Atomic Skintec 4000s - Are skin Skis the Way to Go for Training and Fitness Skiing?

Just to give my own personal skis and experience over a few hundred kilometers on them. To summarise, as before in an earlier blog, the ski's are pretty much as good as the conditions.

 You can't expect to really get the most of a ski with a hard arch tension and a mohair insert which will have some friction and waterlogging effects, on the type of conditions we get here need the coast.

'Last Couple of Day's Conditions. We often get thaw back to this and then new snow in spring. At least it was firm and the slush wasn't too deep today.

Today the conditions were actually not bad because the ice had been churned by the machines not that long ago, and the sun as you see was melting the structure a fair bit to a softer texture. In truth it looked like a far better day for skate skis.

The ski went well today, but it made me think about how much better a good clister job would have done on a slightly softer pair of skis. There is the dilema, you need then more than one pair of skis anyway! 

Today proved though that the skintec works on any condition where there is compacted snow which is still crystaline. Blue through purple to red hard waxes, and purple to silver and of course universal clister to the point when clister will work better on harder surfaces ( but suffer abrasion down to little again after 15 km) 

For list lovers then: Plusses and Minusses: 

+ Works on Wax Conditions with Old and New Laid Tracks

+ Works in the wetter easter snow

+ Really good kick and glide in 'silky' blue and purple with firm track bases.

+ Perhaps in lillac/ blue conditions, you can scale a steeper hill before fishboning comes in

+ Seem to avoid icing while keeping good grip in Zero conditions or mild air on cold tracks too

+ (ski not skin) The arch tension in the ski is good for glide and double pole with kicking

+ Works better than wax it seems in the mid lane out of the tramlines

+ Can skate on them usually because they do not 'snag' on the mid lane and they are high tension

- Doesn't work at all on very icey (where ice clister would be best) or very hard, transformed compacted tracks

- Doesn't work well at all on fine, cold new snow. 

- Gets waterlogged it seems, and looses some traction

- Can suck on downhills when waterlogged 

- (ski not skin) The arch tension in the ski is a little hard for soft conditions

They Suck - But Not Often

That would be the biggest issue there above underlined- I noticed these spring days that the skin will suck right down on even a fast down hill when the ski finds a soft spot or the contour fills the arch, and it is like putting the brakes on a bike on. 

Then to release it you have to rock back to your heels and the ski flies off again, which is of course to be expected with a pretention in that arch matching 100-120kg skiers. On a faster section you can forgive this a bit, but not if you were racing or if you then needed to step out of the tram line, or one ski plough brake, because that might knock you off balance with a thump. 

This also shows itself in undulating terratory when it gets wet or porridgey in the tracks- the ski will not glide well, although you dont feel it like brake blocks coming on, it just is there. 

I would guess that the ski skin glider / protector sprays are the way to go. I tried and HFC shoe polish style rub a couple of times, and I think it helped with waterlogging, but also I think I lost a little traction when I needed it most in the shadowy sections where the tracks hadn't started melting.

Ski For Your Weight and Style

Here comes a little of the rub. Atomic have made a training ski which is used by some pros in their team, which has quite probably a very consistent arch tension (spenn) due to carbon being used in the construction. They are a mid to high range ski, depending on your tastes and local shop and prices. However they have made the 208 cm model a monster ski which a 125kg, 2 m high giant could use as skate skis. They have a tension which is just too much for soft conditions, and quite hard work in good conditions, while in the hard conditions it seems it works against itself too, but does allow for a really fast poling ski. 

So what were they thinking of? There are very few competitive skiers over 90kg let alone 100kg, so an advanced, stiff semi racing ski is not going to be ideal for the presumably less fit buyer and actually less trained yours tuly.  Well I did get a pair of these on the tension tester machine, and 208 was correct because the feeler gauge just got to the tip of the skin with some tiny friction the last inch or so. But the thing is that the skin is quite slipply in fact in glide phase because it seems never to pick up ice crystals, it brushes them backwards of course! Also this 4000 version is a built in skin, unlike its immediate predecessor which looks very similar as a ski, which has the magnetic removable insert, with two versions. So they maybe placed the skin too far forward. 

Another guy I met and paced with had the Fischer trainer-tourer skin ski with the thinner, twin skins and a traditional groove. He had poorer glide, yet about the same grip, and he didnt seem overweight. 

Skis vary as do conditions, so I would say have a think about your average conditions and if you have a good old wax pair for softer conditions, or if you want a skin ski for soft conditions and then a hard 'clister' ski for hard conditiions. The longer the insert, and the broader it is, the more it will create possible friction and waterlogging. Get the skis on the test meter and see where the feeler gauge meets fur ! Then do the floor test too for old times sake, both skis with a sheet of A4 paper under. 

