Anyone have some advice......?

My wife is not a very brave skier and I want to buy her a new pair of skis. Any recommendations?

She will not ski off piste and can manage blue runs with some style, red runs very slowly and black runs is a horror. She does not trust her ability which is a shame and likes to be in grade 3 or 4 ski school.

Her last pair of skis are somewhat dated. Any recommendations at all?

In all honesty i think i would invest the money in lessons to get her confidence up first before splashing out on new skis.
My wife is just the same and i wouldn't dream of buying her some new planks.

Rossignol Alias (or Avenger) 74. You should be looking for a ski with an early rise tip (tip rocker) which makes the ski easier to turn and with less effort. I've spoken to a lot of novice skiers who really like this ski.

Snapzzz wrote:In all honesty i think i would invest the money in lessons to get her confidence up first before splashing out on new skis.
My wife is just the same and i wouldn't dream of buying her some new planks.

Remember it's all about having fun. These new skis just make it easier for non aggressive skiers to feel in control. If skiing is more fun and easier, they will learn faster.

maybe hire some?
If you go to the ski shop when they are NOT busy and have a good chat then you will probably find they will be only to eager to share the knowledge and allow you to try out a few different pairs ...worked for me.

I'm probably about the same standard as your wife, underconfident intermediate! I'm using K2 truluv/t9's and finding them very easy to turn and quite forgiving, Scapula's suggestion above is a good 1 too.

There are many skis out there now that feature a tip rocker. I think you should choose one of those. Rocker will make the skis turn easier. However the main investment should be made in lessons. Maybe private lessons will be better than a school if she's lacking confidence?

The other way to approach this would be to think/ask/discuss what a ski holiday is all about for your wife.

Skiing doesn't have to be all about improving and skiing harder/faster on steeper and steeper slopes and more adventurous conditions.

If your wife enjoys her pootling about on blues with the occasional intrepid foray onto a nice red then why not?

The issue then becomes how to integrate this with your own pleasure. Which is possible with a bit of lee way from both sides so you get to ski how you want some of the time and so does she. Maybe after a few years skiing, probably only a week at a time once or twice a year she is happy with her level.

Trying to push her to do other things could be very counter productive and does risk skiing holidays going off the agenda completely!

Finding a way for husband, wife, kids, partners etc etc etc to all enjoy a ski holiday together can be tricky especially if one member of the party is mad keen and others are luke warm.