The VT State Championships are coming up Monday and Wednesday this week. MNC was on-site at Craftsbury both Friday and Saturday in prep for (and competition in) the Craftsbury Spring Classic race.
With temps and conditions looking to remain similar, here are some notes from our testing and waxing over the weekend.
Glide:
Stable firm and icy conditions are the name of the game at Craftsbury. Cycles of very cold nights, no significant new snowfall, and daytime temps in the low teens mean tilled tracks and some ice lining the classic tracks.
For underlayers, we have NOT found that graphite adds anything to ski speed.
Traditional blue glide waxes should work well. We used Briko BP Blue wax over the weekend, but also had strong test results from SkiGo XC Green. More familiar solutions like Swix CH5 and Toko Blue can provide a great first step.
For NF glide top layers we have liked both Rode RL Cold liquid as well as Rex G41 spray. In current conditions, waxes like Ulla Black and Toko Base Performance Blue spray are also speedy.
As temps warm up for the women’s races, a hard underlayer like CH5 is still recommended, to be followed by one warmer NF layer such as CH8 or Toko Red.
Bumping up the warmer topcoats to things like Rode RL Warm liquid, Start RG Red liquid, Ulla Red/Black, or Toko Yellow spray (if dirty snow) or Swix PS10 spray (if clean snow) can be great options when the snow gets slushy.
Structure:
In the colder any icier conditions such as Saturday, a medium-sized linear structure (such as Holenkol’s larger of the two linear options) or Toko Blue structure was great on both tips and tails of classic skis for the tracks.
Structure should be tested on skate skis before being applied. It is easy to “over-structure” in corn snow and tilled ice: remember that just because the air temp is warm, structure should also be based on the snowtype.
Kick:
Although hardwax provided some kick, we found klister to be far faster. Guru Extreme 39 Hard was durable enough to race on for 5km without a binder klister. Swix KN33 Nero klister (added in the middle of the kick zone) provided additional grip at the expense of some speed. Swix KX30 ice klsiter gripped well but did not offer great glide, and Oslo waxes, while extremely kicky, were also extremely slow.
Other great waxes in this range are Rex Purple and Start Blue.
For Wednesday races as the heat increases, it may still be wise to begin with a purple klister but be ready to adapt with some universal klisters that can handle some ice and abrasion such as Rode Multigrade, Guru Extreme 39, Rex OV/Brown, or Swix KN22.
If things get very wet, klisters such as Rode Rossa and Guru Red excel.
Good luck to all the racers!
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