Klister testing during the week of Feb 8^th 2009.

Sunday Feb 8^{th -}   Hardack; the night before was above freezing with temps in the upper 30‘s with some rain. The track was set at 9:30 at about 32 degrees. Test time was 2:30pm the temp had dropped just below freezing with the tracks  surprisingly dry and fast.  In anticipation of a little wetter course I waxed with a layer of  Swix KR 60, and also Rhode Multigrade. Both waxes proved to have little to no kick, without  good bounding technique. Simply striding even with good form was not enough. I added some KR 40 to both ski’s to stop any icing issues, but the ski’s remained about the same. Glide on all accounts was good.

Sunday  Feb 8^th- Eastern Cup at Trapps- Similar to condition and grooming to that of hardack, Probably tilled better, but also skid on much more, there was a small snow squall during the day. The NWVT team tried Rex Grip tap, and had very little grip. It was rumored the Swix KR50 wax the wax of Choice.

Sunday Feb 8^th-  The Swix wax wizard recommend  KR 30 + KR 50 for these conditions.

Monday Feb 9^th- Dickinsons; Temps fell into the single digits overnight and rose into the upper teens by test time at 3:30. The course was scratched up in the morning and tracks set in ungroomed snow next to the old course. Several waxes were tested today. Swix VR 30 on sanded classic ski’s performed very well on all types of snow including the soft snow and the hard packed old snow, even on some new blown snow in some old tracks. Glide was excellent, Kick outstanding. Rhode Muligrade was a close second with just a little less kick due to minor icing. Glide was good due to the super fast conditions. VR 40 seemed to have good kick, Durability was an issue and  it iced similar to the Multigrade. Anything warmer iced and then scrapped of from the abrasive snow.  Combi ski’s and unsanded classic ski’s lost all there wax within 3k. In conclusion I would use the KR 30. If it was a little warmer or the temp was rising I would consider using Rhode Mulitgrade or the KR 40, Taking care that my ski’s were well sanded if conditions were to remain under 30 degrees. Perhaps Ironing in a thin layer of green would help the combi ski’s.

Tuesday 8:00am Looks like a great day for testing. The current temp is still is around 16 degrees. A 9 degree warm up is expected from 9:00am to 11:00am. Perfect for testing. I plan to test again at 3:30 during practice. I did some homework on the Swix wax wizard and will use thier recommendations as well in today’s testing.  Here is what they recommend. These recommendations are for Transformed corn snow.  21’F - KR20 + KR 40, 24’F- KR20+KR40+KR50, 26’F up to 30”F- KR30+KR50, 32’F KR 30+KR50+KR60.

Tuesday 10:30 am Dickinsons Air temp upper twenties snow still cold from overnight. I tested the KR 30 and Rhode Multigrade from yesterday. Neither wax felt great. Although the Rhode worked real well in the tracks with a little powder. I think if the snow was newer or well tilled this would have been a good wax.

Tuesday 11:30- Air temp just above freezing, snow starting to catch up.  I tested a KR 20 + Kr 40 + Kr 50 Ski. This ski worked great and skied well up to 2:00 in the afternoon, during which time the snow gained some moisture and softened slightly. Another ski that worked well was the KR 30 + Kr 50 ski. Around the 2:00pm mark this ski worked best.  I also tested a Kr 20 + Kr 40  ski during this time. This ski had excellent kick for the whole 2.5hrs, but was a little more draggy than the 20, 40, 50 ski. This could have been due to a kick zone that was waxed to long. But maybe the silver in the 50 improved glide. More testing of 40 needs to be done to be sure.  At 2:00 I tested a 30,50,60 ski with good results.

Ski practice 3:45- It just finished raining, the trail was wetter with some freezing rain.  We waxed some ski’s with a 40, 50 mix with some 60 underfoot. When we heard it was raining we switched to straight 60. We also applied a kr 20 binder to all the combi ski’s. Reaction from the team was mixed, the 60 ski’s were a little better, earlier mix not good, but skiable. I had a 30, 50 ski on and it was ok, but not raceable. My other ski was the 20, 40, 50 ski from earlier. It had lost most of its kick. I added a little bit of KR 70 and that helped, but was still marginal. Durability on the Combi ski’s was much improved. We applied strait 70 to Nick’s ski’s and he lost most of it, but did find that it worked well when he had it.  The Swix Wax Wizard recommendation was KR50 Mixed with KR 70. On all accounts during the week the Wax wizard nailed it.

State meet report

Temps: Fairly cold temps overnight dropped the snow temp into the teens, however the air temp by test time was in the mid twenties, with temps rising into the low thirties as the day progressed.

Snow: Fairly new snow, two days old.

Wax: In the morning I tested a wide array of waxes, Swix 60, Rhode 0-2, Red Guru, 0-1, 0, top line 0

I raced the earliest races before 11 on Rhode 0, as it was gliding better than the top line 0. However all racers after 11 up until the end of the day raced on top line 0, with no complaints and great results.

