’t care and goes downhill skiing in a snowstorm wearing outdoor jackets the right way this day.

polychromelab concept store

Night Skiing vs. Product Test

6. März 2015/in adventure

Product Test at Night Skiing in Tyrol

Equiped with headtorches and a go pro we started at 2610 meters from our textiles research lab next to the Glungezer Hütte in Tyrol. In winter there are always some repairs to do. Additionally measured data by sensors, which we fixed to jackets for product testing, gives us insight concerning their functionality and resilience against exposure to nature.

Unfortunately work took longer as expected this time, so we had to go for night skiing on our way home. Beeing experienced with such incidents we had headtorches with us. Knowing the downhill route quite well after years of fieldtesting and product development at Mount Glungezer night skiing off the slopes wasn’t that dangerous.

At the Ready for Serial Production

Out and about in nature and Tyrol’s mountain range equipment easily is stretched to its limit. The wearout of gear is high, beeing outdoor about 300 days a year. When one is freezing, sweating, or feeling unpleasantly wind, or having to bear nature in any other way, one gets a lot of ideas of what else to wear to feel more comfortable concerning clothes.

At the ready, as you can see on the pictures, are new whole-body-clothing concepts, which we want to realise using polychromelab’s 3 layer laminate. By now there are only ideas and first prototypes to be tested at night skiing, but soon there will be more to tell.

Enjoy Skiing while testing new Winter Jackets

27. Januar 2015/in adventure

One should really buy Winter Jackets for these Moments

After all this years of skiing in the Alps I am still impressed by the mountains: when I was a student I always got up at 4 in the morning to drive with some friends from Germany to Tyrol to be the first one on the slopes. Then as a snowboarder. By now I am testing as sports designer in the Tyrolean Alps for 15 years.

Skiing still means a lot to me. But this time, when I was under way with Elisabeth, atmosphere was breathtaking. Weather was really good, nobody was around, only fresh powder and a lot of fun. Testing new gray green winter jackets by polychromelab at deep snow skiing was big fun. To enjoy these moments one should choose well and buy winter jackets of high quality. Otherwise one couldn’t enjoy freeride skiing without freezing.

In our Onlineshop you can buy winter jackets that are proven scientifically and applied inTyrol. Have a look on it in our polychromelab concept store!

Greetings from Tyrol,

Michele Stinco

Blog about Freeride in Tyrol

12. Januar 2015/in media

Blog Tirol interviews polychromelab about Freeride in Tyrol

Blog Tirol interviews Elisabeth Frey and designer Michele Stinco from polychromelab about their work at the Glungezer and Freeride in Tyrol. Both Elisabeth Frey and Michele Stinco are passionate athletes, especially in winter when freeride skiing is possible. Mount Glungezer is a tradtional, small ski region in Tyrol, which offers outstanding freeride conditions and slopes. Here one can “experience nature originally”, it is one of the best places for freeride in Tyrol.

Here you can read the german article about polychromelab and freeride on Blog Tirol. Thanks for this great post!

If you like articles from Blog Tirol, you can follow them here: Tyrol on Google+

And finally some impressions of a working day at mount Glungezer including an after work freeride skiing downhill. Enjoy the pictures!

Marcel Hirscher wearing new Ski Jacket

6. Januar 2015/in Behind the Scences, Hinter den Kulissen

Marcel Hirscher likes Schöffel polychromelab Ski Jacket

Marcel Hirscher, three times Alpine Ski Racing overall worldcup’s winner and double world champion in Schladming, Austria 2013, wears a high-tech ski jacket, which was designed by Schoeffel and OESV Racing in collaboration. Passion for science and sport research caused this cooperation using polychromelab’s high-tech reversible fabric for the new Warmup Suit.

This high-tech ski jacket is conceptualized as a reversible overall, that warms on black at warmup or rest and, when reversed, cools on bronze at sports or great sun radiation. Schoeffel and OESV Racing one-piece Warmup Downhill Suit will help skiing athletes to need less gear and to achieve greater successes in Alpine Ski Racing world cup.

In the end of 2014 OESV skiing athletes have worn this reversible ski jacket in world cup the first time. Today we’d like to show you, how Marcel Hirscher celebrates New Year in his new skiing jacket.

