We believe that a dedication to sport is a good thing for human development, and we believe that human development continues when racers are adults, and compete at elite levels. While we’re proud of the work we’ve done with elite athletes – Kris, Noah, and Tad, in particular – we’re even more proud of who those guys have become since retiring as racers.

Tad is the new head coach and program director for the Durango Nordic Ski Club, having taken over from his twin brother Evan this season. Tad has strong ideas about the role of sport in development, and the right reasons for being involved at any level of sport. Here’s what he’s got to say on the subject:

There seems to be a lot of controversy going around about a pipeline. Some are against it because it’s going to ruin a pristine landscape and there is no need for it; saying only the greedy corporate types are in favor of it. And these cooperate types contend that it’s not only a positive, but necessary. Ah what to do?

Oil? What? I was talking about the development of cross-country skiers…

A pipeline is dark and insular, rushing its contents to an endpoint, unexposed to the outside world. It’s hard to escape and it’s even harder to get back in. There is light at the end the tunnel, gold and shimmering, the size of a medal in the distance. You believe it’s there, but can you reach it?

The pipeline metaphor is restrictive and unrealistic. I prefer to view skier development like a road of the yellow brick variety.

Why?

Because, because, because, because, BECAUSE… of all of the wonderful things it does! The road might meander, and there might be detours and roadside attractions. You know this road is going to take you somewhere, and it’s up to you to decide what is waiting at the end.

While on this road I hope you gain a brain. The ability to think for yourself, to make your own decisions, and to learn all of the life lessons that training and racing can teach you.

Your journey on the road will provide a heart; a strong one from enjoying one of the hardest sports in the world. This strong heart will give you the ability to go places. Training in the snow, ice, sleet, hail, and bitter cold rain of Vermont; you will gain the heart to work, to meet the challenge. Combine this with a brain you will be able to work hard wisely.

And there is courage. Rawr! The courage to try, the courage to risk, the courage to win, the courage to lose, and the courage to look in the mirror and see what you can do to improve. These qualities are rare and not freely given; they need to be earned.

The road made of yellow bricks isn’t perfect. I hear monkeys like to fly around it harassing people down below. Hey that’s life everywhere, the trick is to ignore the shrieking. While taking this road I would recommend good walking shoes. Ruby is in season and looks nice against a yellow background. If you need to, just click those heals together and go home. The home where you developed as a skier. The home that views you as a person. The home that will always be there for you. There is no place like it.

As you progress along there is a chance you will come to two divergent roads. It is your choice which one you want to travel, and the hope is that skiing has made all the difference. But that’s a whole different literary reference.

The ski racing world is facing big changes with the inevitability of fluoro-free racing for most skiers in the very near future. The removal of fluoro products from the race preparation catalog represents a considerably bigger change than the introduction of fluorinated products back in the late ‘80s – mostly because the introduction was gradual, and the development of fluoro products has been continual since their introduction. When “Cera F” was first introduced, it was recognized as a dominant advantage in wet conditions, but it took years for fluorinated paraffin products to become the norm in racing, and for fluoros to permeate every level of ski preparation. Now we’re looking at the possibility of eliminating these ingredients altogether, and very abruptly.

All of this has emerged very rapidly because of the growing awareness of the health and environmental dangers of fluoro materials. Part of this process has been the introduction of government regulations governing the manufacture and distribution of fluoro materials, and an uptick in the enforcement of existing regulations. These regulations and enforcements have made it more difficult for the industry to get fluorinated products to end-users and generated a lot of speculation about the future of the industry.

There is also an increasing prevalence of fluoro regulations in racing at the grass roots level. Many races and series have made the decision to ban or limit the use of fluoros. While people cite many reasons for favoring a fluoro ban, including expense and fairness, the universal theme is that health and environmental concern are sufficient reason to phase-out fluoro products ahead of the timeline that has been established by the regulatory process.

These grass-roots efforts toward fluoro-free racing haven’t always been pointed in a logical or consistent direction, and therefor haven’t had a large impact on the market or the industry. But the proposed top-down ban of all fluoro products by FIS has put the matter of competition regulations into very sharp focus. This ban was announced by the FIS Council on November 27^th, effective for the 2020/21 season. The FIS cites the same health and environmental concerns that many others have expressed. But one additional concern for the FIS has is that teams traveling across international borders with trucks full of fluoro materials are likely to be breaking laws, once the REACH 2020 regulations come into effect. The importation of fluoro materials is legally equivalent to the manufacture of fluoro materials, and the FIS is understandably concerned that their regulations (or lack of regulations) might result in wax trucks getting detained at borders. Vegard Ulvang commented on this at some length in a Nov 1 Nordic Nation podcast interview with Jason Albert from Fasterskier, summarizing the situation with the statement, “having a system where we are breaking national laws isn’t good”. Vegard has a good point.

While most grass-roots efforts to limit fluoro use have set arbitrary limits the proposed FIS ban is absolute. There are huge issues with testing and enforcement, and it’s difficult to imagine a scenario that doesn’t result in accusations of cheating, legal challenges, and all sorts of other predictable issues. Nevertheless, a top-down FIS ban would remove any ambiguity for racers who race under the FIS umbrella, which includes any USSA competition. Leaving aside difficulties with testing and enforcement, let’s assume that starting next year, using fluoros of any kind in racing means that you’re cheating. You can do that if you want, but you’ll have to live with it. And our job, in the industry, is to do our best to provide you with alternatives.

Overall, it’s clear to us that the writing is on the wall. There may be delays in bringing the FIS ban into effect, and there are likely to be plenty of complications and arguments along the way. But it’s going to happen, and it’s going to happen soon. It may surprise some people to learn that we don’t see this as a bad thing for our business. While fluoro waxes are expensive, and therefor generate a fairly high amount of revenue, there are a number of reasons that eliminating fluoro waxes from ski racing actually helps our business. Here’s the way we see it:

• People will still test waxes and look for the fastest solution. The difference between the top performing fluoro free waxes is roughly equivalent to the difference between the top fluorinated waxes.
• Fluoro Free race products are not going to be as cheap as people might assume. We’re not exactly going back to 1986 here. Wax companies are working hard to come up with new solutions, and the prices we see as those solutions come to market will look pretty familiar to people who have been buying fluorinated waxes.
• These modern fluoro free race waxes will not be as fast as fluoros. I’ve heard people say “it’s just a matter of time – they’ll come up with some replacement.” Forget about it. It won’t happen. Fluoro free ski wax will not boost the performance of your skis the way the fluoros do. So even though the incentive to chase the best solutions is the same, and the cost is similar, the wax solutions do not provide the same level of performance enhancement.
• And that last point means that ski selection, stonegrinding, and hand structure tools will become bigger pieces of the pie. You know where we make most of our income? Selecting and selling skis, and providing stonegrinding services. So… you see how it’s lining up for us?

In my September seasonal report email to customers I boldly predicted that the FIS would never institute a fluoro ban because they simply wouldn’t have the appetite for enforcement, and in spite of that I announced that we would dedicate new resources to testing fluoro free race solutions. Well, I sure misread that situation. But I got one thing right – we have dedicated way more resources to fluoro free testing; since snow has fallen, that’s pretty much all we’ve been doing. Noah Payne, our slave intern lead test coordinator has put in a lot of testing time already, and we’re learning things quickly. Some of what we’re learning is simply how much we have to learn about making fast race solutions in a fluoro free race environment. We don’t have a lot of answers so far, but we can outline the issues as we see them, and discuss the materials we’ve been working with. And that’s what we’ll do next.

When we first planned to dedicated resources to fluoro free testing, we figured we would be working with existing “Non-Fluor” products – waxes characterized chiefly by what they aren’t, and presented as a cheap solution to glide. But the wax industry has responded quickly to circumstances and has already started to offer waxes with various additives and enhancements to boost the performance beyond the level of basic paraffin. There have been no shortage of interesting products to test, including quite a few prototype waxes, and the dozen-or-so test sessions that we’ve run in the past five or six weeks have given us some good information and direction. But our testing hasn’t provided any sure-bet solutions, and it has raised as many questions as it’s answered. So, if you’re looking for a rock-solid recommendation on what fluoro free race waxes you need to buy… we’re probably going to disappoint you. You might also be disappointed to learn that the photo to the right is just a “stock photo” from our May visit to Sognefjell – it’s not a photo from fluoro free testing.

We will get into a brand by brand discussion of what is on offer, and in some cases, what is under development. That will follow in a series of more specific article discussing products. But first, we need to address some of the questions and complications that have come up in our testing and planning.

Is there a “replacement” for fluoro material?

One of the issues that we’ll all need to face is how to evaluate these fluoro free products in the context of the fluorinated race waxes that we’re familiar with. While some of the marketing and hype around fluoro-free race products offers these new waxes as “replacements”, or somehow equivalents to fluoro products, that’s an inappropriate expectation. There is no replacement for fluoro material. Fluorocarbons have incredible properties and have revolutionized modern life in all kinds of ways. The health and environmental concerns about the use of these products, and the resulting regulatory actions, are putting stresses on industry that absolutely dwarf our concern with ski wax. If a fluoro-replacement comes, it’s not going to come from the ski industry, because there are massive economic incentives for big companies with lots of money to solve this problem. Ski wax companies are not big, and they don’t have a lot of money. I haven’t spoken with any chemist who has any optimism that there is something undiscovered out there with the potential to replicate or improve on the physical and chemical properties of fluoro materials.

To be clear, the opportunity is there for fluoro-free ski wax products to out-perform the fluorinated products that we’ve been using. But these new waxes won’t do that by finding some secret fluoro-replacement. They’ll produce their own performance enhancements, and the most successful waxers in a fluoro free environment will learn to capitalize on the best qualities of the waxes that are available.

For that reason, we have not been comparing these fluoro free products to fluorinated waxes. In fact, we tested fluoro waxes at the opening Eastern Cup weekend, and that’s it – we haven’t even put fluoros on skis aside from those races. Our objective isn’t to beat fluoros; our objective is to find the best fluoro-free solutions we can find. Focusing on that has raised some interesting points about the way we test, and how we identify advantages.