The Guru red was equally as strong in the morning test, but was not used due to the unknown range of the wax

Pre States

Temp: 32'
Snow: Dry powder for 32'

Swix 60', Rhode 0', Rhode top line 0' and Rhode top line 0-2

Swix 60: Great Kick, glide good on long runs, poor glide of quick transitions

Rhode 0': Near Perfect

Rhode 0' top line: Great kick, good glide on long runs, poor glide in transitions, and not free on uphill strides

Rhode 0-2 top line: Awesome glide, very free when striding, but had to ski well and compress.

Pick- The better skiers would be wise to us the 0-2, skiers wanting a little more kick could use the traditional 0' and still put down a good race. Other waxes to test would have been Rhode Multigrade and Rhode topline 0-1

Flying moose

Temp: Upper 20's, near 30'
Snow: Powder, damp almost glazing snow
Wax: Members of NWVE skied on Toko Red and Rhode 0' and the Rhode top line 0' All were successful  I tested the two 0' waxes, both performed extremely well. Top line felt a little faster off the transitions, and  as temps rose, held its kick longer. In a second test following the race I tested top line 0' against Ski go HF yellow. Temps were rising and the tracks had started to glaze. The ski go HF yellow seemed to kick well, but the top line 0' was free'er and still the wax to race on. I would definitely like to test the HF yellow around or just above 32' in the range of Swix 60' and 70'

Craftsbury Marathon

Temp: 1-12'F
Snow: Man made and tranformed natural snow very well tilled, in a few section the tracks were down to ice or courser grained snow.

The wax I used today was spray on green klister, covered with KR30. This worked well for me, early in the race it was not kicking as well as I would have liked, but as the course got skied in and loose snow started to fill the tracks, the ski's improved. I tried to fix the lack of kick by adding some Rhode special blue, but this created far too much drag. Others tried similar products with similar results. The trouble was the course was very transformed so a softer wax would have kicked better, but the tiller did such a nice job, there were allot of sharp snow crystals in the mix with cold temps. Others tried toko blue, and found it worked at least as well and possible a touch better. Steve Wright went outside the box and Used Rhode Chola as a binder, covered it with rex Blue Klister and then appled two layers of toko white hard wax and added a final layer of Mint for more speed. He had an excellent race and liked his ski's. Today the spray on green binder worked well for me as I lost less wax than those applying straight blue.

HS pursuit/Jackson 30k

Friday night pursuit
Temp: 3-10'
Snow: Mostly manmade tilled powder, with some areas of the course having some tilled in ice.

Wax: Toko Base green ironed in the day before, with a second layer corked in on rae day. The results from the race were great. This wax was able to climb all of the terrain on the course, some schools opted to cover the base green with a hard wax. Which gave them a little better glide. I feel this was a slight advantage at the start of the race, as we may have been only slightly slower. Following the start we were able to outclimb many schools, and passing on the downhills, due to the number of racers was not likely and may have only enhanced the likely hood af a crash. This was the wax of the night in my opinion.

Jackson 30k
Temp: 5- 12'
Snow: Natural old tilled powder

Wax: Toko Base green ironed in the day before, covered with Damian's convented Swix VR 30. The Swix rep had tested VR 30 and went for somthing faster. The ski's worked well today, producing a woman's championship, and placed 2 of our men in the top 3, behind only Kris Freeman. The Swix skiers, had gambled with fast ski's and placed there top male in 13th. I skied with the top woman for some of the race, outclimbing her, and passing her as she rewaxed. Her ski's were slightly faster than mine. Thier gamble may have paid off in a 5k, but not in a 30k.

Middlebury HS race problems

Temp- 10-20' F

Today conditions were an ice base with 1-3 inches of old powder tilled into a light amount of tilled granular.

the overnight temps were in the single ditgits with the test temp around 10' and it warmed to around 20' upon departure.

This was a high school race. On both ski's I tested Toko spray on green klister, and then covered one with swix green, the other with Rhode Multigrade Blue. Both kicked well, so I went with Rhode with the wider range for the race wax. This is what the Boys team raced on, with the exeption of one racer we struggled against most of the other team's as far as kick went and I did not noitice a dramatic advantage in glide as a spectator. The Girls team applied Swix Blue under foot, and with an exeption or two they had smilairly poor results like the boys. For the JV race I had them apply extra Blue and torched it in as I noticed the Varsity ski's with little exeption had lost nearly all of there kick wax and were down to base green Klister binder. This worked a little better, and we had some skiers do quite well, but it was still not the best wax in the race by far. I talked to the team, who I had felt had the best ski's in the race. They used Skare Blue Klister made By Rhode as there binder,a softer klister than what we were on, likely applied thicker than the spray on waxes, they then covered with Rhode Super Blue for the advanced kids and Rhode Multigrade for the more Novice races. Both being much softer and well above the race temperature race waxes we used.

Had I had more time to test, and talked to the other coach sooner, I would have liked to try a Klister warmer than what they had used, covered with a colder hard wax on top, as mentioned earlier this winter at a swix wax clinic. Another thought I had was the toko green hard wax binder ironed in abd covered might have also performed very well, as the problem we had was not in the wax shearing from the base, but the kick wax shearing off the green klister.