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Craftsbury Masters Report!

By Adam Terko on 4 February, 2019 in Masters Blog

We have a few great reports from the Craftsbury Marathon Festival, from Karen and Rick. Here’s the lowdown from Rick on both days:

Saturday’s classic race – It was a coaches dream for both kick and glide. Pretty much everything we tested for grip worked quite well. TOKO Blue, Swix VR30, VR40, and even some colder green waxes were working.The tracks were hard packed powder with just a slight bit of transformed snow worked in which created fast tracks that never broken down for the entire race. Hardwaxes were working fine over both a hardwax binder and klister binder. Some of the 50K skiers opted to add some klister in the binder to help with durability. Most of us used TOKO green binder ironed in then covered with anything in the green to blue range. Liam and I liked the feel of the Guru Green but felt grip could be a little better. A little Rode Super Blue was perfect… Just a little better grip in the tracks with no perceptible loss in speed. On my own skis I also added a little Vhauti Super Base binder in with my TOKO Green. I’ve found this to be extremely durable and I still had great kick after the race was over. Some of us also applied a Vahuti LF green liquid/gel shortly before the start that really helped speed up skis.

In talking with the Craftsbury coaches and skiers after the race I found out that most of their team also used Rode Super Blue.

On Sunday the course for the skate race was fairly soft due to several inches of new snow during the night. We skied the course backwards from what was use on Saturday. It was quite fun to ski the loop in the opposite direction but most of the competitors I spoke with felt that this seemed more difficult, perhaps because we were pretty beat from the classic race. The long climb up Ruthie’ and across Creek Road was grueling, followed by a very nice decent down Sam’s. However, going up Elenor’s hill (twice) was a tough and made more difficult by the fact that there really isn’t any recovery from there to the stadium. I can’t speak for others but the Duck Pond Loop never felt so hard!

Coach Rick: 88km of racing over the weekend! Photo by Liam

For wax on Sunday, where glide was much more important and difficult to find then it was on Saturday, most of the skiers used some sort of HF blue wax with a Fluoro cover. Mike Millar, Emily Stitt and I all used TOKO Blue/Cold Jetstream and then applied a Vhauti HF red liquid/gel which is rated down to 18 F. I believe it helped, especially on the second lap as the temperature climbed up to about 22F.

Overall a Wonderful two-day event that offers something for everyone. Look for this to be a key weekend every winter.

Some stats from Karen!

Day 1: Classic

21 MNC racers participated today!

5 MNC Board members and 3 MNC coaches!

8 MNC racers placed in their age groups! AND

Emily Stitt of MNC was 2nd overall in the womens 50K!

Day 2: Freestyle

9 MNC skiers

6 MNC skiers landing in top 3 of age groups

4 MNC skiers raced in both the classic and skate races Charlie Cobb, Rick Costanza, Mike Millar and Emily Stitt

Emily Stitt – 2nd overall yesterday and 6th overall today

Karen, Renate, and Jen enjoying the race atmosphere!

Craftsbury Marathon Wax Rec

By Adam Terko on 30 January, 2019 in Masters Blog, Uncategorized

If this wax recommendation looks similar to the Bogburn earlier this year…that’s because conditions will be very similar! Temps will be cold overnight (below zero), and combined with new snow this week that means harder glidewax and green and blue kickwaxes.

Glide Wax

It is important, in cold snow, to have “hardened” bases. Putting a few layers of green or blue glide wax in your skis (as opposed to just one) will make the base noticeably more shiny and harder, which keeps it faster when the snow crystals are new and sharp.

-Begin by “hardening” your glide zones with 2 layers of CH4, CH5, Toko NF Blue, or your favorite colder glide wax. Scrape and brush between layers.

-Final layer is a blue glide wax of your choice: Toko NF/LF/HF Blue, Swix CH/LF/HF 5 or 6, Holmenkol Racing Mix Cold, etc

-Scrape off and brush VERY thoroughly! If you have a nylon or horsehair brush, polish back and forth until the bases have a nice shine

Kick Wax

A binder will be important for this race. To watch a video on how to best apply a hardwax binder, see the embedded clips on the bottom of this page.

One of the best and easiest binders to use is Toko Base Green. Toko Base Green is unavailable in the US this year, so if you are looking for other options you can try other green kickwaxes such as Swix V30. At Skirack you will also find a Start brand hardwax binder for sale!

-Begin by roughening up your (cleaned) kick zone, and ironing in a THIN base binder

-Feel free to check-in with MNC coaches on race day, but to start with kick a good bet is three or four thin layers of Toko Blue, Swix VR40, or other blue hardwax, covered with one or two layers of Toko X-Cold, Swix V30, or other green hardwax.