What kind of speed can we make?

Fluoro waxes have remarkable properties at mid to high speeds. It’s generally pretty easy to start to differentiate fluoro waxes if you can do a high-speed glide-out. This is really almost a standard testing protocol for teams at this point – two testers will go out and glide their test skis down a hill side by side, picking a winner and a loser. The fluoro materials tend to really come into their own at higher speeds, and we know from experience that these high speed differences are meaningful on race skis.

With fluoro-free waxes we have a different feeling. While the fluoro products tend to show their differences at high speeds, fluoro free products tend to have a feeling of “terminal velocity”, where the performance clusters closer together as the speed comes up. On the other hand, there are really distinct differences between fluoro free products under load and pressure. We might call it “climbing speed”, but in fact it can be active skiing speed on all sorts of terrain. Some products seem to “jump” when you push on them, while others drag. This has always been something to keep an eye on – we’ve always avoided fluoro options that have poor climbing or active skiing feel. But in the absence of really big differences in passive high speed performance (tucking), the active skiing performance of the waxes becomes incredibly important. Clearly this is more of an issue, and also more of an opportunity, in skate racing than in classic racing, because in skating the ski is accelerated under pressure, and in motion.

While this active skiing component of speed is easy to understand, it’s not easy to test in a controlled way. If paired glide-outs or speed traps aren’t giving us the clarity and differentiation that we need, then we rely a lot more on feeling. Many teams are accustomed to working this way already, and in some ways it’s simpler; for one, you can wax single skis instead of pairs, and move through more products more quickly. On the other hand, we’ve often seen issues with “feel testing” because there is a tendency to focus on very low speed and low pressure performance – those initial sensations of static friction or free glide that you feel when you first start moving. We’ve found it necessary to bring the skis up to near race-level outputs to identify race-level performances. This is a hard (physically taxing) way to test skis, but it’s necessary for identifying the best race properties.

In short, I believe that successful waxers and teams are likely to need to evolve their testing protocols in order to identify some of the best available advantages in a fluoro-free race environment.

Finding advantages on race day

The US race community has evolved a long way since we were first involved. The amount of time testing and applying race wax on race day has gone way, way up. And the results have supported the time investment. However, the race culture and concerns around health and exposure with the race day use of fluoro materials have also generated lots of concerns. Athletes need to stay out of wax rooms, coaches need to wear protective gear, coaches don’t have the time or ability to easily interact with athletes, and many coaches have wondered if this is really the direction we all want for the sport.

As we look to the future, we want to see many of these issues resolved. We want coaches to be able to interact with athletes, and we want self-supported racers to be able to provide their own service without bringing along protective gear. There are really meaningful performance gains available if we can all focus more attention on skiing, and less on waxing. But we also want to see the ability to test solutions and find advantages on race day. Or, more to the point, we recognize that products that provide the ability to test and find advantages on race day will be adopted and used, because the waxers who have found advantages by testing on race day will continue to look for those advantages.

So, one of the factors that concern us as we work with these new race products is the timeline involved with application and finishing. Solutions that offer quick and easy work at the race venue provide opportunities on race day. Many of the most conventional (and most reliable) solutions for fluoro free glide are exactly what you would expect – paraffin waxes that you iron onto the ski. For the most part, teams have moved away from ironing paraffin on-site for a variety of reasons, not least of which is that ironed paraffin often requires quite a lot of time to stabilize and provide the highest level of performance. While ironed fluoro powders crystallize on the base and cool rapidly, forming a fast and high performing surface layer in very little time, ironed paraffin goes into solution in the base, and the base and paraffin together need time to cool and stabilize. Most teams have taken to applying paraffin in advance, away from the venue. But this doesn’t provide opportunity for race-day testing to find the best possible advantage. So, a bunch of our testing focus has been on application methods that allow us to quickly provide a tested advantage on-site.

What about durability?

One of the largest advantages to fluoro materials is the durability they provide. The use of cold application methods (liquid, and rub-on application) has really proliferated in recent years, in spite of long-standing concern that these solutions would provide poor durability. In most cases the durability of cold rub-on and liquid applications has surpassed our expectations, but there is good reason to assume that much of the surprising durability of these application methods comes from the fluoro content. So, while we’re concerned with identifying fast solutions, we’re also concerned with identifying solutions that stay fast throughout a race.

So far, our durability testing has been mostly anecdotal. Noah runs a test, with or without help, and then he continues to ski on the most interesting solutions, looking for relative changes in their performance. There are very good ways to run much more rigorous durability testing, but these require more organization and manpower. We will pursue that testing when we’ve got some more clarity in our early impressions and ideas on what might be viable. So far, we’ve been surprised by the apparent durability of some products and application methods that we haven’t expected to be very durable.

What about ski selection and grinding?

Finally, we have to be aware that many of the ski camber and grind selection decisions and recommendations that we’ve made for years have been focused on performance complementary to fluoro waxes. We don’t know exactly how a fluoro-free race environment will affect our work in these areas, but there is plenty of evidence that some solutions work perfectly with fluoros, and not so well without. The obvious example would be moderate cambers and grinds working well in wet snow with a highly fluorinated wax job, thanks to the hydrophobic qualities of the wax. This is a critical concern when it comes to racers with one-pair ski fleets trying to compete in all conditions.

But it’s also considerably more subtle than that. Will we need finer cold grinds, since the lack of fluoro is bound to make the base more interactive with the snow? Will the same wet grinds operate as efficiently absent the hydrophobic influence of fluoro coatings? Can we sacrifice some low speed performance in grinds to find more efficiency in the range of speeds and loads where we’re building speed in active skiing? Will the various highly successful clear base solutions work as well without support from fluoro coatings, or will the softer and more rubbery material interface make them feel too sticky?

All of these questions may sound peripheral to the simpler question of “which wax is fastest?”, but the testing and selections that we’ve all been making have always carried certain assumptions with them. As we work toward new solutions, the winning answers will be holistic. We can approach those answers in an evolutionary manner, allowing everything to drift into place naturally. Or else we can accelerate our understanding of the whole system by working to identify which kinds of speed should be targeted for the best start to finish results.

While we don’t have all of the answers about cambers, flex profiles, grinds, and base material, we’re pretty sure that additional ski options will become a bigger part of the game. In truth, we have divided feelings on this matter. It’s clearly not good for the sport that more skis and grinds will be required to be competitive. But it’s quite good for our business. One way to really exacerbate this issue would be to fully standardize waxing around a fluoro-free solution. In other words, mandate that everybody use the same fluoro free solution. This would place 100% of the emphasis on skis and grinds, and while that sounds like a goldmine, we fundamentally disagree that this would promote a higher level of fairness in the sport. An open opportunity to pursue wax solutions, and match solutions to the available skis and grinds, is the best way for a competitive field to find their own path to optimal performance. There will always be more than one method to make fast skis. The more pathways get shut-off, the more other pathways dominate the field. And when skis and grinds dominate the field completely, this gets to be a very expensive sport.

So, what wax should you buy?

I mean, isn’t that the point of all this – to sell you guys some awesome new fluoro free race products? Here’s the thing: We’ve made a lot of wax recommendations over the years, and the majority of them have been based on a lot of testing and race experience. We have generally stayed well clear of making recommendations on stuff that we don’t know pretty well. Because we have a well-established testing protocol, and some known standards that we really trust, a new product can work its way into the system quickly by beating known and proven products in a couple of tests. But right now, we’re starting from scratch, and we don’t have our long-standing test history to provide context. We’re basically reliant on our favorite Star NF line as a standard that we’re trying to beat.

So we’re not prepared to make strong recommendations – particularly with regard to one brand versus another brand. But in the coming days we will start to present our findings on a brand by brand basis, and discuss what’s available, what’s not yet available but coming soon, and what we know about it. The bottom line is, we’ve got a lot to learn. We’re eager to share what we know. But the best we’ll be able to do this year, is to invite you to join us in the process of testing and learning many of these new products.

We’ve been too busy in the shop for me to find time to write-up the articles I’ve got in mind for a brand-by-brand review of the fluoro-free products we’ve been testing. We’re continuing to learn about these products as we continue to test, and we’re receiving new products to test all the time. I’m not prepared to make an outright declaration of what the best fluoro free products are, and that’s likely to change the next time it snows anyway. But I did want to provide at least a snap-shot of where we are in our testing, and our thinking.

This weekend we’ll be attending some of the “biggest” fully fluoro-free race events on the calendar (for us) to-date this season. We’ll be at the Craftsbury Marathon (and Masters National Championships)  on Saturday, and the Vermont EHSC/J2 Qualifier on Sunday, and we’ll be doing our best to put good skis in the races. The forecast is kind, and the weekend looks like it will be OK for fluoro free.

Given the building market interest, and the specific demand around the coming weekend, we figured we’d float this video out, in lieu of more comprehensive write-ups, for the time being.

The American Birkebeiner is a phenomenon. As an event it clearly transcends the category of “ski race”. It is a major moving force in the lives of thousands of people, and in the ski market. Like other major citizen races around the world – the Norwegian Birkebeiner, the Vasaloppet, the Marcialonga, the Engadin – it generates reverberations felt by all skiers, and precipitates the kind of panicked frenzy that is usually reserved for Christmas shopping. It’s like black friday with waxing.

It’s that waxing part that seems to fuel a lot of the panic, and I understand it. After years of working on skis, I’ve learned how to not panic about the wax. The answer is testing. And the problem is that Birkie skiers don’t have an opportunity to test. I think some panic is warranted. If I were signed up to do that race and had no ability to test in the days leading up, I wouldn’t be able to sleep with only 108 hours until race time. I would be obsessing about wax.

I’m here to help you try to sleep.

Even at the highest professional levels, long distance racing service is a whole different thing than World Cup service. It’s a game of safe calls and best average solutions. In the past few years we’ve taken a family vacation to Lillehammer during Norwegian Birkebeiner week, and we’ve managed to ski the course the Friday before the big event. That’s the best way to test for a marathon! Go ski the course the day before! But since you can’t do that, you can remember the lessons that skiing the course can teach you. You’re going to see a lot of different stuff out there, and it will be different at the end than at the beginning, and ski performance is likely to vary. What you want is a safe solution that works well.

