Ski Hire

To hire or buy is one of the biggest equipment decisions for a skier or boarder - and one faced by thousands of first time winter sport enthusiasts each year.

Buying your own clothing and equipment is obviously more expensive but it does have distinct safety benefits. This is because one of the biggest causes of ski injuries is badly fitting equipment, and this is most likely when borrowing ill-fitting equipment from friends and relatives. Presuming that you are capable of maintaining your equipment and ensuring that all clothing and accessories fit properly, owning your ski equipment also has obvious advantages if you intend to go skiing each winter.

However, there are advantages to hiring equipment too:

• No maintenance costs
• Potential saving on transportation costs - many airlines charge for skis and snowboards as extra luggage
• You can try the latest clothing/equipment and hire to suit the conditions
• You are often able to change your equipment throughout the week if you use a provider on resort

Most people who rent ski equipment do so in the resort but you can now also rent equipment in advance in the UK with convenient pick up/drop off points at the airport. It's also possible to arrange your equipment hire online and then collect it at your resort. This is a great way of ensuring you know all of your costs before travelling, whilst still having the flexibility to exchange your equipment on resort.

Complete-Ski recommends using the following websites for information and ski and snowboarding equipment hire.

• Edge2edge
• SnowRental
• InterSport

One of the most important elements to remember when hiring ski equipment is to make sure that you are honest about your weight and ability level. It's an area where skiers will notoriously play one up and the other down! This can have serious consequences for skiers - it's vital that the release weight (DIN setting) on your bindings is set correctly. Poorly adjusted or selected ski equipment is one of the major causes of ski injuries and, similarly, any ski rental company that does not take care to help you select the right equipment should not be used.

The kind of detail necessary to consider when selecting ski or snowboarding equipment can be found at Edge2edge - make sure that any provider you use goes into this amount of detail.