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Winter Ski Drop In Help?

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Fancy_Latte
Posts: 154 - Karma: 905
I wanted a few professional opinions on my design for a winter ski drop in. Ive got a tiny and flat backyard and wanted to build something easy to assemble disassemble, using as little material as possible, and thought up this

My goal was to use as little wood as possible, as it will be outside most of the winter and rot. My main concerns were:

-stability, as my current width is 2-3 feet
-height/ramp angle, as im concerned with speed (drop in is 5ft high at this point). I'll be using plywood and maybe some carpet for the ramp, and throwing snow overtop

**This thread was edited on Dec 3rd 2020 at 5:11:58pm
Dec 3 2020 5:11PM
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overweightmastr
Posts: 75 - Karma: 409
use snow
Dec 3 2020 5:38PM
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_IRRELEVANT_
Posts: 944 - Karma: 4,425
You shouldn’t be concerned about rot because it takes a couple years for Unpressuretreated wood to rot never mind pressure treated and if you paint it it further prolong the woods life
Dec 3 2020 5:41PM
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SofaKingSick
Posts: 9327 - Karma: 61,270
this isn't super technical info but definitely make your drop in a little bigger than you think you need. it's really not fun to put a ton of work and money into a setup only to have it not offer QUITE enough speed. in my opinion, if it comes down to it, i'd take a slightly higher but skinnier inrun over a wider but shorter one
Dec 3 2020 6:02PM
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Saga.
Posts: 3812 - Karma: 45,332
Build it twice as high as you think it needs to be. You can almost always put the feature further away from the drop in if you have too much speed but you can't as easily increase the speed you get from the drop in. Everything about a backyard set up is going to be slower than you expect it to be. It's better to over build and spend a tiny bit more than to end up with something that doesn't work right.

If you're dealing with a completely flat backyard I wouldn't build a drop in ramp under 8' tall.

It's also somewhat important to make sure the angle and curve out at the bottom of your ramp is. I can't think of a specific one at the moment but there are videos online that show how different angles and slopes of ramps result in different rates of speed.

Last thing, don't underestimate the value of a pump bump.
Dec 3 2020 6:15PM
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Fancy_Latte
Posts: 154 - Karma: 905
Saga.Build it twice as high as you think it needs to be. You can almost always put the feature further away from the drop in if you have too much speed but you can't as easily increase the speed you get from the drop in. Everything about a backyard set up is going to be slower than you expect it to be. It's better to over build and spend a tiny bit more than to end up with something that doesn't work right.

If you're dealing with a completely flat backyard I wouldn't build a drop in ramp under 8' tall.

It's also somewhat important to make sure the angle and curve out at the bottom of your ramp is. I can't think of a specific one at the moment but there are videos online that show how different angles and slopes of ramps result in different rates of speed.

Last thing, don't underestimate the value of a pump bump.


thanks for the advice,

this convinced me to boost the height up & will add a pump bump
Dec 4 2020 1:16PM
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