Can you resist the lure

Mar 13 2007 By Rebekah Ashby, The Journal

Travelling at speeds of up to 80mph with his face inches from the ground - that's what the adrenaline-pumping hobby of Chris Dobson involves. Rebekah Ashby reports.

*********

For most of the year you will find him offering marketing advice to companies from his home-based Northumberland business. But between January and March you'd be equally likely to find him going head first down a steep gully of ice in Switzerland, gathering speeds of up to 80 miles an hour.

For the last 17 years, marketing consultant Chris Dobson, who owns Warkworth-based Dobson Marketing and offers advice to businesses across the North-East and Scotland, has been a member of the St Moritz Tobogganing Club.

Despite being "uniquely young" he still hurls himself down the three quarters of a mile Cresta Run - which is a total drop of 514 feet - at least once a season.

He says: "The oldest member of the club was 85-years-old, so I still have a quarter of a century of tobogganing left to look forward to.

"If everyone had that adrenalin and feeling of achievement to look forward to then they might be a damn sight happier."

The Cresta Run winds its way from above the `Leaning Tower' in St Moritz down a gully through 10 testing corners, past the tiny hamlet of Cresta, to the village of Celerina.

The first run was completed in January 1885 and took nearly nine weeks to build.

It is still built from scratch every year using the natural contours of the valley and earth banks to provide a framework on which to pile the snow.

He says: "I got involved because two of my business contemporaries wanted me to do a bit for the club's annual report and said `next year Dobbo, you are coming out'.

"I went more out of intrigue than anything and the rest, as they say, is history."

From its very beginnings the St Moritz Tobogganing Club has been a partnership between the people of St Moritz and the British, although the members of the club now come from all over the world.

The lure and excitement of this, now one of the last amateur sports, fascinates Mr Dobson and around half a dozen other North-Easterners who are members of the club.

When asked how you gauge someone's tobogganing ability Mr Dobson simply replies "if one lives to tell the tale".

"It's acknowledged as a dangerous sport," he says. "And good riders will get up to speeds of 80 miles an hour.

"It's an experience in adrenalin and if you haven't done anything like this before you don't know what your limits are - once you have done this you can do anything."

Mr Dobson has encouraged daughter Emily, 15, to take up the unusual sport and this season she took part in the Junior Cresta Cup which goes down a run about quarter of the length.

Mr Dobson says: "It is very much a family thing for us now. I am an old fogey now and my joints just aren't flexible enough.

"I wish I had taken it up at 16 or 17 years old when I knew I had no responsibilities but I have got a business to run and a family to run so one has to be slightly more cautious."

St Moritz is viewed as one of the most fashionable ski resorts in the world which would indicate it carried a hefty price tag but Mr Dobson says: "I stayed in fantastic apartment for £550. That was for seven nights for three of us in a paradise of snow and ice, compared to £900 for three nights in Scotland."

---------------------------------------------------------

Cresta Run history

The first Cresta Run was completed in January 1885 and took nearly nine weeks to build. Only the three upper banks received detailed work.

It is still built from scratch every year using the natural contours of the valley and earth banks to provide a framework on which to pile the snow.

The Cresta usually opens two or three days before Christmas and continues for nine weeks until the end of February. There are more than 30 highly competitive races and riding takes place every morning of the week. The first rider to adopt the now traditional head-first position was Mr Cornish in the 1887 Grand National.

He finished 14th after three erratic rides but established a trend and by the 1890 Grand National all competitors were riding head first.

Mrs JM Baguley was the last lady to ride the Cresta in a race on January 13, 1925. Ladies rode in practice after that date but were banned from riding on January 6, 1929, and still cannot ride to this day. Mrs Marjory Pope was one of the last ladies to ride in practice.

From its very beginnings the St. Moritz Tobogganing Club has been a partnership between the people of St. Moritz and the British, although the members of the club now come from all over the world. The lure and excitement of this, now one of the last amateur sports has always fascinated and always will. The first Lord Brabazon of Tara once wrote: "The Cresta is like a woman with this cynical difference - to love her once is to love her always".