The upcoming Birkie is not going to be one of the more challenging ones – the super cold, dry, fresh snow that won’t compact, or the even more fearsome slushfest. The course is well packed and well refrigerated. The grooming plan is to hit everything Friday night, and be off it by midnight (according to our spies). The Korteloppet events on Friday do offer the possibility of some softening in the second half, but based on the current conditions the locals (Jeff Tumbleson, our spy) expects a hard and fast tracks (standard disclaimers apply for later waves). Jeff thinks it’s a good year for record times.

Overnight low temps are looking moderate, and daytime highs just just crest the freezing point. The safe calls, sitting here in Vermont on Monday evening, are:

HF blue range paraffin (Star VF6, Vauhti UF Cold, etc).

Vauhti LDR powder.

We could make this a lot more complicated, but it’s not necessary.

Kick wax is also pretty basic. The snow is a bit abrasive, but nothing that a standard well-applied binder and a ski with some carrying capacity can’t handle. I would recommend:

Vauhti Super Base

A cushion of Rode VO (length dependent on your pocket shape – put the VO in the high part of the pocket)

Rode -1/-7 (now called B17) kick wax.

For the Korteloppet on Friday I would recommend much the same. The classic events on Friday run a bit later, with starts from 10:40 to 11:15. But the overnight lows ahead of the race are much colder, and the daytime high is a bit lower.

For both days, if the snow is older and kick is looking tricky, then a cushion of Start Oslo Blue is a good bet for really strong kick. Oslo blue is seldom really fast, but the klister ingredient in there can provide a lot of security. I would still cover it with the -1/-7.

For several months in 2016 & 2017, Tad Elliott lived with us. I remember it as a particularly idyllic time. I’ve assumed that’s because I was high as a kite on narcotic painkillers for most of it, having broken my leg. But Amy and Gunnar both remember it fondly as well, and we still call the guest-room “Tad’s room”. It turns out that Tad has also found good things to remember about those months living and training in the East. Here’s his latest rumination:

Dear Zach,

I miss Vermont. I miss how nothing is ever dry, especially my towel. You wake up sticky. Move too quickly; you’re sweaty. Go outside; instantly soggy.

I miss those cute furry green things you call mountains. I like how you can climb the fire towers on top. I don’t know what genius arsonist people are worried about. Starting a fire here seems like a valuable skill, not a concern.

I miss whatever fly season it currently is; black, deer, or fruit. I miss not being able to tell if I am being messed-with or given valuable advice:
“Black flies can only bite as adults, the babies haven’t grown their teeth yet.”
“Hey, wear this tape on the back of your head to catch the deer flies.” Um… is that tape how you spot/make fun of westerners?

I miss strong conversations. The first time I was in one I got frustrated and said I was done getting yelled at. The man looked back at me and said “Oh, I thought we were just talking.”

I miss a good wintry mix and the accompanying assurance that, “this is base builder” and, “It’s -1 degree C from being really good skiing.”

I miss the arrogance of locals. Everything is better here. If I close my eyes it sounds like I am home, but people keep saying Vermont instead of Colorado.

I miss how driving 30 minutes for groceries is standard, but two and a half hours in a car is a hike. More than five hours is an all-day affair; sure seems that way when you pass through 4 different states.

I miss walking into a store and having zero people acknowledge my existence, it feels like I just stepped into a scene from ghost. That man that resembles the Grim Reaper’s truck driving brother just looked right through me. I miss how that same man pulled over to the side of the road, unloaded an impressive amount of tools and fixed my car. He was soft-spoken, caring, and didn’t expect anything in return. I never learned his name.

I miss the drive down 89 from Burlington to Putney in the fall, and being shocked and calmed by its beauty. I miss General Stores. A real mom and pop operation where you can order lunch while picking up an axe, a prescription, milk, cheese, a wedding dress, and maple syrup.

I miss dirt roads. I miss driving them in an El Camino, and the sounds; low exhaust, rumble of the tires and listening to Patsy Cline. I miss my copilot, Gunnar, and the comments we would get. My favorite came from a young man closer to Gunnar’s age than mine: “Cool, my girlfriend’s ex-fiancé used to drive an El Camino.”

I miss farm stands on the side of the road, and how you leave cash for what you take. I miss Mary’s bread and John’s homebrew. I miss John’s excitement in the spring, and touring all the sugaring operations when the sap runs.

I miss how tough Vermonters are. I hear the weather makes them that way.

I miss skiing in self-groomed backyards, woodlots, hayfields, and sugarbushes. I miss the difficult terrain and narrow trails; being scared the downhills. I miss classic-only trails. I miss small Nordic centers, still heated by a woodstove. You leave the trail fee in a coffee can, or you hand it to the owner. I miss how if you want a grooming report you call, Oz, Ian or Pete. I miss living at Caldwell Sport and having perfect coffee and skis every morning before training. Most of all I miss my friends.

Tad Elliott has apparently been in a process of self-reflection.  Is it possible that self awareness is something we could all use more of…? Nah. I don’t see it. Here’s Tad:

I don’t know how this happened. One of my fears has now come true. I’m a tool. A full-on walking Colorado stereotype. That person I used to make fun of is now looking back at me in the mirror with their unemployment hair style and a razor that has been furloughed.

It didn’t happen right away. I didn’t seek this lifestyle was to claim I am better than other people. It all seems justifiable. I’ll try to explain, but it might just make it worse.

How do I fit the stereotype, you ask. Well, take a look outside; see how every other car is an older truck with a camper shell and Kuat bike rack? Mine is the white one. I need a car that big to hold all of my sport gear and friends, and to handle the snow and dirt roads of Colorado.

Yes, I do consider myself a multisport athlete and was pretty good at one point. Did I ever make an Olympics? Well no; see they used a different qualification in 2010, and I got sick in 2014, and in 2018… oh, you have heard this before?

I know I bragged about how you don’t need to drive to ride bikes in Durango but sometimes you have to transport them, and Moab is less than three hours away. The rack seemed like a good investment. Kuat? They offered the best E.P. and it really is a nice rack for moving my Specialized Stump Jumper. Yes, the big red S, and yes, it is worth more than the car it is attached to. I bought a Specialized because Ned Overend is from Durango and he and Specialized have been so good to me and our community. I do know Ned and consider him a friend. Hilarious guy.

That tail fin sticking out of the bed of my truck is a S.U.P. S.U.P. stands for standup paddle board, and when you are using it you are S.U.P.ing. I understand the urge to kick me in the shin. Please don’t, I didn’t create the acronym. Yeah, they are expensive, but I have a friend who owns a river sport shop and we worked out a deal…

Because I am wearing a pink lulu lemon top you just assume I do yoga. It is true, but I don’t Instagram it, or walk or ride my townie bike to classes. I do it solo in my room for myself. It is a great tool to feel better and I am beat up from all those years of racing and crashing, and… what are you looking at up there? Did a Peregrine falcon just fly by? An eye roll… is that like an exercise for your eyes?

No, I don’t have a trust fund, I support these habits by working multiple jobs; bike mechanic, ski coach, wax tech, and I am also a student. At 31 I still don’t have an undergrad. Too immature and busy adventuring in my youth to be bothered by class. The degree is Sports Administration. Yes, it is a real BS degree at Fort Lewis, and I do think it will be useful and worthwhile.

Thanks for the beer offer, but I am trying to go off of gluten. No I don’t think it is a poison, I just keep having crazy allergic reactions to something and not feeling the best, so going off gluten can’t hurt. Okay you smacking me would hurt, and yes being a jerk to a waiter about what is in the food could also hurt. Fair point.

For a sense of normalcy and to take back some “tough” points, looks like I am going to have to dig out my Danskos and flannel shirt, hop in a Subaru, grab a sandwich with a kombucha from a COOP, and head to Vermont. I can sit out on Caldwell Sport’s deck, cappuccino in hand, listening to how westerners just don’t get it.

I got to know Noah when he was a teenager, and he joined the Stratton Mountain School team (Amy was a coach of the team at that point) for a competition trip to Canadian National Championships in Mont Ste Anne. For some reason he ended up borrowing skis from me for the races (maybe his bag got lost or something), and we had some good conversations. We kept in touch, and a couple of years later I started working with Noah as part of his coaching team.

The whole time I worked with Noah, he struggled with the sense that he should be doing big, meaningful things. He has always had an acute awareness of social justice issues, and was really excited to get an education that would give him the tools to make a difference in the world. The whole time, he struggled to rationalize the significance of his focus on sport in a world with big justice and equality issues. Since retiring from skiing, Noah has been attending Brown University, and I have no doubt that he will end up doing big things on a global scale. And he hasn’t waited to earn his degree to get started on policy and advocacy work. He has gotten himself involved in international sport politics through work with USADA as an anti-doping advocate, and with Global Athlete, an advocacy organization for athletes’ rights in the Olympic movement.

Several weeks ago Noah and I recorded a “quick chat” about what he’s been working on. It’s really interesting to hear some thoughtful comments on everything from doping to IOC policy from a guy who is closely involved with a lot of what is happening in global sports governance. I’ll link the video below. But first, I asked Noah to forward me details on how to contribute to his lobbying efforts on behalf of the Rodchenkov act, a bill that would empower US federal law enforcement to fight international state-sponsored doping. Here is the information from Noah on how you can learn more, and help support the Rodchenkov act.

OK – enough preamble. This video runs really long, and probably should have been presented as a podcast instead of a video. You might want to just listen to the audio. I was going to edit it down a bunch, and decided not to. It’s not really marketing, it’s a conversation that will be interesting to people who care about anti-doping, athlete rights, and sport governance. The full conversation is here for those of you who care to hear it all!

Last week, before blasting out for one last summer hurrah hiking and biking in the White Mountains, Amy and I sat down to preview our ski selection system for this season. If you find my writing too dry to read, you can skip to the bottom and just watch the video for most of the salient information. If you find our banter on video inane, then you can read my incisive bullet points right here.

