Happy Birthday to Edgewise Ski Service owner GRAHAM LONETTO!

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Graham Lonetto deep in thought on his record-breaking attempt.

Graham, who turned 40 today, decided he would challenge himself to see if he could complete 40 runs in one day at Stowe Mountain Resort.  Not dinky runs, but full-on, top to bottom runs on the Forerunner Quad.

We’re talking 2100 vertical feet for each run folks.

Then, he learned that Stowe legend “Boston Bob” had been credited with 50 runs in day, (something we have difficulty believing) and decided to top that.

So at 8 AM this morning, Graham strapped on his DODGE carbon fiber ski boots, his Carpani Skis and boarded the Quad.

I caught up with Graham, Brian Irwin and Terry McNabb mid-morning and Graham was on his 14th run.  Peeling off the top of the lift, those 3 straight-lined it to Hayride and arced some very high speed turns all the way to the bottom.  Since it was my first run, I decided a little slower pace was in order so I could reconnoiter the terrain and they were already 4 chairs ahead by the time I boarded the lift.

Luckily for me, Graham paused at the top to grab a snack, just long enough for me to catch them.

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The DODGE Boots on the left “only” did 21,000 feet today. The DODGE Boots on the right were on-track to do well over 100,000 vertical feet!

Then it was hammer time!

Terry’s ski tracks app on his phone indicated a top speed of about 65 MPH, which I think is accurate, as I found my 183 Volkl GS skis floating quite a bit.

Brian dropped out after a few runs, with a promise to return after lunch, so I continued on with Graham and Terry for another 9 runs over the next hour-and-a-half.

Whew!

By noon, Graham had done 25 runs (about 52,500 vertical feet) and was showing no signs of fading.

What fun.

Graham, thanks for letting me join in for part of your birthday celebration!

Bill

 

  1. J.W, sorry but if you check with mountain operations I think you will find that the new quads line speed is still the same as the old quad at about 1000 ft/min just has 30 more chairs. Happy 40, Graham. And I would not call Boston Bob aka Roxbury Robert impressive (jmo)

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