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.

Rhode Special Green Vs Multigrade blue

Date: January 3
Temp -5 in am +10 in the afternoon
Snow: Old tracks in the am with a little snow snow skied in. The course was regroomed at 11:00 am for the afternnon test at 3:00pm

In the AM both waxes worked extremly well. I could not feel much difference in the two, leading me to believe after racing Blue multigrade at the alumni race with mixed feelings the Blue multigrade is a wax that should be used at the bottom of its range in the northeast.

In the afternoon, not much changed I had a little slip out of the special green ski, but it still felt very racable, and had a much larger range than I expected. Overall these were two waxes glided very well in cold temps, which can be the biggest factor in cold weather as kick is not hard to find.

Rhode 0 vs Swix 60

Temp 33
Snow: Well packed tracks, with somewhat dry snow falling

The 60 provided kick superior to the 0, however the 0 was very kickable, and by far the free'er ski in the new snow making it a clear race day choice over 60 in this condition.

Bogburn

Temp: Approx. 25' F
Snow: Fairly moist new snow, Steep climbs became sugary

Three wax combinations came into play at today's race. I used Rhode Super Blue covered with the new 0 to -2. It was an extremely fast wax, and had very good kick in the woods, and fair kick in the sun. I also top coated with ski go c22. Early in the race up to 3k I was gaining on all nearby racers and tucking up and over climbs I would double pole on the second lap. overall my ski's were very good. I would have rather roto corked the c22. The two other waxes successfully used today were a combo of Swix 45 and 50, and Ski go LF violet. We had racers put down quality races on all three. leading me to believe, on the amateur level racer fitness on a course like this is far more important than wax, especially considering the sugary up hills that would shear even on a ski waxed far too warm.

Rhode hard wax 12-30 and 31

Working with the rhode hard wax line the last two days... Yesterday we saw new snow groomed that morning with temps around 10' and tried Blue multigrade. It had solid kick and glide, but I felt there may have been better waxes in the Alumni race. Like maybe Tylers rex.
Today was warmer around 28' on new snow groomed the night before. I used multigrade on one ski and super blue on the other. The super blue ski ran very well with ok but raceable kick, while the multigrade was slower, but had bombproof kick.

Swix KR50 VS Rex Universal

Craftsbury
Temp- 28' upon arrival, 24' upon departure
Snow condition- Manmade and natural transformed snow, with a light dusting of new snow gently mixed in with the high number of skiers

The rex universal was my pick after 2 kilometers of testing, it slightly outkicked the KR 50 and both ski's seemed to glide freely. I opted to give it a trial run on the BFA teams ski's. For a potion of the workout, the wax worked great. Good enough to climb the big hill between the fields for the best skiers. This was short lived though, on any ski's that had not been sanded (none of them had a base layer) the wax came off. My skies held better than the teams, and I was able to ski the day on both, but after an HR or more of skiing, the swix was more durable and was outkicking the rex. As temps dropped through the day neither ski performed as well as when I started. In the future Rex universal has to be applied with a base layer for any ski over 5k.

12/20 wax test

Craftsbury
Temp- 32-34'f
Snow type" Transformed, Glazed track, tilled granular skate surface

Test 1: Swix KR 50 and Rex Gold. The waxes both seemed to be useless  on the uphill glazed track sections. Outside the tracks they would provide decent kick. I did not notice much difference between the two. I was a little disappointed in the Rex gold, The wax was designed for man made snow with a glazed track in this temp range.

Test 2: Swix KR 50 with KR 60 mixed in, against Toko orange and Multi range mixed. These two both performed better and had some kick in the glazed track, fair kick in the none glazed track and could climb all but the steepest hills outside the track. This was good enough for an interval, and ok for todays course, but if we were to race on a course with more sustained climbing i would have been very concerned

Test 3: Toko orange and Rex OV. Both waxes kicked much better, and with a little shorter kick zone could glide against test 2 still on Perrys ski's.

Test 4: This was a test for the team. We applied toko orange on all the skis, and added some Approx %30 of either toko Multirange or Swix KR50. Most liked the combo early in the workout, but later lost kick. This was due to trapped ice in the wax. Conditions were so fast in the tracks, ice on ice was still fast, but ice on ice does not kick.