Covid makes everything complicated!
We haven’t been able to travel to Europe this year. Normally we’d be over there right now, selecting skis, and living the good life. We might have just finished a weekend riding bikes in Davos. Or maybe we’d be planning to hit that next weekend. Who knows? Instead, we’re home, and having just about as much fun here. On Thursday last week Amy celebrated her birthday by hiking the Presidential traverse with a handful of friends. Amy needs epic days to feed her soul, and she says this one fit the bill. So don’t waste any tears on us. Davos will be there when we get back over to Europe.
Since we haven’t been able to travel to select skis, we’ve made other plans.

• Our friends in the race departments from each brand are helping us with ski selection.
• We’ve been able to communicate the important metrics and quality concerns that we’ve got with each brand and model, and our skis are (theoretically) being selected to meed those criteria.
• We have ordered a bit light – around 70% or normal. This is because we sell to people who already have skis, and we anticipate a heavily modified racing schedule this year, which is likely to reorganize some people’s priorities away from new skis.
• Our orders are currently upward of 80% of last year’s do date. So… we may end up short some skis if the fall ski ordering season is similar to what we’ve seen so far.
• We will fill requests from our inventory in the order that the requests have been received. If you’ve already requested skis, then we have you covered. If you haven’t yet ordered, consider doing it soon so we can be sure to allocate your skis before everything is gone!
• Here is a link to the ski request form.

Fischer has made no changes to their product line for the coming season, as we roll into the scheduled second year of the Speedmax 3D model run. In recent years we have seen incremental improvements each season from Fischer, and while we don’t expect this year’s skis to be as big a step forward as we saw last year, we certainly won’t be surprised if they’re a little better. The race team and development group are constantly testing and refining the product, and even when the evolution doesn’t include something as visible as gliding sidewalls, the skis are constantly inching forward.

In this video we get into why Amy always chooses Fischer skis when it comes time to put on the race bib. It’s not that the Fischer skis are always the best – no brand gets to claim that. It’s that Fischer has earned her trust over years, and she knows that they’ll always be good. And more than that, she knows that she produces good races on them.

But enough from me – you should let Amy tell you about it. Check out the video.

Link here for our Ski Request Form

Salomon has been the brand with the most rapid growth in sales for us over the past couple of years. Some of this is thanks to the introduction of new ski designs, and some is likely thanks to some really well placed sponsorships and great graphic design. But the performance on the snow helps as well. In the video below, Amy and I discuss the characteristics and qualities that are pushing Salomon to the front of the pack.

Ski Request Form Link.

Madshus Redline 3.0

If it seems like it was just yesterday that we started talking about the new Madshus 2.0 models, it’s because it was only two years ago. And if it seems like we’ve written a ton about Madshus development projects in the past three or four years, it’s because we have. All of this is because Madshus has been working really hard on development, and the process that results in the release of the new 3.0 models is a continuation of the 2.0 development process. The Redline 3.0 release does not represent a reinvention for Madshus. That was 2.0. With 3.0 it’s been all about delivering on the promise, and chasing the potential to new heights.

What Hasn’t Changed

The Redline 3.0 models have the same geometry as the Redline 2.0 models. They’re built in the same molds, with the same topside shape and sidecut. The 2.0 development project was primarily focused on reinventing the geometry of Madshus race products. The 3.0 evolution has been focused on maximizing the potential of the new geometry.

What Has Changed

A lot. There is new material inside the skis, new groove configurations on the base, and new cambers. When you ski on them you will not be mistaking them for 2.0 skis. They carry-forward (almost) all the strengths of the 2.0 models, and add some incredible race-focused performance factors. To describe all of this, we’re going to split things up into several sections. In this article we’ll do the basic cheerleading-style highlights of the new products. In a follow-up pieces I’ll go into our more customary incredibly nerdy depth with a couple of hours of supporting video material discussing the specifics. Why? Because, why not…? Talking about skis is a great distraction from pandemics. And there is a lot to cover once we start going into depth.

The Simple Marketing Pitch

Madshus Redline 3.0 has arrived as the fulfillment of all the promise of the 2.0 development project. The new 3.0 models focus on produced speed in active skiing, and they do an unparalleled job of turning your movements into velocity.

New carbon reinforcements!^*

*exclamation point added to convey enthusiasm and excitement.

Without getting too specific about what type of materials have been added, and where they’ve been added, Madshus has crammed a bunch more carbon into these skis, and the result is a much more robust and rewarding skier experience. We have talked about “elasticity” for years, using the term to describe the sensation of getting stored energy back out of the ski during the rebound cycle. Particularly in skate skis, this concept of elasticity is critical for turning energy and power from your motions into speed across the snow. You haven’t felt elasticity like this!

The risky thing about trying to build too much camber action and elastic response into skis is that it can quickly get to be too much. You can’t just add a bunch of carbon, increase the spring-effect, and make a better ski. When the ski gets to be “too much”, the cost is that it starts to beat up the skier, suck energy out of your legs, and punish you when your motions become fatigued. What is most interesting about these Madshus 3.0 model skate skis is how easy they are to get along with. The active camber values are quite high, but the skis are settled, predictable, stable, and fast. If we were to try to “fit” skis from other brands at the camber heights that feel great on these 3.0 models, they would be terribly unstable, and really difficult to drive.

These new reinforcements are more focused on the skate side of things than classic. But the new K3 klister models also have some added material, which does amazing things to enhance the kick strength by increasing transmission of force to the ends of the pocket.

New Groove Configuration!^*

*exclamation point added to convey grooviness.

Madshus has done an extensive project testing their groove configuration. For years, they have had some of the longest grooves in the industry, and while this has contributed quite a lot to the tracking stability of the skis, it was mostly just set up that way because that’s the way it was set-up. In testing, the development team found that shortening the grooves provided more steerability on the snow, lighter snow-touch and better running speed, and easier access to the edge. Amy and I had the opportunity in May of 2019 to participate in some of the early testing of different groove configurations during an on-snow session at Sognefjell. The differences were remarkable. I’ve worked in the industry for a long time and have always acknowledged that grooves were there for a reason, but I didn’t figure on how much of a difference could be made by changing the configuration. Madshus has settled on two different groove set-ups for the 3.0 models, and both are considerably shorter than previous models. The shortest groove, which comes on the F3 skate model and the cold classic model, starts behind the foot!

New Camber Profiles

In our Redline 2.0 review from last season I wrote about camber variations, and the presence of what I will call “camber manipulation” to obtain specific material expression on the snow. An example of this would be the addition of a distinct inflection in the forebody material to prevent the bridge from closing too far back toward the foot under load. These things happen when the specific goals of the design process are pointed toward really specific contact area lengths and bridge characteristics. We see this from all companies, and these more evidently “manipulated” cambers seldom produce the best all-around skis. In general, a “smoother” camber profile and a more pure representation of the material composition results in a broader range and higher performing ski.

On the skate side of things, the camber differences between the F2 and F3 skate models have settled into a more predictable differentiation. On the classic side, the cambers have been redefined entirely, and offer new levels of kick and double-pole speed in both cold and wet models. I’ll describe more below.

But first, here is a video discussion with Gunnar, our in-house Madshus racer:

Models

Skate

The F3 model is designed for softer snow and lower average speeds, and it has shorter contact zones, more tip and tail splay (on average), and slightly lower cambers at rest and at half weight. The F3 also has the shorter tail-only groove, which complements the other model objectives. In our testing we found that the F3 can perform very well in a wide range of temperatures. The short groove is a bit alarming at first, but you can’t see it when it’s on the snow, and you don’t miss it when you ski on it. The only exceptions are in really glassy/greasy packing glaze, where the directional stability of the ski feel compromised. The rest of the time, the ski feels incredibly free and fast, and is our favorite all-around model in most conditions. We prefer the F3 when the snow ranges from “soft” to “perfect”, and tends to break down or sugar-up a bit under traffic. It doesn’t need to be ankle-deep sugar for the F3 to shine – it’s a true all-rounder.

The F2 model is designed for harder snow and higher average speeds, with longer contact zones, and less tip and tail splay. The resting camber and half weight camber are a bit higher, along with the overall level of camber activity. And the groove comes in the longer configuration (still shorter than previous models). The F2 provides a bit more tracking stability, but also a bit less freedom and slightly more interactive snow-touch in most conditions. It can also work well in a wide range of temperatures and moisture conditions, depending on the specifics of the camber and the grind configuration. We really like the F2 when the snow starts hard, or is packing under traffic, and developing a glazed surface. The F2 can certainly be an all-round solution for a skier who wants uncompromised directional stability and expects to ski mostly on hard-pack or manmade snow.

Classic

If the skate cambers have been refined and clarified in the past year, then the classic models have been totally reinvented. This all came from a project to experiment with adding laminates to the classic skis, kind of like they did with the skate skis. The experiment yielded some alarming results. One of the alarming things was how high the “flex” values of the skis got. And the other alarming thing was how well they worked, in spite of very high flex values. Our son, Gunnar, got a special pair of classic skis made for Helene Fossesholm last season. He started the season at 37kg, and the skis had an end-flex of 40kg. How’s that for spitting in the eye of conventional wisdom? Classic skis “fit” at 108% body weight? I also picked him a more traditional ski, but he never once raced on the “normal” ski because the new one was so much better.

Over a season of testing, the cambers and constructions have been refined, and the outstanding qualities have been maintained while the overall set-up has been nudged back toward a more “normal” range. This whole concept requires extensive explanation, and I will go into detail, as well as provide video conversations with Pat O’Brien, who worked with these skis in race settings last season, and Connor Green, who was the engineer in the development process, in our in-depth follow-up article. The short version is that the new classic skis provide more kick force than you’ve felt before, with higher glide speed than we’re accustomed to experiencing. The caveat is that you need to ski pretty well, and glide high over the ski. This is not a ski concept for shufflers.

