Hi gang...it's The Rookie here again, with more kick wax questions.
I had some kick wax frustrations at the Birkie, and maybe some of you
can help me understand what I was doing wrong (and why). I had hoped
to cut an hour off my time now that I have graduated from touring
waxless skis to Fischer SL wax-able skis, (I did cut an hour and
15 minutes off my Mora Vasaloppet 42km time this year, with my last
Vasa on waxless skis), but I ended up 6 minutes SLOWER than my last
Birkie on those same waxless skis (please don't look up my time -- it's
pretty embarrassing) :-)
It was like skiing 3 different courses Saturday: the first 30km were
great, and I had wonderful kick using 4 layers of corked Toko bright
blue (new snow, -13 to -3 C) over a layer of ironed-on Rode ground wax.
Snow temperature at my cabin was -6 C when I left at 7am, so I
felt bright blue was a good choice.
>From about 30km to 40 km, it began to sleet, and snow/ice was sticking
to my kick zone as if I had klister on. I had to stop several times
to scrape the snow/ice (my glide was nil at the top of the hills),
and knowing that it was warming up, I corked in a couple layers of
Toko red (new snow, -4 to -1 C). This seemed to slow down the snow
accumulation, but I still had to stop and scrape the kick zone
a few more times.
Then, during the last 10km, there was a bit of freezing drizzle,
and the tracks became pretty icy (you could see the tell-tale
glazed reflection in the tracks as you looked ahead -- we're
talking almost 50% ice coverage at times). I then moved to the
warmest hard wax I had on me -- Rode Red Extra (-1 to +1 C).
But, I had NO KICK what so ever. Neither did any other classic
skiers in my pace group. We ended up double-poling when ever
we weren't climbing. Thankfully the last 5km or so are flat.
So, here are my questions:
1. Why was I icing up and collecting snow -- kick wax too cold?
(I even saw waxless skiers having snow collection problems in
their kick pocket though...weird)
2. Would a klister have helped during the final 10km, when the
tracks were getting icy? I didn't have any with me, thinking
there would be too much fresh snow in the tracks for a klister.
3. What worked/didn't work for you other classical skiers?
Thanks for any words of wisdom you can pass on. Kick wax problems
aside, it was an incredibly beautiful day to be on skis!
-Scott
--
Scott Bachmeier University of Wisconsin - Madison / SSEC / CIMSS
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/~scottb
