going nordic = going ghay?

[JPaul]

Bumping because -> holy crap, I can!

The awesome groomer was out on Donner summit this weekend, so I was able to get a couple more days in. Needed to start early, but trails were in fantastic shape. Didn't really have the time or strength this weekend, but couldn't pass it up. Glad I went out on Monday for this:



Sunday, the trails were configured to support higher volume of Classic skiing for a big training camp, but plenty of room left for skating on the side. Snow had quite a bit of debris in some lower areas (it's OK, it's almost a month old and still skiable!), so I played it safe and used my daughter's skis:



So stoked, had to share!

[buttahflake]

Jealous!

[JPaul]

^ *Almost* didn't post, but wanted to show what the trails looked like this past weekend.

Any consolation, we're a still a ways off from riding bikes on them...

[byates1]

That's amazing! Wow.

[Particle]

Crazy. Finally melted out here in Utah. My daughter started a nordic program this winter and I got sucked into it with her, on the hunt for skate ski setup deals this summer.

[JPaul]

My daughter started a nordic program this winter and I got sucked into it with her,

^ That's how I got back into it after 30+years (so glad skating technique/trails showed up since I stopped!) -> it's been great for the whole family.

Good luck finding a new setup!

[plugboots]

Crazy. Finally melted out here in Utah. My daughter started a nordic program this winter and I got sucked into it with her, on the hunt for skate ski setup deals this summer.

Shop right now. Contact your local shops.

[ghosthop]

Anyone with insight on how to size fishscales for fukt roads that are less than ideally groomed?

I've mostly seen 5x underfoot fishscale with metal edges pop up. And almost always in 16x or 19x length.

I am ~130 pounds but with baby/gear will be about 160 on skis this winter.

[wendigo]

Go to a site like this and the descriptions usually have a size/weight pairing.
A softer ski will have less glide, a stiffer ski less grip (generally speaking).

[Cisco Kid]

With baby and gear I'd opt for more kick/ less glide in the ski. At 155 w/o kid, my do anything ski is a 25 y o 68 waist Fischer Sbound in a 176 length. Heavy 3 pin binding and leather boot.

IMO, The perfect all around ski is the one that does most things at least ok most of the time.

[sb]

Swapping some binders around to facilitate touring plus turns for the GF to learn additional skillz.

Starting snow dances.

[bobz]

^ Skiing funky roads and wanting extra stability, I'd say you want way more than 50-something mm underfoot, more like 70mm if you still want it to behave somewhat like XC gear, and possibly more than that. As for the waxless pattern, try to go for a pattern that's partly positive (coming up at least a little from the rest of the base, as opposed to being entirely cut out of the base); though that depends on your local snow quality (consistently cold/powdery is grippier, ice and crust slicker). Like Cisco said, you're probably looking for a more aggressive pattern for better grip and worse glide. You'll also want to carry some skins that work with the skis, because there's always the possibility of snow conditions that the pattern won't work well for.


As for me and my nord-board collection, the groomed XC gear is prepped and ready...

And I just upgraded two pairs of my classic BC skis to Rottefella XPlore, with a new pair of Alfa boots that are surprisingly light (a mere 4 oz each more than my skating boots) for how much torsional stiffness they have with these bindings. I'm really looking forward to seeing how these perform.

[Bronco]

And I just upgraded two pairs of my classic BC skis to Rottefella XPlore, with a new pair of Alfa boots that are surprisingly light (a mere 4 oz each more than my skating boots) for how much torsional stiffness they have with these bindings. I'm really looking forward to seeing how these perform.

Please post up your opinion, I'm interested in these bindings as well!

[kinkilla]

New to the nordic scene, how do I wax fishscales? Got an XCD setup (Fischer S-Bound 98s) and want to be sure they can glide. Do I do just the flat parts or just not wax at all?

[bobz]

Please post up your opinion, I'm interested in these bindings as well!

Will do! The epoxy is dry and they're ready to go; just need some snow.

Damn but these bindings are expensive, though. I don't get it; they're literally double the price of NNN-BCs, which have just as much material and are more complicated. $250 retail, and the binding doesn't even have any moving parts (aside from the lever that depresses the spring-loaded boot pins to release them from the binding). Doesn't make sense from a marketing standpoint either; don't they need to establish this thing as some sort of somewhat popular standard?

Anyway... The system looks great, NNN-BC just isn't good enough torsionally, and I'm so over 3-pins for XC grade gear (despite having almost a dozen pairs of Chouinard, BD, and Rotte pins bindings in a box, free for me to use).

