February 13, 2017

After Ireland, our next destination was Austria but we stopped in Zürich, Switzerland for a couple of weeks as Grant had booked a ski trip with a Meetup Group back in October. So, we’re back in Switzerland and it feels nice to be in a familiar city.

While planning for our weekend in Zermatt, which is a ski resort town near the Italian border in the Swiss Alps, we discovered that to rent our snowboard and boots would cost the same as our lift tickets for the weekend, which is an arm and a leg. Not ready to sell off my limbs for a rental, this was a long shot, and because we plan on continuing to snowboard, we decided to give the shops around town a visit.

By the time we settled in and were ready to look around, it was Friday night and the snowboard shop down the street, Snowboard Garage, had closed. So we were out of luck for the weekend. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, we resumed our search on Monday morning. We bought tram tickets to visit a boutique snowboard shop on the edge of town, called Snowboard Flohmarkt, which specializes in a brand called Bataleon. I’d never heard of this brand before and after doing some research, found these boards are hand-made in Austria. But for our efforts in planning, this store happened to be closed on that Monday due to a slow season (they were closed every other Monday of the month).

Not to be discouraged, we decided to price out snowboards at the local chain sporting goods store, the equivalent of a Sports Authority (anyone remember those?). So we hopped on a train out to the Wallisellen Glatt Shopping Mall to Ochsner Sports. Grant and I try not to shop at Big Box stores as we like to help out the local corner store, but as soon as I wandered in, a salesman asked me, “hello, can I help you?” in German. I got flustered and spat out my usual, “Do you understand english?”. At which point I learned he spoke very good english. So I mentioned we were looking for snowboards. He dropped what he was doing (netting a tennis racket) and immediately proceeded to size us and help us pick out the right boards and bindings for our skill level, weight, and height. Because our budget was razor thin, with no deviation upwards, I sheepishly mentioned that and he said, well our snowboards are on sale.

Sure enough, the boards we picked out had a sale sticker on it for 40% off. He then went on to size our shoes. The only shoes they had in my size were Burton, which are top-of-the-line snowboarding boots. The shoes were 40% off. Grant was attended to after with equal precision and care. Now it came down to actual purchasing as Grant and I had had no prior intention of buying snowboards from Ochsner. But what sealed the deal for us was that our salesperson asked if we had a loyalty card with the store. We said we didn’t and he said, “well if you sign up for one, we are doing a sale that includes 20% off of everything on top of the sale price in the store this week”. Yay! That made the snowboards a great deal.

We left very excited. New snowboards for half the price I had bought a similar setup 18 years ago in college. We left them at the store, in good hands, for getting set up and returned that Friday to pick them up. Just in time for our ski trip in the afternoon.

My snowboard: Nitro Mercy (2017)

bindings: Nitro Lynx (in Berry)

Shoes: Burton Starstruck Boa (in Black)

Grant’s board: Nitro T1

bindings: Nitro Pusher (in Ice Camo)

Shoes: Venture TLS (in Army color)

As a snowboarder, I’ve never ridden a Nitro board except for once or twice at ski mountains. Because they are used by ski resorts to rent out daily, I’m hoping they are durable and this board rides just as well as my former Morrow board. We shall see, the real test will be on the slopes in Zermatt.

Grant’s last board that he practiced on in Ireland was a Rossignol board, so I will get his input when we write the Zermatt post.

We were attended to by 2 salespeople at Ochsner Sports, they were very attentive and patiently answered all of our questions and meticulously helped us pick out good boards and equipment. So, I do recommend them if you are in Switzerland, and wanting to buy snowboards. It’s good to wait till near the end of the season to hit the winter sales; for Zürich, this means early February.

This may sound like we’re just splurging, but calculating the cost vs. renting, we figure renting 3 or 4 times would pay for the boards so we went with this option.

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