Snow Business Closes for The Season

The ironic coincidence is not lost on me that today i took my final training run on waxless, c 1979 jumble-sale skis while the mini birkebeiner today was won with a goodly margin by Skinstad on Salomon skin skis....apt name too!

The weather forecssters got it wrong - today it should have become steadily more cloudy and then colder, but the sun burnt away the light cloud and the wind which came was quite mild and dry. This all happened as i parked up on a roadside pile of snow, hoping i would be able to drive out later as the sun began to beat down!

I decided two rounds at around 13.2 km total would suffice, and opted for skating style on my ancient jumble sale skis. They are Trak  "winner" model with a fish scale pattern which must be a full meter of the ski - but the scales are shallower in the leading 20 cm. The whole effect seems to be as good if not better than modern , shorter "3D" machined angular textured grip zones, and i reckon they glide much better while not losing anything much in adhesion against them.

In any case they glide damn well enough for skating progress without any cursing about noise and jittering. They are about 50mm wide with very little side cut (in swing) and about 205 cm long with quite a soft, long camber. Ok my Madshus Ultrasonic are miles faster, but I am not going to hit gravel on them, especially when grinding down a deep track in the softest snow. The 50mm wide skis float better on the slush, while being less jittery on the ice.

"Awefully variable conditions today" said the guy who often drives the piste machine. He is a pensioner with immense stamina, but today cracked him- he had fastmed himself to a pair of Atomic Skintec's in a narrower verson it looked like than mine. Fairly useless on the icey sections which followed the shaded parts of the forrest road like a hand in glove of course. The route was about 60% hard- like concrete, while the sunnier slopes were more  like the freshly poured consistency of cement.

Skating gave me an really good work out and also i was able to practice my two weak points - timing/weight transfer and breathing. Glide was very variable as was edge adhesion, but I was able to get enough feel of it and also keep to a rhythm, modifying it slightly for good glide strokes or 'braking' type ones. Also going over to double dance and paddling with a change in tempo and style as required.

I practiced a bit without poles and also was conscious to use them a little less so as to feel the effect of the three body movements- extending the bent leg out, pushing up and risong off it and then transfering weight to the new ski. The skis had a lot of 'float' on the softer stuff, but little edge on the ice- it meant exagerrating the edging in paddling up shadowy hills. The slush sucked power out, but it was quite rewarding to get up some of the hills quicker than in diagonal kicking. The ice defeated me some times, while other attempts suceeded in really quick ascents. I tried diagonal a few times in the slush and the skis did a good job!

I elected to go a third round, bringing the tour up to just under 20 klicks. This round sucked me of stregnth but I was determined to keep up skating as much as possible and avoid any breaks or reversion to classic. The snow was melting now, and in some of my deeper cuts on the sunnier slopes it had turned it's own gangrenous grey - crystals dissolving. The icier parts had a glaze of water on top with the mild wind now blowing. After some paddling hills, I went over to baby steps double dance just to keep going as the sweat ran into my eyes.

I drank the rest of my water and felt the delicious cooling of the stronger breeze which filled in as I turned back on myself to complete the last homeward leg. About half way back i lost interest in rhytmic dancing, did 100m diagonal  and decided to take some scenic photos. The route has a 600m mostly uphill start, usually including a fair bit of fiah boning so this is to be avoided on the repeat circuits when it gets icey. My piste machine compatriot had chosen discression as the better part of valour and walked down it. I decided as this was likely the last trainin tour of the season, to ski down it, and took plough and half plough to negotiate the steep hill with bend at the foot, as my own better part of valour.

The run back down to the main road was fast after this and i needed a good anchor plough to brake up in the icey 'kick off' zone at the very end where folk trample about with skis on. Skis off i jogged back to the car. 70km last week, just under 60 this week. A seaon I can put behind me with some degree of satisfaction on both fitness and technique in both styles.

On the Wrong Skis ?

I do feel like I have been conned a little and on the wrong skis for five years now.

I got a pair of light tour skis, which are Fischer Power Wax 2009 model I think. I always thought I would get the benefit of the slightly broader ski with side cut, but in fact they were the wrong skis for me!

When I was working in Kristiansand I soon noticed that the type of keen, fitness skier had most often as good skinny skis as the Birkebein condom kledd ski-geeks. Even folk over 50 and pensioners had narrow, straight racing and training skis. Oh yeah at the weekend you see masses of folk with steel edge 50mm wide telemark/mountain skis, planking along, some pretty quickly. But on a cold wednesday night with the sun setting and the headtorches bobbing around in the tracks, I saw 90% skinny skis.

