Published in The Times, February 2007
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I'm still a proud monoskier

Monoskiing may be past its 1980s prime, but it still has a festival. William Ham Bevan joins the diehards at Monopride in France

SECOND only to “bend zee knees”, “weight on the downhill ski” is the mantra drummed into novice skiers until their ears freeze up. So it was with no small measure of panic, in a wooded hollow above the French town of Villard de Lans, that I found myself having to unlearn a quarter-century of technique pretty quickly.

I couldn’t put weight on the downhill ski, because there weren’t two to choose from. There was only one — a monoski — attached to both my feet, and it had a mind of its own. But the snow was soft and forgiving, and after some frantic wobbling there came a stabilisers-off-the-bike moment as I caught the rhythm. Suddenly, I was swishing up jubilant plumes of powder in tight, hip-swinging turns.

Pride comes before a you-know-what, and one oversteer later, I was on my back, badly winded and peering up at the four small kids who had shuffled over to gawp at the spectacle. One pointed to the monoski still attached to my boots, half-buried in the snow like a headstone, and smiled angelically. “ C’est quoi, ça?” she inquired.

She wasn’t the first to ask such a question. On the flight to Grenoble, I’d done my best to explain Monopride — Europe’s biggest monoski festival — to my neighbour in demotic French, but left him convinced I was looking for a branch of Monoprix, the super-marchéchain. And even before that, mention of my travel plans to some hoary powder hounds back home had led to a confused silence, before one of them said: “That’s the gay skiing festival, right?”

Not quite; but the difference between monoskiing and snowboarding is indeed a matter of orientation. While boarders stand side-on, a monoski’s bindings point the feet forward, as on two conventional skis. And unlike snowboarders, monoskiers retain the use of ski poles — essential for balance, given that your ankles and feet are locked together on a space scarcely wider than a dinner plate.

After hitting its apex in the mid-Eighties, monoskiing is all but forgotten now, or at best consigned to the same mental bracket as the Sinclair C5, but there’s still a worldwide network of diehards keeping the faith. The annual weekend of Monopride at Villard de Lans — one of the scores of small French family resorts that never make it into UK brochures — is the biggest gathering of the clans.

On the first morning of group skiing, I managed to get my monoski under precarious control. Despite the rubbernecking kids, I began to enjoy the experience immensely. Conditions were perfect: there had been a big dump of snow overnight, and a light sprinkling was still coming down. Like snowboards, monoskis can be treacherous on hard-packed, icy pistes, but are magical in deep snow.

Throughout the weekend, I got to know many of the other festival-goers. Although the average monoskier appeared to be 40-plus, male and French, more than 10 nationalities were represented. Among a small British contingent at the festival was Mal, from South Wales, who made the pilgrimage to Monopride every year with his wife, Yvonne. As he explained, it was the appearance of the snowboard that really put a stake through the heart of monoskiing. “The thing is, you have to know what you’re doing before you go on a monoski.”

The second day held the mass rally, with everyone spending the morning bombing around the mountain. Done well, monoskiing looks breathtakingly graceful, as it allows an incredibly tight turning circle: if a snowboard is an articulated lorry, a monoski is a London cab. And I had great chance to contemplate this, as everyone else sashayed off elegantly into the white yonder, while I struggled to keep up.

Taking a gentler path home was a big mistake. Unlike skis or snowboards, monoskis tend to pivot under the feet on shallow inclines, so while you carry on moving forward, you end up swivelling further and further to face the side. I made it down with all the style of a Dalek on an ice rink.

At the end of the festival, the whole ensemble crammed into the reception office for the prize-giving. To cheers, it was announced that the sixth Monopride had been the biggest yet, with 123 members in attendance. This year, delegations from America and Japan are expected, with the shindig extended to four days.

If not quite a revival, it was certainly an assertion that there’s mileage in the sport yet. And yes, it felt good to be part of it: however bruised and inept, at that moment I was indeed proud to be mono.

Need to know

William Ham Bevan travelled with British Airways (0870 8509850, www.ba.com) and the Villard de Lans tourism office (00 33 4 76 95 10 38, www.villarddelans.com). Return flights from Gatwick to Grenoble start at £79. This year’s Monopride festival (00 33 6 61 52 50 55, http://monoski.free.fr) will take place at Villard de Lans on March 15-18.