Conclusion. We made a good call for a short race, but in anything 5k or longer, we might have really struggled to find something. Maybe this is were the Rex gold would come into play. The sacrifice for something perfect would have led to a poor choice late in the race. I talked to Zak Caldwell who had tested a wax with Noah Hoffman from a company Perry had heard of decades ago, They have developed something new that was working and had beat all there other tests. I'll be doing more research on that wax for sure.

Kick wax test 12-17

Craftsbury
Temp-Just below freezing
Snow condition- Mostly new fallen the night before, tracks were well packed but slightlty soft and glazing in spots.

I tested Guru red and Rhode topline 0-2, Perry skied on 0-2 and Rhode Multigrade to start but after one lap swiched to swix VR 60. He found the multigrade did have better kick. I found Both my ski's worked well, the 0-2 slipped some but it was a race wax choice for me. The Guru worked well but was a tad slower. When comparing my skis to perry's he had maybe slightly better kick could glide with me on the long flats and downhills, but his skies would slow down considerably on the transition from climb to flat. This made the 0-2 a clear race day choice for all but the most novice skier. A VR60 covered with 0-2 might have performed well. This was perrys first day on classic ski's, my second.

12-16

Glide observations for Craftsbury eastern cup
Temp- approx 28'
Snow type- Mostly manmade with a half in of new snow falling throughout the day.

Damian used Homenkol HF red, dripped in some Swix HF 8 BD and top coated with Swix turbo
I used Homenkol HF Black/Red and top coated with Toko Red

Damian had a nice feel and he said he could run up on most guys. Jessica put down a nice race as well, likely on the same wax. A great race with an earlier start. My ski's had a static feel, they woud run with most but had no advantage.

Conclusion: The Swix Turbo might be a better option on this surface. Or The Bolducs confidence was high enough to make the ski's go fast

Rex OV Klister, Craftsbury 12-2

Air temp: low 40's
Snow Condition: A Manmade loop with 2-3 inches of new snow from earlier in the week that was lightly tilled in. The tracks appeared to be mostly man made granular snow, the tracks generallly remained firm despite the warm airtemp, A few spots softened and some of the tracks had a firm wet icy glaze.

Test length per trial: 4-5 k

Point of the test: I wanted to test Rex OV against all other waxes today. It has a good reputation and the label on the box said for course wet snow 0'-10' C, perfect for today

Test 1: OV vs Swix KR 70
       In this test both waxes kicked well, and glided well on the longer downhills and flats, The 70 did not transition well and had a very sluggish feel after a climb going into a downhill. The 70 was a poor choice and a good education on snow temp vs air temp as the snow was likely too cold for this wax

Test 2: OV vs Rex Universal
     For the fist 2k of this test I found these two waxes to be identical, until jumping out of the tracks on a colder downhill section of the course. Outside the tracks on the looser colder snow the universal seemed slower

Test 3: OV vs Rex Gold
      Rex gold was the best gliding wax of the day. It could be kicked, but required more effort than the OV

Test 4: OV vs Toko spray on orange
       The waxes seemed to have equal kick and glide, by feel I could not tell a differnce, however during this trial I developed some lower back pain, enough that I thought I might have been done for the day, But to my suprise it went away in the next test. That made me question the effort I was putting into making this wax work. Possibly a thicker application from a tube would have given me more confidence. This wax has performed well for our team and other high school teams in the past so it will remain a race day wax to test for sure.

Test 5: OV vs Swix KR 60
         Like I said in test 4, my back pain went away in this test, the 60 had the
       best feel of the day, I felt like I could have skied another 20k, however I felt it might have been a touch slower than the OV.

Race day Pick:

Long technical course and semi fit racers : Swix KR 60
For the fit racer on most courses: Rex OV
For a sprint: Rex OV mixed with Rex gold ( an educated guess )

Welcome

Welcome to my Secret wax Blog, Which since its online isn't really a secret. Considering each wax is labeled I guess anyone reading this has to trust me more than a wax company, so they can take a chance. On the right are my go to waxes, the ones that tend to give me a predictable result since I have used and tested most of these hundreds of times. I am however testing new waxes all the time. This season I am testing a line of Rex klisters and Rhode Hard waxes, as well as a a few others I have stashed away in my test box. I hope to record all my tests here for your referance as well as mine.