While ski resorts across America are increasing employing Mountain Safety Officers to scold their guests and pull passes for going too fast, there is a ski resort in Italy that actually encourages folks to go full tuck and max out their velocity.
At 250 meters long with a 73 meter vertical drop (28% pitch) The Goldknopf SPEEDTRAP at Alpe di Siusi in Italian Dolomites is a speedsters dream. American motorist will recognize the technology used as its the name you would see in a roadside Radar Speed Sign. Guests pull up to the top of the The Goldknopf SPEEDTRAP and straight line to the bottom where they are met with a read out of their top speed.
Couple nice touches the folks at Alpe di Siusi added to experience including a corporate sponsorship by Audi quattro and a secondary readout at the top of the run so your friend behind you can see how fast you went and try to top it. Kind of refreshing to see a less litigious ski culture letting their guests get a few thrills on the hill.
If you’re a skier with a need for speed, we suggest you wax up your skis and book a flight to Italy.
Just in case you were intrigued by how radar guns actually work, here’s a quick summary:
Speed radars work using the Doppler effect: they send out radio waves, which bounce off a moving object and return to the device, with the frequency changing based on the object’s speed—higher frequency for approaching objects, lower for receding ones—allowing the radar to calculate speed from this frequency shift. The radar gun measures this change (Doppler shift), and a built-in processor converts it into a speed reading. Neat!