Now I know of course there is a good reason for this - folk like going in the prepped tracks and the same as a racing bike versus a more sedate town bike, the narrower contact area and the lighter, stiffer ski puts more power and traction down....to a point. In new 'kramm' snow, wet and aired, my old blue skis excel and I reckon they are pretty good downhill out of the tramlines because they float better and steer better with leaning and weight alone than a straight-skinny-ski.

With all the icey conditions around Kristiansand in the cold winters of 2012 and 2013, with thawbacks and also a huge amount of traffic, the rock hard tracks have eaten into my plastic edges on the fischers. I did look into getting a pair of Fischer Steel Lights which are a training ski, skinny, with 3/4 length steel edges (now apparently discontinued but still in stock several of the larger outlets no doubt) but they were always a bit of an investment and anyway I was taken with the idea of Atomic Skintec since their launch about 5 years ago.

The fischers I have and their comparable skis from most other manufacturers around the 50 - 48 mm max width, are probably ideal for semi prepared tracks with a lot of new snow and following tracks which have been trodden by other skiers. They are not broad enough for deeper, soft snow while they are perfectly at home in hard worn tram lines at the other extreme, and like clister. I would say that they are though a compromise and that you would be better with a light pair of tour and fell skis like the BC 45 or the Åsnes Nordmarka which have steel edges but a shortish camber. They may have the same dimensions, but the steel edges mean venturing out into hardened spring snow on the virgin mountainsides is very acheivable.

The reverse then is true of getting "skinny " skis- you limit yourself to nicely groomed tramlines and mid lanes. Ask yourself this though- will you ever really do those longer tours out of the tracks or when there is a risk for lots of new snow? If you live near prepared tracks then skinny skis are lighter and faster, and I would say follow your learning curve better than tour skis because you can really pick up the pace on the skis as you improve.

I have seen some big fellows who make me look rather, ahem, petite, out on 212cm racing skis with all the gear and a big wax case in the boot of their car. However if you intend going a lot with a heavier pack or a 'pulk' (pulled sled) then you really want to look at getting a set of mountain touring skis to support your weight and engender better turning and ploughing.

I found in the firmer conditions that my new 41-40-40 training skis were much easier to keep a pace on with and sprint up hills on. They felt stable in double poling too, and I feel I can work on my weak spot, double pole with single kick, better than with heavier, broader skis. In the cycle world equivalent it is not quite the same as going from say a Hybrid / Town bike down to an 18C racer bike, more like a 32C down to a 23 C continental like I used to run on my handbuilt racer- not too much pressure and enough stability that it all works nicely. Soft, wet snow then is the equivalent of mud, so on those days you are going to dig in and slip with skinny skis, or catch edges in the mid lane downhill as I discovered- they dig in and suck down!

I can't say I was mis-sold the tour skis I got a long time ago now -I got the right pair given the description of what I was looking to do with them, my weight and my ability then.  I just did not really think about what I was going to actually do with them, and opted for a compromise.

Th Joy of Ski...part IV

This has been a really, really long and fantastic season for XC skiing.

Hard to Fair Going...

I remember a lot of it as frustrating too, because of often very hard conditions caused by the post Juletide thaw back. This happened two or three times this winter, but now the spring weather creates almost ideal conditions for daytime skiing to 6pm.

Each night the darkest woods are down to minus 6 and in the day the strong sun just softens the top without melting too much of the 75 cm base there is on many trails even just above sea level!

Season's Wrongs, Season's Rights...

This season, which started in December, I tried to concentrate on having a kicking style with a nice high rise on the kick. However this seems wrong for many reasons: it had messed up my weight transfer and basically I was unloading too early to exaggerate my kick and therefore not getting enough forward propulsion AND breaking the glide ski onto the snow.

I survived this in the hard stuff, and maybe the load transfer is a little different.

Right at the end of the season I am back at digging my toes in a little: an effort to hold more weight on the kick leg to get more traction. With the fitness from the earlier season, about 40km on good weeks, this paid off on both hard and then slushy conditions.

Next season my aim is then to talk to an expert like our local acquaintance and former youth coach at a top Oslo area club. Weight transfer clearly alters over conditions as does the legnth of stride and height of kick, but I want to have basically a couple of gears and a long distance tempo in my bag for doing a trip of 40km once a week, with the total being up at about 60-80 km per week.

Waxes and Wanes....

This year I have learnt more about waxing: how the recommended kick zone is not necessarily what should be waxed : leaving more un-waxed or even with glider an inch or so under the heel can be better for glide with no real expense to the kick in soft conditions or when you need to use soft wax or clister in harder conditions.

I have concentrated on using the pyramid!": or having "more in the pocket" ie laying layers in over to the mid sole. This has meant that on good conditions I can get two trips or more out of a single application of say, Lilac V50. In the very hard conditions which have been prevailing, then I at least have a little reserve until I get a view to stop at and re-wax or I am able to get home on the downhill or with a gentle warm down which is okay for the reduced kick adhesion!

