Dealing with your ski video footage?

NOTE : As of January 2016 Rifreel is now closed.

Its ski week! You head off to the airport, pumped about the week ahead filled with fresh powder runs. You meet the rest of the gang at the airport and the banter begins. Armed with your GoPro, you start recording the trip; the plane, arriving at the hotel, the first run of the day, the ski lifts, the aprés ski (very important) and the depressing journey back to reality when its all over. One week passes.

You are back to reality and the questions start to pour in from the ski party. “When are you making the video?”. “Is the ski video done yet?”. Many of us can relate to this storyline. You bought the GoPro, you went on the ski trip and you have the footage. Now you have to edit the video.
At this point, you probably know how hard this is. It takes time, creative skills, good editing software, oh and did we mention time? Yeah, lots of time.

Pin drop: New York City. Not exactly the ideal ski resort, but home to a company that may well be your new best friend. Based in the Big Apple, Riffreel(www.riffreel.com) is a new startup that will create your adventure videos for only $40. There is of course an Irish link to this startup, one of their founders hails from Cork.

How it works

It is pretty simple as 1-2-3

  1. upload your footage to their website,
  2. describe what you are looking for in your video
  3. and submit !

They take care of the rest! Their expert editors take the pain out of editing and produce something exciting that you can share with everyone. Expect a fitting song selection, awesome video effects, transitions and all the best bits of your trip highlighted in a 2­4 minute “riffreel” (it’s what they call their videos). Here is a 1 minute video on how it works.

Riffreel ski video examples

Want to see what your video could look like? Check out some of their skiing videos below.



If video editing is not in your skillset, or time is not on your side then hit up the guys at Riffreel. For $40 you can show off your trip in no time and put an end to all those “Where is the ski video?” questions!

Equipment, Tips

Ortovox Free Rider 16 at the Zugspitze

Skiers and snowboarders alike know how important a good backpack is. Having the capacity to bring water, supplies or extra layers is essentials for skiers who want to go all day. We just tested a Freerider 16 backpack from Ortovox (www.ortovox.com). We brought the backpack up to the highest mountain in Germany, the Zugspitze (zugspitze.de). Located about an hour from Munich and the town of Garmisch-Partenkicken sits at it’s base. The Zugspitze has a long association with snow sports, it was the host of the 1936 Winter Olympics. The Zugspitze some fantastic views of the Austrian / Germans alps and it’s peak stands at 2,962m tall.

But enough about the testing location, what about the backpack ?

free-rider18

Equipment, Tips

Sizes for ski boots

If you’re heading to the slops this year you might find the chart that’s below handy. Traditionally sizing for ski boots was done with the Mondopoint scale. Mondopoint shoe size scale is actually the ISO standard which “is based on the mean foot length and width for which the shoe is suitable, measured in millimetres.”
skibook-size
But in case you are not used to the Mondopoint scale, we have put a lookup chart to translate it in to all the other popular scales.

Ski News

Skiing in Co. Down

mourne-mountainsThis video has been doing the rounds this weekend, of a few lads (and a dog) skiing in the Mourne Mountains over Easter. The peak, Slieve Donard, which is at 850m looks to have gotten quite a few inches of fresh powder. The hike up did look quite exhausting, and not for the faint hearted. The also attempt a decent of Slieve Bearnagh, 727m, on the north side near the 4 minute mark, which looks quite amazing. It’s always great to see these videos showing that it is indeed possible to ski in Ireland.

Resorts Reports

Skiing in Glencoe, Scotland

Here is a quick review from Declan Doherty, one of our readers who sent in his trip report on how he got from Dublin to Glencoe, Scotland. By organising a ferry through and travelling through Northern Ireland he was able to realise his dream ski holiday with his kids at an affordable price.

Skiing for the first time with my family in Scotland

Taking 2 adults and 4 children for a week in the Alps is an expensive proposition, worse still, what if they didn’t like it ?

Resorts Reports

Skiing in SkiWelt, from Cork via Munich

Here is a quick review from Martha, one of our readers who sent in her trip report on how she got from Cork to SkiWelt, by organising everything herself. Organising your holiday gives you more flexibility and can save quite a bit from package holidays.

Cork to Munich to Wörgl

The Cork flight (booked in Sept. cost around €200) landed around 11am on Saturday morning and we followed the green S signs through the airport to the S Bahn station. The world’s most pleasant and helpful staff sorted us out with our Bayarn Karte purchase , as well as the additional supplement to travel from Kufstein (the end of the ‘Bayarn Karte zone’) to Wörgl. The total train journey cost around €50-for all four if us on one ticket-then took around 2 hours. We changed at Munich Ostbahnhof, Rosenheim and Kufstein. It was a really easy journey- all of the connections were straightforward, no panic or rushing!