Race/Wax Report – White Mtn Marathon

By Kort Longenbach on 28 January, 2019 in Masters Blog, Uncategorized

Four MNC skiers competed in the event which was shortened from 30 km to about 24 km due to areas of the course that were flooded out during the heavy rains earlier in the week.

Snow conditions were generally frozen granular with no significant powder to effect waxing decisions. The course generally setup quite hard with some sections getting “sugary” after getting skied in. The final downhill was …well quite fast and somewhat challenging but fine.

Overnight temps were in the single digits and at 7AM on race day it was still around 5 F but warmed to near 20F during the race.

Liam and I experimented with kick wax the afternoon before the race although temps were near 30F so no decisions could be made other than a klister binder would be needed.

We tried using the TOKO recommendation of green klister ironed in, cooled, then ironing TOKO green hard wax on one ski and straight klister on another ski. While both worked the klister hardwax combo was better. On race morning we again tried this combo along with Oslo Blue and Vhauti violet klister. Generally we liked the TOKO mix the best but it was still not quite good enough. We then added some blue (swix k30) klister over the TOKO combo and it felt very good. We found that as long as a stiff, klister type ski was being used a fairly liberal amount of K30 over the initial TOKO mix offered good kick and and glide.

I also tried a Rode Super Weiss cover over the klister but found it really didn’t improve (or hurt) the kick and glide. The snow was extremely abrasive but our kick held fine for the entire race and there was still enough left for a cool down ski.

We used this on skis for me, Liam. Karen and Sean. While I’m sure other combos would have worked we had limited time to test and were generally pleased with the grip.

In terms of the race – Liam had an epic battle with Tyler Mangan and Neal Graves and eventually finished 11th over all and 3rd in his class. Kris Freeman crushed everyone easily. Sean Scanlon snapped a pole about 400 M into the race and was able to circle back to his car for another pole and spent the rest of the race chasing down skiers. Karen was all smiles and had a solid race finishing 3rd in the Women’s M5 division. I struggled in the beginning a bit (not enough of a warm-up) but eventually recovered and settled into a comfortable pace finishing 28th and 3rd M6. NWVE won the mens club championship again and the Stowe Nordic women easily won the women’s division.

Link to photos from Jamie Doucett from CSU:

https://jamiedoucett.smugmug.com/Ski-Photos/Jackson-Freeman-Frost-30-km/

Masters MiniCamp #2

By Adam Terko on 21 January, 2019 in Masters Blog

It was a chilly day on Saturday, but not the type of weather we haven’t seen a lot of recently! While part of the MNC Masters group was out racing hard at the Silver Fox Trot citizen’s race, another group convened at Craftsbury for our 2nd mini-camp of the season. Coaches Liam, Rick, and Sara put together a day involving a course preview of the Craftsbury Marathon as well as an afternoon session for video review and technique feedback.

Here are some photos from Coach Liam. Thanks to everyone that came out on a cold day to enjoy the snow!

Jim working on striding and looking smooth

Getting to check out the Craftsbury Marathon course

Coach Sara capturing some video

Bogburn Wax Recommendation

By Adam Terko on 10 January, 2019 in BKL Race Blog, Junior Blog, Masters Blog

It is looking like excellent classic conditions for this year’s Bogburn! Temps will be cold overnight, and combined with new snow this week that means harder glidewax and green and blue kickwaxes.

Glide Wax

-Begin by “hardening” your glide zones with 2 layers of CH4, CH5, Toko NF Blue, or your favorite colder glide wax. Scrape and brush between layers.

-Final layer is a blue glide wax of your choice: Toko NF/LF/HF Blue, Swix CH/LF/HF 5 or 6, Holmenkol Racing Mix Cold, etc

-Scrape off and brush VERY thoroughly! If you have a nylon or horsehair brush, polish back and forth until the bases have a nice shine

Kick Wax

A binder will be important for this race. To watch a video on how to best apply a hardwax binder, see the embedded clips on the bottom of this page.

One of the best and easiest binders to use is Toko Base Green. However, for a cold race such as the Bogburn and colder kickwax (for example Swix V30) can be used as an ironed-on binder.

-Begin by roughening up your (cleaned) kick zone, and ironing in a THIN green base binder

-Feel free to check-in with Adam on race day, but to start with for kick a good bet it one or two thin layers of Toko Blue, Swix V40, or other blue hardwax, covered with one or two layers of Toko X-Cold, Swix V30, or other green hardwax.