How much Marcel Hirscher likes his ski overall, you’ll find out on his facebook page: Marcel-Hirscher/Facebook

If you’d like to have an ingenious reversible ski jacket by polychromelab, visit our jackets webshop.

Matthias Mayer wears new OESV Ski Overall

1. Januar 2015/in Behind the Scences, Hinter den Kulissen

OESV and Schoeffel choose polychromelab fabric for downhill Ski Overall

The Austrian Ski Association chooses polychromelab reversible fabric for alpine ski racing ski overall this winter season. At alpine ski racing world cup 2014/15 downhill skiers of Skiteam Austria wear an onepiece overall – named Schoeffel OESV Warmup Suit Men with polychromelab’s fabric – while warming up and training. This ski overall was developed in collaboration with Schöffel and OESV Racing.

This one-piece suit ski overall for men is fabricated out of a special reversible laminate, which is coloured Bronze inside and Black outside. Ski racing athletes will wear this winter overall with the cooling side outside at warmup to prevent overheating. Afterwards, in concetration phase before the start, athletes will wear the warming side outside to prevent undercooling to be well prepared for the race.

Of course the modern design Warmup Suit looks easy on the eyes in interviews and television, like in Matthias Mayer’s case.

Matthias Mayer wears Warmup Downhill Suit in Santa Caterina

Proudly we present a first picture of Matthias Mayer, Olympic gold medallist at downhill ski racing in Sotchi 2014, wearing Schoeffel OESV on-epiece Ski Overall in an interview in Santa Caterina at ski worldcup. Needles to say that we wish Matthias Mayer and Skiteam Austria very good luck and success this season!

This is the way to alpine skiing athlete Matthias Mayer’s facebook profile: https://www.facebook.com/MatthiasMayerAUT

More information about this season we’ll post on our own facebook profile: https://www.facebook.com/polychromeLAB

Preparations for Free Ride Skiing in Winter

18. Dezember 2014/in adventure

Free Ride Slopes in Tyrol

Winter is coming and the want to go free ride skiing is urging. With longtime experience we know that a good free ride slope has to be prepared carefully. First of all, it is important to know the area pretty well, so one won’t get lost or hit a rock, when snow has fallen and view is bad. If you’ve found your favourite route, you should check capability of the route under loads of fresh powder.

Preparations for Free Ride Skiing in Voldertal

In Voldertal in Tyrol we’ve found an interesting free ride skiing slope. The one problem is that there is a steep, high cliff, which seperates the two parts of the free ski route. There is no way through – but the free ride skiing slope would be a lot of fun.

So we decided to make ready a spot for abseiling to enable free ride skiing in winter. Therefore we have to climb up the steep cliff and fix a stout climbing rope for abseiling at this point. We need a lot of profession to do our dangerous work without getting hurt.

Work done we made ready an abseil-spot which is fixed professionally. Here some pictures of our preparations for the free ride skiing slope in Voldertal. Soon there will be some fresh snow. We can’t wait to visit the spot again: But the next time we’ll be there on ski wearing warm winter gear.

Follow Michele Stinco on Google+ at his outdoor adventures.

Waiting for snow – skiing in Tyrol

13. Dezember 2014/in adventure

Wearing winter jackets at skiing in Tyrol: Waiting for snow

To improve our winter jackets continously, of course, we have to test our own productions repeatedly. For a keen athlete this means: go skiing or snowboarding in that moment snow starts falling, going on a ski tour, jogging and running, a nice trailrun here and there and especially, if one likes to proof suitability for coldness of winter jackets, spending a lot of time outdoors in winter.

The problem this year is: on the one hand, temperatures are allright (meaning at the bottom of thermometer), but on the other hand, snow isn’t falling in Tyrol this year too early. For a keen athlete this means: spot weather, packing winter gear, skis, snowboards and skins for ski tours and make a camp nearby the slopes.

Fortunately, as keen athletes, we prepared ourselves for this lack of snow, so we make ourselves comfortable on camping chairs reading a good book, warmed by polychromelab’s winter jackets, and watch the snow melting.

polychromelab concept store

Follow us on facebook to learn more about, what keen athletes do in winter time in Tyrol: facebook.com/polychromelab