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Black and Blue
This eblast is something I have discussed with just about every wax tech I have worked with or near in the past 10 years of racing World Cup. When do I use black wax?
Black wax has come a long way in the past decade or so. Graphite waxes, gave way to Molybendum, which was followed by Wolfram / Tungsten and DLC is Toko's black wax. Before I get into why Toko's DLC is superior... and I am not just saying that because I have a Toko sticker on my snowboard. I'll touch on the basics and leave out the history.
Black waxes are used for two main purposes: anti-static and as a sheer lubricant for dirt and any abrasive that is in the snow, like salt, dye, pine needles, bamboo, gates, tourists etc...
Some wax techs like to avoid black wax all together in new snow since there is hardly any dirt. But if I am competing in the southern alps or Dolomites, then the storms tend to pick up Sahara sand and well. I need to iron on black wax for those days.
(Note to the reader - If you are a technician on World Cup SBX and I am competing against your athlete, stop; I do not want to educate you.)
Toko's newest Black wax is "DLC". DLC means for Diamond Like Carbon. This is an amorphous form of carbon that is actually "Diamond Like". Meaning it is extremely hard on a molecular level. It has excellent anti static and dirt repelling properties as well.
Last week I was in Pitztal. The snow temperatures were -20C with a humidity of about 8% in the morning and it reached about 18% in the afternoon. This was the lowest water content I have ever seen in the snow. When snow is this cold and dry, it is like riding on broken glass. This was new snow too. The two main factors slowing a base down here are the abrasive crystals and the static electricity in the snow.
The best solution for combating really cold snow is to make a base as hard as possible. We have our Toko Blue wax for this, we can add some XC cold, to also harden the wax and base as well. But there is still static.
One of my favorite methods of making my wax more durable and harder is by using DLC as a liberal cold crayon on my base while my iron is heating up to 150C to melt the blue on. The cold crayon of the DLC black isn't going to soften up your blue, but it will still give the anti-static properties you need, help harden the blue wax even more. And since the snow crystals are so aggressive they almost need to be treated as an abrasive rather than snow. So the little bit of black wax goes a long way on making that base greasy.
Cheever
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