I would say buying two pairs of skin skis is going to be a bit of a bad thing to do, a soft and a hard, because then you get into conditions where the skin doesnt work anyway  ie new snow, or ice, or waterlogged when the arch is not that hard in the ski. You are better thinking if you do most of your skiing on high mountain conditions to get a skin ski and then a soft ski for blue waxing through to the spring thaw melting and harder conditions for clistering them up. Some ski areas in the Rockies and Canada, tend to get a large early dump of snow and then the tracks get older and firmer for most of the season. So that would suit the idea above, a harder skinski and a soft, loose day and end of season waxed ski which is softer in arch tension.

I conclude this year, being the sixth not very great season in a row after two seven month -blue and lillac stonkers in 2010-2011, that it is the conditions and not my skis which are the issue!! However I can see that I need a softer pair of skin skis,  and I need to get hold of a pair of clister skis, again not quite as hard as the 4000s because I feel I need a quicker contact with clister - to be able to feel how hard I need to 'paw' or slide on the harder base conditions. 

With shorter seasons, the hard spenn skis are tough to work up to pace on, a bit like a high geared track bike needing more power and technique to be built up over time. 

So picking your ski is a bit of a Science for your own personal art - a soft ski is easy to get up and going, but will limit your speed and development of a powerful kick (perhaps!) Even for a new beginner a soft ski can be a mistake for mountain conditions, especially if they are investing a bit of money in the sport there and then. 

A hard ski - correctly measured for your weight that is, not too hard -  will allow you to grow in style and keep 'the wheel rolling' - for example double pole with or without kick will be much more effective and once good in technique, energy efficient on a hard spenn ski. 

A medium spenn ski is going to be a good allrounder for your style as a fitness skier I would say, because you are most likely concentrating on diagonal style. Also it will help you build up strength for the season, rather than for the ski,  like with mine! When we perhaps see a skin ski in shop like this, we look for approximately right length for your height and then check the arch tension for your weight. I would say take it down 10kg and see how the feeler works, then up 10 kg too. Here you get an idea for the different loadings caused by hard or softer bases, and can see how the ski might suck too much if it is too soft. I say you can allow for some feeler 'rub' on the skins at the front on your own weight, and not be looking to have the skin off the snow completely ie feeler guage all the way forward and into plastic before it finds friction. Mine are about an inch and a half of friction on the scale, perhaps then two to two and a half would be better, but then that would suck more on wet conditions.

Four and Fifty ...The Birkebeinerennet , 'Birke'n 2014'

This weekend sees the annual homage to pain and passion on the 54km between Rena and lLillehammer which is called the Birkerbeinerennet.  For keen skiers, profs and obsessive amaterus, the test is born from a Legend and lives on myths.

You can read the legend of 1206, for yourself, but the biggest myth is that the race is dominated by professionals and the super competitive oil executives and finance 'wolves' .


The only remarkable thing about the later managment participation  is that they have managed to subdue the otherwise untamable shrew into a housewife and overcome the eventual boredom of Nordmarka hour by hour. Many are out eight hours during the week , without sunlight, and then more at the weekend at their cabin on the Norsk Hamptons, so the wives become Birke/widows and the kids must wonder what daddy looks like if he is not either stuffed into a red condom tight ski suit or with both hands at the wheel of his BMW.

The prevalence of their participation in the event is all blown up by the finance media, who have after all only a small stock exchange to cover, minor scandals and a majority of workers in Statoil, public services or protected food industries. 

For the majority of competitors, or participants really, they will average about 4 hours depending on the conditions which have a lot to play and are often variable due to the ascent of 1000m underway over the 54km. That by my reckoning corresponds to 5 hours training a week, but within that there must very good technique and some longer february weekend runs or events.

 For the elite, well this is a bit of a surprise because those 8 hours a week training to come under 3 hours need not be all year round but rather built on a base of fitness off ski and off rollers too. As with okay times for M45 , men full mid life crisis just under 4 hours, then specific stamina training, some speed sessions each week and technique coaching coupled to good 'feste' are the factors which  rule to keep you within the mark. Here is one elite-peleton guy's account who went from almost five hours downwards as he entered the so called mid life crisis, clearly he was just peaking!

So the event is not unassailable as would be the myth , and fully possible for the average club competitor or even the averagely fit skier who decides to increase their training and have first qualification and then participation to a sensible 4.30 hrs mark.