The K1, Cold model has a camber designed to carry hardwax applications. While the camber height is higher than you might normally expect to find on a hardwax ski, the configuration of the material and the shape of the camber develop kick force from the ends of the pocket, and you continue to develop additional force as you kick harder. The pocket “gathers” material under foot, and especially in softer snow, the grip is quite amazing, provided you develop the force over the high point of the camber.

The K3, Wet model is a klister-oriented camber that carries significantly higher, and also has built-in reinforcements to aid the transmission of kick forces to the ends of the pocket. This is the model we tested all of last year, and even used successfully in hardwax conditions. This is an extremely fast ski that depends on some volume in the wax build-up. We find that it can work really well with harder wax jobs than most skis, and can cover a very broad range of conditions.

What is not present in the current line-up from Madshus is a low, forward-pocket classic ski with a really light kick trigger. This is something that the Madshus team recognizes. Particularly in racing, there is a demand for this kind of ski – especially in conditions where you want to be able to kick on very light pressure through an extremely tacky wax. I call it “fly-paper” kick. That might be something we see from Madshus in the future, but the 3.0 development project has been organized in response to overwhelming racer feedback that this new camber and material concept is the direction that needs to be pursued.

OK – I can sense that I’m getting sucked into greater level of detail than this article was supposed to be pointed at. If I left some questions unanswered, or caused some confusion, please bear with me and look for my follow-up. The bottom line is this:

Madshus has put together a race model line-up that is potentially disruptive to the status quo. It will redefine the way we talk about “flex” and “fit”, and it will do even more to redefine what we look for from race ski performance. Because it is disruptive to the status quo, Madshus has a job on its hands to support these products with marketing and information. Some retail shops don’t have the understanding to sell something that really can’t be described by a single “flex” number, and those outlets might find all of this to be too much. It might be a tough launch for Madshus given how much of a conceptual stretch they’re asking people to make. However – once the snow is on the ground, these skis are going to be extremely popular. It’s unclear how we’ll manage demos this season, but we really hope that you have an opportunity to try these skis. Keep in touch as snow-time draws near, and we’ll be happy to set something up if circumstances allow it.

December testing, under the lights, with Connor Green

With the introduction of Redline 3.0 Madshus has changed a handful of things about their flagship skis, including the material layup, the groove length, and some of the reference cambers. But the most notable change that has grown out of this 3.0 project is a major shift in the camber control system used in production in the factory. This isn’t something that most ski companies would choose to make a big deal out of, because it’s a bit difficult to explain in one or two punchy marketing sound-bites. But this change in the way the ski production is controlled accounts for a huge uptick in the “hit-rate” that Madshus has in producing really outstanding skis.

First, we need to define a couple of terms.

Camber – The shape of the curve of the ski, which can include multiple compound curves from tip to tail. Camber can be assessed at zero load, or with different loads applied in different positions. But it always includes the shape of the entire ski, from tip to tail.

Flex – a single value (usually expressed in KG) indicating the load required to compress the ski to a specified residual camber height (usually 0.1 or 0.2mm). Within a given production of skis, all of the material stiffness qualities are “the same” (within material tolerances) for every pair. The measured flex of each ski is a function of its camber. But flex is only one measurement of camber, and not a very good descriptor of the most important aspects of camber as they relate to ski performance.

This video features Connor Green, a Madshus production engineer who has worked on this Redline 3.0 project for the past two years. Connor is an incredible nerd, and I have pretty strong nerd game as well. So this might get a little nerdy. If you prefer text, read on below the video.

The Problem with “Flex”

The idea that ski characteristics can be boiled down to a single number, and that “fit” can be determined by that one value and its relationship to the skier’s body weight, has always been problematic. The environment where skis are required to perform is dynamic, and the performance of skis is likewise dynamic. A single numeric value can never describe the quality or performance characteristics of a ski. And given all that can change about a ski with that single “flex value” held steady, the idea that flex can be used in a meaningful way to select skis for skiers is misguided.

If you find this photo funny, then you’re definitely a nerd.

And yet, ski “flex” is the pinnacle of sophistication in much of the ski market, and basic metrics regarding flex values continue to dominate the thinking at higher levels of racing – even among World Cup technicians. It’s alarming how much power that single flex number can have in steering decision making at all levels of ski selection, given how arbitrary it is with respect to performance. What is even more alarming is how strongly those flex values steer the production of skis.

While every company has different systems in place for setting cambers and determining what qualities will be built into their ski production, they generally have always aimed for specific ranges of flex values. The problem with this is that efforts to hit target flex values can move the production of skis away from the very qualities that those target values were built around in the first place.

Consider a scenario where a batch of prototype test skis is built around a given camber concept, and different camber heights are produced for testing. Repeated testing yields consistent results, and skis with a measured flex value in a specific range are deemed to be best. And then a full production run is set-up, and the production team adjusts the camber using the screw settings that they know will bring the flex values into the range that has been specified, but in so doing they move the camber away from the specific qualities that tested well. This isn’t just possible; it’s very likely, because the flex value can be changed by an infinite number of different camber adjustments, and the adjustments made to target a specific flex are very unlikely to mirror the most successful camber. In the end, there is a batch of skis that don’t perform anything like the test series that was deemed to be a success.

Connor Green – the engineer at Madshus who has been working directly on race ski development since he joined the company fresh out of Harvard a couple of years ago, first made reference over a year ago to “Goodhart’s Law”; a maxim that he feels perfectly describes the problem with utilizing flex values as production targets. You can look up Goodhart’s Law on Wikipedia, but I can also save you the time. It says this:

“When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.”

A New Way

When Madshus first started to produce skis using the laminate material that would end up being adopted in the Redline 3.0, they started to move the marks on both camber and material reinforcement. And as they pursued the successful direction in development, the flex table that had been used in production started to bend, and eventually was totally broken. The introduction of additional laminate material changed the material stiffness of the skis dramatically, and the measured flex values got pretty wild. They started to find some extremely good skis among these new laminate prototypes, and the early race versions that they delivered to Seefeld World Championships included skis with new cambers, added laminates, and some very, very high flex values. But they were really fast skis.

In the year and a half since they first delivered skis to athletes in Seefeld, the Madshus development team has done a lot more work on refining and controlling cambers. But they took the lesson early; they decided they would “ignore” the measured end-flex, and instead focus on the combinations of camber profile and laminate that consistently produced the best results. As they moved in this directly, they realized that their success rate at producing really outstanding skis was much, much higher than previously. And so they decided that the time had come to make a big shift in their production culture, away from producing specific flex values, and toward producing cambers that they know will be capable of winning races at all levels.

Since the skis are not produced to target specific flex values, Madshus is no longer using flex values as an aid to help fit skis. Instead of utilizing flex values as a quality control metric in production, they’ve shifted to a system that assesses the entire camber of the ski through a wide range of loads. With the cambers controlled precisely and well, the camber height at different loads becomes a more important metric for “fitting” skis than the flex value. So Madshus is now printing two to three measured camber height values on each pair of Redline 3.0 skis.

Because of their choice of materials and construction method, the Madshus production is extremely consistent once it’s set-up. They’re able to control the camber with a great deal of precision and repeatability. I’ve always felt that Madshus could make whatever they wanted to make and reproduce it faithfully; It just wasn’t always clear what they wanted to make. That has changed and the change is big news for end users who don’t have a full staff of technicians available to screen dozens of pairs of skis to find that one magic pair. In truth, this change in production methodology may be a threat to our business model. We’ve always offered our best efforts at identifying really good skis at the source – selecting cambers that we felt were truly representative of the best that Madshus could produce. Connor seems to think they’re not making anything but great skis now. Good news for retailers and customers… bad news for Caldwells?

Not really. As ski companies make better skis with higher frequency, it makes our job easier, and it gives us more time to focus on specific camber characteristics as they relate to target conditions, and specific skiers. This change will save us time, and hopefully some headaches, and will help us deliver an even better experience to our customers. I think we’ll survive.

We’ve gotten a lot of questions from coaches about how to make sure that existing equipment is compliant with new fluoro free regulations. I decided to shoot a video with Amy, and I wrote an awesome script to keep us on track, because in our first attempt at a video on this subject I got wildly sidetracked, and slightly hysterical. We’re not going to show you that one. But here is the measured and scripted presentation. Below the video is the summary in text, along with some additional information.

Fluoro Bans

FIS has announced a full fluoro ban in all FIS competitions from the World Cup down. IBU has also announced full fluoro bans in all their races.

USSA and Nordiq Canada have subsequently announced bans in all North American competitions that fall under their umbrellas. This includes any USSA or FIS race – including the American Birkebeiner. But not all citizen races or unsanctioned marathons.

Individual venues have also announced fluoro bans – in the east, Craftsbury, Rikert, and Prospect are examples.

Most scholastic leagues – EISA, high school, etc – also will be fluoro free.

Fluoro Testing

FIS has been working in partnership with Kompass and Fraunhofer to develop a hand-held optical tester that will produce an immediate green or red light result on the way to the start. Less than a dozen of those testers will be available for the ’20-’21 season, and all of them will go to FIS or IBU. Functionally, they will be a World-Cup-Only testing device. We do not expect to see any of these testers in North America (though it’s possible).

There was supposed to be a “Test Campaign” opportunity for National Teams and wax industry to work with the new tester on the 23^rd and 24^th of September. This would be a chance to test different “cleaning” methods, and confirm that all existing material can be brought within the threshold values for access to the start. Also, a chance for the industry to confirm that their new product is compliant. On Friday FIS announced that further internal testing is required, and that the results so far do not fully satisfy expectations and specifications. The “Test Campaign” has been rescheduled for unspecified dates in October.

There has been a lot of news in Europe about this regarding World Cup level racing for both XC and Biathlon. But this doesn’t change anything with regard to the North American ban.

Testing in North America

The last we heard USSA was planning to have some of the SkiFT test strips that have been used in Scandinavia to test skis in junior races in the past couple of years. It is very difficult to know how they would calibrate threshold limits to be in-line with the limits that will be utilized by the FIS/IBU system this year (which have yet to be announced or demonstrated). These test strips have results in very high rates of positive tests among Norwegian juniors, implying that there is a lot of possibility for incidental contamination. The FIS thresholds are supposed to be set to allow for a certain level of residual fluoro contamination so that we don’t all have to throw out all of our skis and tools.

