Kick Waxing Tip from Marty Hall eBlast 6 December 2011 Nordic

Former US and Canadian National
Team Coach Marty Hall
Kick Waxing Tip from Marty Hall

Here is something I've just started doing with Toko Base Green. I did this twice last year with huge success - both for kick and glide. I decide on the kick wax of the day for kick, let's say blue to make it easy. Then I'll put on a coat of the base green and heat it with a heat gun and then cork it in real good. Then I add another coat of the base green for the needed thickness to make it thru the race - thicker - and cork it well. Then I add another thin layer of the Base Green and cover it with the wax of the day (Blue). I cork them in together. I add another light coat of Base Green and cover it with a coat of Blue and cork them in together again. I like to recork the skis outside when they are colder to get them even smoother.

Man, I had great kick and a ton of wax left at the end of the Birkie and it was very aggressive snow. I will do more of this as I think manmade snow or transformed snow reacts very positively to this combination. Great kick and great wear!

See you this winter,

Marty

(Note from Ian Harvey: I think this works especially well in snow that is especially abrasive or partially transformed or for very long races)

Bozeman SuperTour Report from CXC

This weekend, the SuperTour stopped in Bozeman, Mont. for three races in two days. Bridger Ski Foundation hosted the events, held at Bohart Ranch. Snow was sparse and the race course had to be shoveled and cobbled together, but in the end, we got the races in -- respect to all those who worked so hard to make the events happen.

Saturday had two skate races -- a sprint qualifier and a 5/10km -- separated by 90 minutes. The tight schedule meant that completely re-waxing between events wasn't really an option, so we needed to make skis that could handle two events. Temperature often determines wax choice (about -12C snow on Saturday), but with the thin snow cover, the potential for the snow to be dirty was there, so we definitely waxed hard. We prepped all the skate skis with LF Blue, HF Blue and Jetstream Blue -- it fit the temperature, but more importantly, it wouldn't attract much dirt. (As it turned out, the snow ended up pretty clean.) During the sprints and women's 5km, Jetstream Red Bloc was running well, but by the time the men went, the snow was skied in slightly more, and HelX Red was flying.

Sunday featured was slightly warmer (-8C snow) with a little bit of new snow, but the humidity was high and the tracks glazed quickly. Men raced at 10am, and women at 11:30am. For glide, we prepped both men and women with LF Blue. The men raced on HF Blue and Red mixed 2:1, covered with Jetstream powder in the same ratio. The women raced on HF Blue and Red 1:1 with the same Jetstream cocktail as the men. Kick was tricky -- a binder (in this case, Green hardwax binder torched in with a couple of drops of Green klister) was needed to make the kick solid.

One of the Toko Tech Team (Jerry from the Twin Cities) told me last week in West Yellowstone that when it's glazing, a layer of Yellow hardwax covered with the wax of the day is usually really good, and he was right -- we ran a short (8-10") kicker of the new Yellow, covered carefully with the new Red, and it made the skis grip in the glazed areas without being too slow in the powder tracks.

Race results from the weekend: Jessie Diggins, 1st FS Sprint, 1st FS 5km, 1st CL 10km. Caitlin Gregg, 2nd FS Sprint, 2nd FS 5km, 4th CL 10km. Jennie Bender, 6th FS 5km, 6th CL 10km. Brian Gregg, 7th FS Sprint, 3rd FS 10km, 5th CL 15km. Santi Ocariz 6th CL 15km.

Jason Cork, Head Coach CXC Elite Team

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