Younger seeded adults have a tougher time because their marks are more restricted. But also later seeded/starting competitors can have harder 'spor' with partly destroyed edges, and of course rising temperatures as the day goes on so conditions play a part for everyone in their variance. This year may like 2007 be blown off with sleet and wind chill forecast. partly destroyed edges, and of course rising temperatures as the day goes on so conditions play a part for everyone in their variance. This year may like 2007 be blown off with sleet and wind chill forecast.

You have to gain seeding to enter Birke'n by competiting in other events or from self same 54km west from Rena the year before. From this result profile  you are then allocated a peleton by age and performance and a time to make it in / to round the mark they say, very nautical for this most inland and land lubber of events. i reckon I could seed at 4 hours mark if I could train from late November,  this would have been possible in earlier years due to snow conditions, if I had taken some more instruction and in technique. Finally I catch up with technique in a weird year with no underlying groundfrost and a meter of snow or more lying still on most forrest roads. Soft, hard, sharp...best for waxless in fact.

x 

I would without doubt do a 50 km ski run at this time of uyear on Atomic Skintecs or Fischer RCS waxless because for longer run'feste' is best- grip is best , as long as you have some glide, avoiding back slides in the kick which can drain or injure you and saving time in not rewaxing.

In any case, I could aspire to Birken given a good season, but it is a palava to go up to Rena from here. Yesterday I did a meagre 14 km with 200 m climbing but i would have done it at 9km/ht if my mobile had not gone off and i had not stopped to take photties on the wonderful sunny day. An Icey way back round-the-mountain was only slow on the worst uphills, and back in the car after one minutes breathing I felt like I had just warmed up!

This reminds me of cycling where eventually the first hour was a warm up for stiff, highly trained muscles and if I was late for a race I paid for not warming up  by being OTB!

 I may move up that way to the great valley Lillehammer lies in a few years time though and have the route on my doorstep more or less.  For now, there are several runs within eaasier access and in any case I would like to set up my own run with the club here at about 40/45km with both styles catered for not just classic. This makes it easier to train for with a mild snowless autumn and november, because classic roller skiing is a fussy affaire. Easier to skate on roads, and it is so popular now here partly due to worn out tram lines with ice forming, while the middle lane was soft. 

This year I have had the time between contracts and financial capability to live off my wife and my own savings. New car, new sofa, biggerr house on hold...thank god , I am really into

downsizing and degrowth any hows. So my training has all been in daylight or twilight with a base of exercise in the mild autumn on woodland elg-hoofing. Loping with poles at 9am after the day is wound up like a family faced clock of preschool, school, washing machine on, dishwasher emptied. Most of it has been foggy and damp, around freexing point and it has threatened to be washed away by rain every week for the last four, but miraculously has survived to a decent depth on the harder under surfacesI rather miss not stretching a head torch over my brow. 

Headtorches a plenty to find in Oslos Nordmarka, the woods and moors which are actually the second best thing about Oslo after the Fjord with its Islands. The town itself is a bit of a dump by in large, now festooned with messy achitecture on its seafront. For the finance and oil executive crowd there will be eight to twelve hours a week training on skis. That will not include family tours or other events which are often taken as a test of form. This self announced wolf pack are actually a tiny part of the  whole event.

  The majority are club racers and old timers, many a year-on-year seasoned sixty year old as much as there are the midlife crisis type. Not forgetting the 2 on four week off semi pro oil workers, who can train up like hell if their shift pattern matches the event.  There you have the three main segments who maybe make up 90% of competition with pros and the executive/finance crowd being a fraction of the remaining.

The down side of the small economy outside dollar-barrell indexing is that financiers get a lot of boring personal coverage in the media. Partly because they are as arrogant as their more numerous London or NYSE comrades who by in large like anonymity. Here when they/ disinvest or close sites the effect is much more amplified for the local society because if they work outside the dollar-barrell cushion which creates living costs amongte the highest in the world, they fall pretty hard. Also the state and councils even are allowed to co invest in enterprises here, all above board, hands off the operational management and 

this means that local societies get an interested investor as in the current rage about fishing port and processing plants in the north where there are few other on shore jobsand fishing in family sized boats runs in the blood. Most other countries set up an innovation board to do this which is of course highly beaurcatised and wastes money as in Scottish Enterprise. Norway has that too, but I have yet to see any real fruits personally. 

Anyway, out they will with cheering wives at the finish, how clever daddy is if only you knew what he looked like outside the red swix condom-lycra suit. Remember you are a small percentage and only the business dailies care about you, we dont give a damn.

Cross Country Ski Technique : taught too seriously?

In a rough translation and update to the last blogg in Norsk.