Especially given the vastly reduced national race calendar in light of Covid, we think it’s highly unlikely that any of us will run into testing at our races. The Fluoro Free rules should be thought of in exactly the same light as anti-doping rules. You can probably get away with cheating… for a while. But don’t. Don’t be a jerk.

What do we need to do to be compliant?

This is the big question! How do we need to treat existing skis in order to ensure that we’re compliant with fluoro free regulations?

The FIS has published a document outlining the steps to be taken, which include hot-scraping the skis more than ten times. Please, please, don’t do this. We will link this document for your information, with the disclaimer that these recommendations are not good. Here’s the link:

Recommended-cleaning-of-used-equipment-from-fluorinated-substances-140820201

The bottom line is that you are responsible to the spirit of the rules. There is, as yet, not even an official threshold limit that you’re obligated to hit, and once there is a limit set, there still won’t be a bulletproof set of instructions that you can follow. The only skiers who will possibly be tested by equipment capable of determining whether the skis “pass” the official test, are World Cup level athletes. The rest of us just need to be sure that we’re not cheating by trying to game the system to gain an advantage.

Here’s what we would recommend:

Skis – Start the season by using a suitable base cleaner. FIS has recommended a fluoro free cleaner, but this doesn’t make a lot of sense, because hydrocarbon cleaners won’t loosen the fluoro bonds and allow the fluoro material at the surface to be brushed away. So we recommend using a fluoro cleaner – those do have fluoro material in them, but they do help to dissolve material and weaken bonds, which will make your cleaning efforts much more effective.  After using the cleaner, wax with a couple of layers of fluoro free wax. Make sure that you subsequently only use fluoro free wax on your skis. Regardless of how your skis test, you won’t gain an advantage on the snow from any residual fluoro material. So don’t worry too much about it. Just use fluoro free wax!

Do you need to grind your skis to be compliant?

No. Grinding will remove a surface layer of the base. How thick a layer depends on the grinder operator. If you want us to do a particularly “deep” grind in order to get below the penetration level of existing paraffin wax that may be in solution in the base, we can do that. But in truth, the best reason to grind your skis is to improve the performance. There are strong indications that grinding will figure much more prominently into ski performance in the absence of fluoros.

Do you need to hot-scrape your skis over ten times to be compliant?

This is the FIS recommendation, but please don’t. If you’re going to the World Cup, then your service technicians can help make sure you’re compliant. If you’re going to the Eastern Cup, or whatever other regional or local races are on your calendar, just wax with fluoro free waxes, and don’t try to push the boundaries. But no – you shouldn’t hot scrape your skis over ten times. You are very likely to damage the bases and slow the skis down.

Irons – Hopefully you keep your irons clean. If not, you can start by heating up the iron, and then wiping any residual wax away from the baseplate (including the sides, and anywhere you can reach). If your iron is old and covered in burned wax, we recommend using sandpaper on a cool iron (150 grit does a fine job) to expose clean aluminum. Make sure to wipe the iron clean afterward. Use some fluoro free paraffin to float away remaining dust and generally clean things up.

Brushes – This is tricky. Generally, brushes get loaded up with lots of dust. The best way to clear that away is with air – either with compressed air or a vacuum cleaner, or a combination of the two. FIS recommends that you “dip the bristles in a base cleaner”. Don’t. Base cleaners can be very volatile and fast drying, or very, very slow drying. They dissolve wax – that’s their job. But they only work because you can wipe them away while they’re still liquid, with the dissolved wax in suspension. You’re going to make a huge mess if you start trying to clean your brushes with wax cleaner. Just vacuum, blow them off, and start using them a lot to prep training skis. Clean frequently with air. If you’re concerned, and need to have brushes that you know are fluoro free in order to do final prep at the race site, then you should probably get new brushes.

Roto Cork/Felt/Fleece – Forget about it. I guess with cork you can sand the material down. But in general, these tools get loaded with the wax that you use, and you’re not going to get it out. Start fresh. You’ll save yourself a huge headache.

In general, North American skiers can plan to do a thorough, but normal clean of their work environment, wax boxes, ski bags, and tools. Start using exclusively fluoro free waxes. And by the time it matters, you should be in good shape. If we hear other guidance that makes sense, we’ll be sure to let you know. But in the meantime, please don’t panic. This is all going to work out just fine.

Yesterday we saw the first snow of the season on the ground here in southern Vermont. The ski season is coming quickly now. With respect to racing opportunities there is still a lot we don’t know. But what we do know is worth sharing. I’ll share the highlights in the post. I’m writing up an extensive seasonal report for our direct email list, so sign up if you’re not on the list and you want to receive that.

Skis – There will be skiing, and we have skis. We reduced our pre-season orders this year based on the expectation of a reduction in sales. We’ve seen that expected reduction – particularly in team sales, and among our most serious racing customers. We’re still doing really well with the “performance recreation” crowd – people like me, who ski a lot and want the best gear, but aren’t focused on racing. To order a pair of skis, please submit this ski request form. https://forms.gle/JGjSq9iiZxPdtLfi7

Fischer – We have received most of our Fischer skis, and have started shipping out orders. We have have good inventory availability in Speedmax models.

Madshus – We’re waiting for our main shipment of Madshus skis, which is coming by air directly from Norway. We had to adjust that order upward several weeks ago based on strong interest in the new Redline 3.0 models. I expect that this is where we’ll run out of skis first.

Salomon – We’re also waiting for Salomon material, which shipped by ocean freight back in mid-September. That should be here anytime, and we’ll have availability in most lengths and models.

Grinding – Team business has reduced a huge amount because of uncertainty surrounding the collegiate programs, and a lot of frozen budgets. We’ve done a lot of our junior team grinding already. I expect that total grind volume will be about half of a normal season, but I also expect that we’ll continue to see steady grinding work as racers discover that they do still have opportunities to race, and fast skis are still nice to have. Our current grind turn-around time is about a week, which is fast for this time of year.

Ski Wax – Our new supply of race product has been arriving. Our focus turned toward fluoro-free solutions last season, and will remain there this year and into the future. We expect that all New England racing will be conducted fluoro free this season, and much of the other racing around the country as well. We have lots of information coming about new fluoro free race products. So keep an eye out, or contact us with questions. We’ve got most of the new product uploaded to our webstore, and you should be able to browse things there. shop.caldwellsport.com

Bike Shop – A couple of weeks ago, Amy and I closed on the purchase of the West Hill Shop, here in Putney. West Hill has been my hometown bike and ski shop for my whole life, and it’s an iconic institution in the region. Our Caldwell Sport model won’t change, and we’re not moving. However, we have the opportunity to show our Caldwell Sport business and products to the public in a more standard retail environment than our living room. If you’re in the area, come visit us at 49 Brickyard Lane in Putney. We’re in the process of moving a curated selection of our Caldwell Sport material down there so that people can see what we do during regular and predictable business hours. I can’t seem to get a job down at West Hill – they keep sending me back home to work when I go to hang out. So call me if you want to meet down there to discuss Caldwell Sport stuff in a retail environment. Also… anybody need bike stuff?

I’ve got a lot more to share about the bike shop project, and our plans for the future of Caldwell Sport. Normally I save this kind of prognostication for our “Annual Report” email in the spring. But this is 2020, and anybody can prognosticate at any time. All the rules have been cancelled. So sign up for the mailing list if you want the inside scoop.

I wrote this as an email to Sean Macy – one of the coaches for the Dublin XC program – in answer to a question about fluoro free top-coats. I’ve shared it at least a half dozen times since, instead of writing something similar from scratch. I figured I’d save everybody some time and just post it as an article, even though it was written as an off-the-cuff email. I have made some edits for context and accuracy, and to avoid lawsuits.

It’s going to be a challenge for everybody to come up with common lexicon about layering wax, and what constitutes a “top coat”. With fluoro, it kind of boiled down to chemical differentiations. “Top Coats” were the products with 100% per fluorinated ingredients – not mixed-chain ingredients. They didn’t mix with the paraffin based under layers, and so it was a pretty clear differentiation.

With fluoro free, the vast majority of products that are being offered are paraffin based. The only clear exception that I’m aware of is the Rex N-Kinetic stuff, which is not in a wax base. But everything else is wax based, as far as I know.

With paraffin waxes, there are a couple of different ways they can work. Under the right conditions of heat and fluidity the wax can dissolve into solution in the base of the ski. It actually dissolves like sugar into tea. This is what we normally call “saturation” or “penetration”, and it doesn’t really have anything to do with “pores” or little microscopic holes in the base material.

This wax in solution changes the bulk properties of the base, and also helps to protect the base and keep it operating well. Those bulk properties DO contribute a meaningful and important part of the performance equation. However, the big majority of performance on race day comes from the surface layer of wax that is left on the base.

For years we sort of assumed that this surface layer was functionally just going to be whatever portion of the bulk wax had remained on (or precipitated to) the surface of the ski. And then we figured that our fluoro top-coats formed surface layers on top that had good durability because of the fluorine chemistry.

However, as we’ve worked more and more with paraffins and application methods over the past few years, it’s become increasingly clear that we’re working with thin-film layers that can add up – sort of the way you add up kick wax. Even when we finish the layers with brushing, we’re adding a “ply” to whatever was there before. And these layers DO seem to work together to build a complete solution. And not only that, but these layers seem to be surprisingly durable.

Now – to be clear – the performance of unfluorinated wax films does degrade more quickly than fluorinated wax films. But it doesn’t appear to be because they “wear out”. It seems to have more to do with the accumulation of pollutants and impurities. In fact, the best way I’ve seen to reduce the speed degradation is through really careful management of the film thickness – we want to keep it really thin!

OK – so what about these thin-film applications? How do we work with them?

