Proving My Point About Ski Equipment

Well this year I was   all set to go out and buy some skintecs from atomic new and a second hand skoyte-pakke in expectation of a long winter with some thawing, refreezing and new snow in cycles. Alas no. Also I did not get a new contract and am still out of work, with the sleet and rain washing away all the sub 500m snow. All that shovelling of almost 2m perfect snowfall lead to nothing.

Well actually no! I was averaging about 3-4 hours a week skiing xc last year and this year i am up to 5-7hrs. This is despite the bad weather. If you can pick and choose your days or hours between rain and storms,  and chase new snow fall then you can get in good two to three hour sessions and it isnt as bloody cold to breathe. The dampness does add a bit of nasty clingy condensation and it conducts away heat though.

So my main issue though has been clister this year and i am fed up. I use a ski bag to keep things tidy and it is just a big outside in flypaper now. Good ol" klister has given me  a good few runs but it has both given up and worse, become super claddy and gripping. Uneven conditions, hard, soft, wet, corned and new snow to be had on the same run.

So today i conceded and started out with my jumble sale waxless   ( loppemarked smørefrie) which necessitates using my mow ancient alpina light tourimg boots to fit the prehistoric rottefeller binding .

Finally this year i got predictable feste or kick grip.glide was not bad seemingly at firts, and i found it was ideal for practicing weight transfer and rythm. Spikerfeste , nailed. However downhill showed the weakness of having waxless whirring and skis which are only fitted by length having probably been bound togetherhard at the bindings for yeatrs.

Being happy though with diagoknal on even slight downhills and little chance for effective staking with poles i took the whole thing as a challenge and a fitness day. A bit like riding a bike with those spoke attached wind resistor paddles.

My ususal training run is a ten minute drive. It is a typical forrest access road following the path of least resistance having broken the wilds up sa fish bone besieged couple of hundred ,eterame  meters. Most chosing to do circuits turn upon return to the top of this  section. 'It undulates and has nothing more than about one in twelve gradients, with a cool little turning circle at the end with a log to sit on in the lee of a giant boulder.

Fitness and technique ways i had a blast today clocking up around about 25km on heavy wet snow more akin to april and easter than the usual silkeføre silky conditions so typical of the feb mar over gang.

I also decided to practice step turning and found i had to pole to keep speed on it was ome of those Robert Koch days when some stretches on slack up and down hill were faster scating on kicking skis.

All the pensioners i met today bar a couple ofnreal oldies in theier seventies , had sports or racing skis on. Most of them were faster but most were doing one or two circuits. I had set my mind to four, beating my previous total by one. This was though on snow which sucked all the real speed out so in fact compared to harder or proper blue silky conditions, then it was liking doing six or more, guessing the effort of my goal of 40km runs.

My bootas soaked through, i got utterly exhausted but i had the most productive training day this season on a pair of skis from the churchnroof jumble sale, we got three pairs for 100kr. Kind of puts 5000kr skintecs and 2600 kr combui boots into perspective!