This year I went out with good inentions of cracking some fine points of technique yet ended up with a theory that there is a lower level set of goals in technique which are more relevant, achievable and sustainable for the fun & fitness xc skier and the touring skier.

The final evidence for the plaintiff side of moderation from an elite, perfectionist and athletically correct style of diagonal and poling, was that my best day of fitness and kicking was on a pair of 50kr jumble sale waxless skis and my now ancient touring boots. I did a good three hours on them on corned snow which was melting.

It is easy to say then well sod glide you need good kick traction. Also that buying new, narrower training skis would be a  distraction for me. However i conclude that the case is adjourned pending better snow.

Simply concluded for the time being it has not been a good season to deconstruct finer points of my technique or learn new ones. Running before i can walk in terms then of having to cope with the variables of poor track conditions while trying to go back to square one and reconstruct my skiing.

We had almost two meters of snow all of it powder before it then progressively melted and it all became an early Easter. Then it thawed and froze and then some more new  snow came and made it all jolly dee again. So we had actually no firm base, which is quite unusual, and we had an insulated ground which did not freeze much before the onslaught of two weeks of snow fall.

Even on my last run i was losing my staves into the white void if they were not really close to the side of skis.

So let me put a full stop here shortly on my analysis before there is reader paralysis.

In the next blogg then i will pick out some tips for such an approach to deconstructing technique and facing variable conditions.

To Wax or Wax-Free Skis for X-country

Waxing Ski-ryrical

Today was a new first for me, out on x-country skis which require waxing to both grip and glide properly. Until now I have been content with the one-way-pattern "waxless" skis.

Should new beginners go straight in for waxed skis and cut out this middle man?

Fish-scales as some people call them, save of course guessing the temperature and you are guaranteed fairly good grip on herring-bone ascents. They do slow your glide down though and there are limits to their effectiveness of grip, at below -9 and above 2'C. However you can actually combat this by using ....glide wax and "klister" wax, akin to UHU glue in consistency and adherence. Kind of defeating the purpose, but in fact in winter conditions and in the high hills at easter, wax free can give you a trouble free day and some good training.


Waxed x-country skis, ie normal, glide faster and you just adjust the wax to optimise the kick. However you do have to wax and re-rub off and occaisionally rewax the "sole" to a base wax. Problems come when conditions under foot are very variable, and this is the case where the sun or mild winds get access to part of the ski runs. Combine this with a gradient against you and it's time to stop up and do some major cosmetic surgery on the soles of your erstwhile sliding-shoes.

Incidentally, the very best wax free skis are available in carbon fibre, and are intended for both such tricky conditions in racing and training. So they're not just for poosies and lazy gits who can't read a thermometer.

Waxing is not only its own language and currency of conversation, it is its very own culture of excuses and denials. Like we brit's talk about the weather to break-the-ice with strangers, so Norwegians ( at least, if not scandinavians) will suddenly engage you in warm conversation which otherwise would, as is par for the course here, be lacking ( "No Banter" said one mate who lives in Oslo and works for GE Healthcare). Also any bad performance, slow progress on one part of the course or general bad mood can be explained away under the "wrong wax, failed wax" book of excuses. I find myself reaching for the first chapter now, unwittingly....


In general, wax less skis give you better kick but less glide: I think this is probably an area for debating their overall value to beginners: if you kick but don't glide enough then you are not learning the complete technique and you are wasting energy. If however, you ski in variable conditions, prepared and just ski-made-tracks, and have more of a walking style than "Jogging" then waxfree are all you will most likely ever need.


If you want to get the most exercise out of the sport, then in fact wax free can also help you in the beginning because of the rather unique "stride and hold" gape. If you are fit already, then you may find , as I did actually on carbon wax frees, that you end up injuring yourself because your quadracepts will be strong enough to work really hard while your little crotch and knee muscles engaged in x-country are not ready for the punishment your major abductors are giving them. Waxfree makes it easier to "hold" because the ski grips on the back foot better and the glide is somewhat "on the brakes". You could of course over-wax with higher temperature wax applied to a longer area under the ski onto a normal ski.

Waxing will allow you to really get into the swing of things, literally, because you will get the full benefit of the more jogging-come-striding style. This is faster and give's you argueably a better work out, both forcing you to keep a rythm and also rewarding you with faster progress.

There is one other good reason to buy an entry level set of waxfree skis is that even if you just get one holiday', course' or season's use out of them before you feel, like me, that they are braking your speed and limiting your technique. Keep these as your reserve skis for those difficult days, for those tours in certain hill and moor ski tracks but not prepared runs, easter, summer glaciers and when you venture to terra nova not knowing if the conditions and availability of tracks.