Well, clearly the liquid applications are one way. As you’ve noted, some brands have long drying time, and this is problematic insofar as it forces some adjustment to your timeline on race day. However, the products are very effective and worth accommodating. Also, it’s worth noting that some of the products are based on an alcohol solvent and those ones dry really rapidly. In particular, Star, and Start both have alcohol based solvents and they are very fast drying and effective for race day use.

The other leading contender for thin-film application is the fleece-applied stuff, like Ulla. Star also has fleece applied products this season (one of the prototype products in this line was among my final four in fluoro topcoat testing at the Dublin eastern cup last season).

When we talk about fleece applied wax, it’s worth splitting the conversation into two parts. The first part is fleece. We started really aggressively testing film application and finishing methods last season, and we found that a lot of products respond VERY well to roto fleece finishing. For instance, all the Star liquid paraffins did much better when we finished them with fleece (until it got really wet, when it didn’t make a big difference). The same was true of the Rex liquids.

I think that the fleece is a super effective way to organize and refine the thin-film application, and to ensure appropriate thickness of the film (which is not very thick). By “organize”, I mean that I think the directionality of the roto-tool aligns the product with the direction of travel in much the way the hand-corked fluoro blocks has done for years. In other words, I think we’re getting some mechanical efficiency out of the modified application, at a molecular level. In our testing we’re tried all sorts of methods or thinning out and organizing these thin films, including various brushes, cork, felt, etc. The fleece seems to be a clear winner in our testing, the vast majority of the time.

Then we also have the fleece-applied wax. And obviously the fleece is part of the equation there. The difference here is that the wax needs to be formulated to “work” with a fleece application method. This is been a “thing” for quite a few years with products from Yes and Masterwax doing really well in certain portions of the ski world. Ulla has been “in the lead” with respect to developing fluoro free products organized around this fleece application. Star is newer to this, but has sort of jumped right toward the front of the pack in my testing.

For paraffin wax to work with a fleece application it needs to have the right viscosity and response to the specific conditions caused by the fleece. A lot of paraffins just get super gummy and gross. You don’t want to try fleece a stick/gummy layer! I haven’t found a lot of solid block-form paraffins that respond well to fleece finishing (I’ve tested it on ironed paraffins, after scraping and before brushing, as well as trying the regular fleece application method on a variety of paraffin blocks). However, the liquid applications DO seem to respond well. Even when it’s a liquid application of the same glide compound that doesn’t work well in block form. Go figure.

So.. what is a “top coat”? Well, at this point it’s whatever thin-film layer you put on last, I guess. I think that we’ll see a TON of experimentation with layering of these thin-film applications. And I don’t think it’s always going to be multiple layers of the same thing. I don’t know exactly how it will all play-out. Nobody does. There is a lot of experimenting to do. But I will start the season with a whole bunch of roto fleeces (the very low volumes of wax in these thin-films means that it’s really difficult to avoid cross-contimating applications if you’re not dedicated fleeces to a single product). I will continue to work extensively with a wide range of products that are designed to be applied AFTER the ironed paraffin.

I’m really happy with Star Next paraffin as an ironed layer. That all absolutely be my basis for testing of this ironed layers. I truly believe that the race-day magic will come from surface layers though.

I will absolutely continue to test liquids from Star, Vauhti, Rex, Rode, Start, and others. 

I will continue to work with Ulla products – they’re organized entirely around thin-film applications and prefer that you don’t iron wax into the base. Individuals and teams who adopt the system 100% seem to do really well with it. Teams that test it in a more traditional system have more hit and miss results – but still with plenty of hits.

I am leaning really heavily on the performance of the new Star fleece-applied blocks that we started working with last season. Those are exciting for me.

I will test many different layering combinations. Many.

Standard starting point for me in the Star line will be:

1 – Next Paraffin ironed, scraped, brushed. This establishes my bulk property baseline for the wax job.

2 – Next liquid, finished with fleece. We tested this alone against the ironed paraffin, and in combination, and the combination ALWAYS won testing, all season long.

3 – Fleece applied blocks, additional layers of liquid, and all manner of other craziness.

Question – can we skip step #2 (liquid) and just work with fleece-applied blocks. In other words – can we do an ironed layer, and then ONE “top-coat” of our choosing? Yes, absolutely. But I’ve seen a lot of evidence that layering the top coats will yield some advantages. Diminishing advantages, for sure. But every step is a step, even if the differentiations gets smaller. So it comes down to how far you want to chase things.

OK – maybe more information than you were looking for. But there you go!

A couple of weeks ago we sent out our annual preview of new products to team coaches. It’s pretty long, but it’s useful information, and I figure it’s worth sharing with the broader skiing public since plenty of you have good use for this information.

We’re still waiting for our big Star pre-season order to arrive, as well as select items from other brands. We will be updating our e-commerce site (shop.caldwellsport.com) with availability as that stuff arrives. Meantime, anybody who wants to put together a larger order can email to request a price list and order form in spreadsheet format. Just give me a shout at zc@caldwellsport.com.

Dear Coaches,
I’m a bit late in getting this team price-list and product information out this season. We’ve been super busy with ski orders and grinding in what looks like a great rebound year for racing. We’ve already ground over 90% of last season’s total volume, and have a record number of ski orders on the books, in spite of doing no marketing since the spring (because we’ve been busy!).
Of course you’ll hear a similar story from anybody in the industry, along with a lot of concern about availability and late deliveries. In particular, all products originating in Asia seem to be quite delayed. At a top level of racing product, that means boots and poles are delayed. Our business is focused on skis and wax, and for the most part we’re in good shape getting what we need. Madshus skis are still en-route from Norway, but Fischer and Salomon are here (except for a few specific models). Wax from Rex, Rode, and Vauhti has arrived, but we’re still waiting for a huge shipment from Star, which is currently on a boat (produced on-time but delayed on the freight pick-up from Italy).
I’ve simplified and pared-down our wax and tools price-list a bit this season. If you’re looking for something that isn’t on the list, please let me know and I’ll see what we’ve got. Our price-list only has fluoro free wax; it has been over two years since we bought any fluoro wax, and while we still have some left (mostly Star VF Paraffins and Rex Powders), we’re not focused on that business. If you need something for early Super Tours or US Nationals, let us know and we can tell you what we’ve got.

Ski Grinding
Grinding is busy this year because a lot of people didn’t get skis serviced last year with abbreviated or modified race seasons. But we’re also seeing an increased focus on grinding because of the increased significance of base quality and structure in a fluoro-free racing environment.
Most of you are familiar with our “new” grind menu since we’ve been producing these grinds for teams for a couple of seasons already. The one major change from last year is that B42 has been mostly replaced with B363X. The “X” in our nomenclature always denotes a polishing step, and what we’ve found is that a polished B363 has a broader range and most often better peak performance than the B42 in the cold range of temps where they’re both at their best. This season we’re also producing quite a lot of TG1-2 green stone structures for team skiers focused on US Nationals, because that grind has a particularly outstanding track record at Soldier Hollow. As always, we’re able to produce any grind from our back-catalog by request.
I’ve attached a link at the top of this email to an updated grind work order form with the new menu built into it. It has complete instructions, and built-in price calculations. For a large team, contact me by email to make arrangements, and for a discount code for appropriate pricing.

Fluoro Free Wax & Pricing
For years we’ve all been accustomed to a wax market where you pay for performance (fluoro content), and we’ve more or less assumed that we’re paying for the expensive fluoro material that makes the wax fast. All the wax companies took cues from each other in terms of market pricing, and the waxes performed comparably. Good wax was expensive because fluoro material is expensive; at least that’s what we’ve all told ourselves.
Now that we’re in the early stages of the development of a fluoro free wax market, it’s apparent that pricing isn’t only a question of additive content (and indeed, it never has been). It’s easy to see that some companies are acutely aware of what the market will pay for race wax, and have put forth a complete line of race wax at comparable pricing to fluorinated product, with marketing promises to match the pricing. Other companies have entered the market with low pricing more representative of unfluorinated wax in a fluoro market. It’s easy to be confused by the different price points – especially as companies introduce new products with major price adjustments from their low-priced introductory products. If these new waxes are twice as expensive, can we expect them to be a big step up in performance? It’s difficult to know what expect based on the price of the wax these days, and overall, the market is kind of confusing.
I think it’s important to recognize some of the realities of the wax business. Globally, ski wax is a tiny market without a lot of growth potential. There are big economies of scale available to larger companies – raw material costs are lower, packaging costs are lower, and production overhead is lower as a portion of gross sales. This makes the business much more profitable, and a much larger percentage of costs is spent on marketing for these bigger companies. Smaller companies like Rex, Rode, and Star, have comparatively much higher proportional costs in all areas, including raw material, facilities overhead, labor, R&D, packaging, freight, etc. If these companies were selling wax at “CH” price levels without the support of fluorinated product, they would quickly go out of business.
What you are seeing in pricing from these smaller companies is an effort to quantify the new market and balance performance with costs. Maybe the big companies that came out with top-dollar fluoro-free products right away simply had a better understanding of the business realities, or maybe they just new what you guys were willing to pay. At any rate – what you’re paying for is everything that goes into producing the best race wax these companies can make. I strongly advise you to look past pricing as you look for the fastest fluoro-free solutions. In the past couple of seasons we’ve only seen a few circumstances where the most expensive wax is the best. We expect to see things even-out eventually, as a new equilibrium is established in the race market. In the meantime, every company has their own pricing and marketing strategy, but the only way to compare the performance of wax solutions is to test them on the snow.

What’s New
Here’s what’s new and different this year in wax and tools:

Star
For the sake of clarity, we don’t import or distribute Star wax. I have known Davide Mosele (the chemist, and the son of Roberto and Donna, the founders) for years, and in recent years we have worked closely on test and development projects. Working on the development of new products is gratifying, and it helps me to understand the stuff that we sell better. Because of this collaboration, we test a lot of Star material, and we find good solutions. So we recommend it frequently and sell a lot of it.
Many of you have already indicated an interest in getting Star product for this season. As I mentioned above, our big pre-season shipment is on a boat, and I’m anticipating delivery in the first week of November. But that depends upon customs clearance, so until I have the stuff in hand, I don’t want to make promises.
The Next line of race product from Star has been well established over the past two years of testing as a reliably excellent solution for fluoro-free racing. The line remains intact for this year – all existing products carry through unchanged. However, there are some new products to be considered.

