pinkcamo1000While the winch has its time and place, I think it's been super over used in the past 10 years. Im honestly less and less impressed by XXL winch features in the street, sometimes it just kinda looks like a trick from a slopestyle comp but in a different setting. That's why we are seeing a lot of street skiers like Billy Wesson using the winch less and less, and people trying to make street skiing more accessible. The winch opened up possibilities but it also made street skiing less accessible, kinda like helicopters in the backcountry. I think the next 10 years of street skiing will be a lot more low key, DIY vibes, and a lot more people will do it cause they don't feel like they need to go do some crazy stept shit.
The future of skiing is fewer helicopters and fewer winches, more touring and natty speed. I'm stoked for it
I mean if you use a winch only to do huge features only then sure that's repetitive, but a winch can be used for slow, techy stuff too. Its 100x better than a bungie and easier to setup/transport than a drop in. Sure kids going out in the streets don't have a winch, but thats not what we're talking about, we're talking about urban skiing from a content perspective, where IMO the first few years of having nice winches was the golden era of urban skiing.
I think comparing a winch to a heli isn't really that accurate, winches aren't necessary for urban skiing, while the type of skiing you do heli skiing, a heli is basically necessary, you could hike/skin but you only see a few ppl actually doing that on huge mountains that you might use a heli to get to the summit.
Also, I think comparing professional level urban to what some random kids do in the streets with their friends is also not that accurate, I totally get what you're saying about making urban skiing "more relatable/accessible" but top tier urban skiers using winches doesn't discourage some kid from hitting urban, most kids watching these parts and wanting to ski urban will never step to something big enough to even warrant a winch. Now you're saying that less big features/features that require a winch would be more entertaining because its relatable? The level of relatable features in the streets isn't like the park, kids will step to anything in the park but anything relatable in the streets would not be impressive enough for a professional level segment/video.