New to the nordic scene, how do I wax fishscales? Got an XCD setup (Fischer S-Bound 98s) and want to be sure they can glide. Do I do just the flat parts or just not wax at all?

I've always just aggressively crayoned red glide wax into the pattern, and then lightly buffed it with a scotch-brite pad, more to shed wax flakes than to work the wax in. Works well enough. I've heard of people hot-waxing the pattern and then wiping wax off while it's still hot, but I've never tried that. Spray-on and rub-on products like MaxiGlide work only briefly, don't hold up as long as my wax-crayoning technique, in my experience.

[~mikey b]

and hot wax outside of the kick pattern

[Blaster]

New to the nordic scene, how do I wax fishscales? Got an XCD setup (Fischer S-Bound 98s) and want to be sure they can glide. Do I do just the flat parts or just not wax at all?

Fishscales are never going to be rockets so don’t over think it. Hot wax the non-fish scale parts and ski until the bases start to oxidize (get cloudy/white) then wax again. I tell my newbie friends that waxing more than 3 times a year is overkill until they ski a lot more or get high end skis.

The newer liquid wax is much better than the older liquid/zardoz style stuff. https://tokous.com/category/products/wax/top-finish/

Way easier to put on but your ski bases will oxidize a little faster. You can do liquid wax on your fish scales.

[romeo tango]

....I've always just aggressively crayoned red glide wax into the pattern, and then lightly buffed it with a scotch-brite pad, more to shed wax flakes than to work the wax in. Works well enough. I've heard of people hot-waxing the pattern and then wiping wax off while it's still hot, but I've never tried that....

.
any time i've waxed the no-wax pattern and snow conditions change, I have to strip the wax and dig the residual wax out of the pattern by hand ....

I don't wax the fishscales any more
YMMV

.

[tellybele]

Tips and tails usually aren't sintered but take hot wax well and as said above you can monitor by looking for oxidation of the base and wax accordingly. Usually lasts a season. The scales 'surface' is as smooth as glass and only the liquid needs to be applied to prevent icing up and whatnot. The older liquid stuff like maxiglide would dry out the tips and tails and might last half a day? Any liquid wax will have some sort of solvent that isn't good for tips and tails.
Hot wax tips and tails and the liquid shitaqua on the scales is the easiest/only way to keep your xc skiing in a somewhat fun way

[bobz]

.
any time i've waxed the no-wax pattern and snow conditions change, I have to strip the wax and dig the residual wax out of the pattern by hand ....

I don't wax the fishscales any more
YMMV

.

I don't understand. I'm rubbing in glide wax, not kick wax; applying kick wax to a waxless pattern would be a dreadful mess, aside from being pointless (and even if it was the right kick wax, it would probably ice up anyway due to inevitable wax clumps). A red glide wax still works adequately on blue-wax snow. I guess unless you're racing or something. (Besides, if it's blue-wax snow, I'm not going to want to be on the patterned skis.)

[romeo tango]

removing wax from the fishscale pattern is tedious and time-consuming

[Foggy_Goggles]

If we are talking baggy pants, dog walking fishing scale skis....

Just use alpine wax on the non-scaled part and liquid/rub on for the scales. Preventing sticking in the goal. I have not waxed the scales on older skis. You get your grip back after a handful of miles on hard snow.

I also use a sharp metal scraper to kinda reshape the fish scales after a couple of years. I wonder if that Phanton Glide would be good? I does suck a bit that the death of my XC skis has always been that the fish scales get worn down.

[Iwantmy2dollars]

If you apply the wax only going with the scales it keeps most of the wax out of the scale edges.
Works for paste, liquid and hard wax. Only Buff in the same direction too. Works pretty good

[NBABUCKS1]

Anyone have a recommendation for a ski or a lead on a cheaper ski for my wife?

Basically skiing a road that can be packed down as it does have minimal snowmobile traffic. No skating, only classic. No grooming but definitely a few sleds a day going in and out. In Wyoming kind of near Jackson (not nearly as much snow). My wife does NOT want to tour or go off into the woods, just classic ski the ungroomed road. Assuming metal edges (partial)is a plus and does NOt want to fiddle with skins. About 180 lbs.

60 width?

[Laps]

So….signed up for the Birkeneiner race in Feb., 30 miles of skiing in Wisconsin. Going to skate it, never done anything this long before but looking forward to having something to train for. Will need lots of recs on anything and everything to do with an xc race, and this seems to be the place.


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