Avoiding waxing under the heel or the last 3 cm, is also good for various conditions: it wears off here often anyway on the hard, and in soft , as a heavy guy I find I get better glide and can get an instant speed boost by rocking onto my heels when I am in fast gliding mode or at the start of a downhill.

I also combined the use of just using softer waxes on the inner 30cm or so, with the 3 cm under the heel and 12cm on the front of the kick zone being only an extra layer of green on top of the two base layers of green. This was less claddy, and a bit better glide. However : how long this area is, or what condition to use this is something to sort out next year: suggestion is for new snow or very good quality  soft tracks with fine corned old snow.

Scale Creatures....

I looked at my daughter's waxless, scale-patterned skis and I think the pattern extends too  long on the ski.  I had thought about this and the "pocket" a lot recently, and I was using this weekend a 10 year old pair of "waxless" which are so worn they need waxing , but retain a bit of pattern which helps KEEP THE WAX on the ski behind the scale and gave very good kick compared to clister. I have been over some very hard conditions with this, using first lilac v50 ( my do-it all in old snow faithful for the lower level skiing we do here, under 500m altitude ) then using red. In yesterdays typical easter conditions, it was a slushy porridge in the best sun traps, old transformed, coarse grained someplaces and ice in others. Nasty. I did reapply but only used one layer in the first place, and this lasted anyway as long as clister of my companion on normal skis!  Good kick and good enough glide.

Which gave me an Idea.....

Given the trend to "rubbed" or specially textured, skis for end of season I think there is a case for a much shorter patterned "pocket" : the idea being that it works well on its own in some conditions, probably slush and very cold new snow, while you use it with a bit of wax for hard stuff and you then wax with a hard wax forward of the "pocket" (ie the most raised part of the kick zone under the sole of the shoe which is in least contact with the snow under gliding). Hard wax always gives some adhesion, and usually resists clumping in new snow conditions, but applied along the whole ski, I find that "blue" gives up for me on hard stuff at -6'c and in soft or new at -4'c : I get poorer kick.

Waxless Revisited: Combining Various Existing Technologies on the One Ski!

Ideally then a wax free ski could be developed such: a pocket with a traditional fish-scale texture and then forward and back end kick zone which is in a nanotech particle based composite, suitable for some texturing on the work bench and which either lasts "life time" comparable to today's waxless skis or is renewable at service point. In addition, some form of nanotech or conposite-random-microfibre "zero" like tech could be incorporated into the scale textured area. This should be something which is "adiabatic" in that it both enhances ice crystal adhesion while also being liquid water repellent. Strange stuff, but water has very unique qualities : expanding rather than contracting as it freezes, melting under pressure, existing in three phases under negative pressure etc.

I imagine a future where you maybe have an old pair of old fashioned training skis for waxing for very special conditions or for a longer tour : you then have a pair of low temperature light textured, nanotech skis, and a "zero plus" set which cover both wet, hard and new snow at various temperatures. For touring you would have a single set of skis to which you vary the glider area by waxing and cleaning, and you then use different grades of simple one spray and wipe hydrophobic treatments for varying conditions on to the above type of nano-.and textured kick zone.

Fischer have for many years offered a top carbon racing ski in a (once patented) scale pattern for use around zero or know difficult like mild snow onto very cold surfaces or the converse. The pattern is pretty much the whole kick zone if I remember, but it is quite a light pattern with the ski having a lot of pre-tension. Other manufacturers don't seem to bother,  at least actively marketing, a quality racing / training ski with waxless surface. Waxless is like "sailing on a jib, when a genoa is of course a faster sail" according to a ski-boat compatriot of mine. This need not be the case because for the amateur, time spent with good kick and a slight compromise on glide is better than time out due to wrong wax or as in this winter, very high abrasion on waxes which have enough adhesion for hard spore.

Experimenting 2014

Next season I will try to get hold of a lightly used set of training waxless or light-tour waxless and sand off the pattern as much as I dare, (hopefully there is enough base to get them smooth: ) on the front 10cm and back 3cm of the kick zone. Then I apply a good two layers of green over these rubbed areas and see how it goes , for harder and softer conditions I would then add a soft wax or clister "in the pocket". The aim of this:

1) reduce time in waxing. Wax on the fly when you get out in the spore. It is just a fine tune in the pocket area!
2) make up for incorrect waxing or very hard conditions as the tour progresses
3) make re-waxing easier! less to area to apply to and if you were too soft, less to then take off from a and re-apply!
4) avoid waxing (after "green" or "blue" base wax is on the ends of the kick zone) , in good conditions for many weeks.