Next Solid Paraffin
Updated formula and new branding for the old NF paraffin
Lower ceramic concentration training & service wax
The race paraffin in the Next line comes in powdered form. This provides a low-waste / high-economy application method, but it also allows for a higher concentration of the proprietary ceramic additive that makes this stuff really good. The ceramic is super-fine particulate, and it tends to settle out of suspension when the wax is molten, so forming solid blocks with a high concentration and even distribution of ceramic material is nearly impossible. The powdered form allows for a totally even distribution of ceramic in the application process.
The new stuff this year is a block wax with a lower-concentration ceramic additive. If this sounds a lot like the “NF” wax from years past, then you’ve been paying good attention. This basically is the NF block wax from years past, with some minor adjustments to the paraffin chemistry to bring it into line with the Next powder. Star rebranded this stuff as “Next” product to reflect its additive content, and overall performance. The new “NF” wax for 2021-22 and forward has no ceramic additive.

Roto Fleece – Long Hair “Punk” Fleece
Top-performing finishing tool for liquids
Roto Fleece has clearly become established as part of the winning equation for fluoro-free racing. Over the past two seasons we’ve tested a lot of methods of utilizing fleece, both for application and for finishing. Last year we found that we got better results from this new long-haired fleece when we use it at high rotating speeds for finishing liquid applications. This works particularly well on Star, Rex, and Rode liquids, and it seems to have less of an effect (though no harm) on the performance of Vauhti liquids.
To be clear, when we talk about “fleece” we’re talking about fuzzy, hairy wool – not felted wool. We have used roto-felt rollers a lot in the past to apply or finish fluoro products – this is not the same thing. But there is mixed terminology out there – if you search for “Swix Roto Fleece” you’ll find a felt roller.
Star has one of the most convenient and economical roto fleece systems out there – with stackable 70mm fleece rollers on dedicated drums – super easy to swap with no sleeves or Velcro to be concerned with. And the wool itself is top quality and works flawlessly.
The original roto fleece tools from Star have a 12mm nap – we still prefer these for the application of specifically formulated block waxes, like the Star Next Block, or the Ulla products, or Swix Marathon, with rotating speeds of 1800 to 2100 RPM (or so). When used as an applicator, it’s important to dedicate a fleece to each product. This newer long-haired fleece has a 22mm nap, and works brilliantly as a finishing tool for liquids, or even for fleece-applied blocks, with a rotating speed of 3400-4000rpm. When used this way, it doesn’t feel necessary to dedicate a fleece to each product – you can use the same tool on a wide range of products without generating a lot of cross-contamination.

High Speed Roto Handle
The high rotating speed that we like for fleece finishing with the long-haired fleece presents a bit of a challenge. Drills with high rotating speed are available in corded versions, which is a pain because you need to plug them in, and because they “spin down” for a long time when you let go of the trigger (unlike a cordless drill which will stop immediately). Cordless drills with high rotating speeds are available, but are very expensive. I have a super-cool Fein cordless drill that will turn 3850rpm, and it costs $450.
The solution we found wasn’t some secret cheap & fast drill – it is the fact that many 18v cordless impact drivers have a rotating speed in the range we want to see. So, Davide made a roto-handle with a standard ¼” quick-change hex shank that will plug directly into an impact driver. This solution leaves a lot less material on the end of the shaft than a normal drill-chuck attachment, and we had concerns about durability. So we tested some prototypes last winter, and they seemed to hold up well. That quick-connect interface isn’t super tight, so it feels like the whole system will be too wobbly. But once you get it spinning, it works really well and we wholeheartedly recommend this as a cost-effective way to get into a high-speed fleece finishing system for liquids.

Beta Test Project
Race Service Wax
Over the past two years Davide has sent us a lot of prototype material to test. Last year we started to really trust some of these prototype/test products, and we also started to use them in races. The core Next products are all really good, and the line holds together well and logically. Davide hasn’t wanted to start replacing good products with somewhat different good products; nor has he wanted to add a whole bunch of products to his catalog. This is good – simplicity has its merit, and change should be based on really robust testing and development.
On the other hand, I already know that we’re going to be using some of these products in racing, and I really don’t like the idea of using products in racing that we’re not able to sell to customers. So, Davide agreed to develop a “Beta Race” branding so that we could offer test product at the stage where we want end-users to start proving the product in racing (which comes pretty much right after we’ve done that with success).

“Dirty Liquids”
Last season we played with a bunch of different “black” additives – and for the most part they didn’t accomplish terribly much. However, we found one additive that made the standard Next liquids consistently and significantly better in older snow. We used this stuff in races toward the end of the season, in both the Med and Warm versions, with really good success. We also have a lot of out-of-competition speed trap testing that suggests that this additive works well. It’s a pain to produce (Davide had to invent a filtration method) and the additive is expensive, so the cost is 33% higher than the standard liquids, but it’s good. Like the normal liquid, it’s best when applied with roto-fleece, and layered up with three or more layers. This stuff will turn your roto-fleece black, so you may want a dedicated fleece if that is troubling to your brain, like it is to mine.

New Fleece-Applied Blocks
The whole fleece-applied block world is a mystery to me – these waxes are so different from what we’re accustomed to using. Most block-form paraffins do not work as fleece-applied waxes; the viscosity and hardness is all different. The ironed and liquid paraffins are all based on wax chemistry that has been in development throughout the fluoro era, and is really well proven. These fleece-applied blocks are a new evolution from Star, and they’re different material altogether. Last season we tested some products labeled “3.0”, and found that it was reliably better than the original fleece applied block when conditions included some new snow. The regular Next blocks are usually viable in older snow, and in mixed snow where we’ll often layer them up with liquids. The 3.0 blocks were sometimes winning tests against liquids in new snow, and still tested well in older snow.
Just to confirm that this is all confusing – we previously had a system where the liquids were best in newer snow, and the blocks were best in older snow. Now we’re now offering a couple of liquids that do better in older snow, and a couple of blocks that do better in newer snow. Yes. And no, I can’t just tell you what to use and when you use it. But it’s all quick, easy, and clean to apply and test.

Kick Waxes
This has been the most fun collaboration of all. I’ve been mixing up my own kick wax blends for a lot of years. Any self-respecting waxer is going to try melting some stuff together in a pot at some point. Most of what I tried didn’t produce any kind of real advantage over what was available from various wax companies, but over time I came up with some stuff that was really good, and that we ended up using a lot in races.
The problem with mixing up your own wax is that it’s messy, time consuming, and inefficient. And you could never really make it a commercially viable business unless you were prepared to charge an absurd amount per tin of wax (which some people have managed to do). The other problem is that the mixes I was making had up to six different waxes in them, from four different companies, and I didn’t know what the raw materials were from any of those original ingredient waxes.

So, Davide and I spent a LOT of time trying to replicate the qualities that we felt we being contributed by those original waxes in raw materials. Last season we reached the point of testing different mixes of the hardwax and klister components, and settled on some recipes that are very close to the original mixes that we’ve used in racing.
These are not hardwaxes for new snow – they’re hardwax/klister blends for older snow and tricky conditions when standard hardwax isn’t delivering the kick you need. They’re good – much faster than most currently available klister blends, and generally pretty stable and icing resistant. We’ve raced on this stuff more often than not over the past few years, and have had a lot of success. Shoot me an email if you want more information.

Vauhti
Vauhti was early to market with a new line of fluoro free glide products for racing when they introduced their Pure line a couple of years ago. The Vauhti Pure products have consistently tested well – particularly in older snow – and have generated some really good race results. But there was a big gap in Vauhti’s kickwax program, since they best waxes had all been developed as part of the “K-Line” project, with fluoro additive. There were only a handful of original synthetic kick waxes that we used with any regularity, including the Super and AT base binders, the Carrot hardwax, and the Universal klister. We were missing the whole line of KF klisters, and the GF kick waxes, which were really valuable tools for racing.
Finally, Vauhti has released their Pure kick line, and in our testing of samples last season, it appears to have done a great job filling the gap.

Pure Pro Kick – traditional hardwax aimed at newer snow
We had a long spell of unbroken cold weather right here in Putney last year, and these Pure Pro kick waxes delivered really good performance. We have our reliable favorite waxes based on long years of experience, and it’s hard for new wax to break into the line-up. But this is an interesting line that we’ll be testing regularly next season.

Pure Race Kick – hardwax aimed at older/transformed snow
Things get even more interesting with the Pure Race kick waxes, for older snow. These don’t quite have the feeling of klister mixes, or at least not mixes with high klister material content. But they provide a snappy kick feel and definitely merit a lot of attention. They’re not as dramatic as the Beta kickers from Star, but that might be a good thing if they provide an added measure of (icing) safety. These aren’t a “replacement” for anything that was previously fluorinated – this is a new product concept for Vauhti.

Pure Klister
KF klister line was one of the only truly big losses that we felt when we stopped working with fluorinated kick products. The whole line was good, but especially the KF Base, KF Violet, and KF Universal left big holes. These new Pure klister really seem to step up and fill the gap with what feels like equivalent product.
It’s worth noting that Vauhti HAS released a new KS Base klister to replace the KF base which we used all the time. For the past two seasons we’ve been doing our best with their KF Base Liquid, but on race day, working with a solvent based product to build a kick job can be a nightmare. If the base klister doesn’t dry all the way, you end up really screwed (ask me all about it). Finally, we’ve got a KS Base klister in a tube – but it’s not listed under the Pure product – it’s in the regular Synthetic klister section. Remarkably, this means that the KF base replacement is actually cheaper than the original KF base.

Rode
Rode remains the kick line that we lean on as our standard, and it has been especially nice that the best Rode kick products have never been fluorinated, so we’ve had to do very little adjusting to our baseline wax testing protocols to move into the fluoro free race era. We have tested Rode glide products on and off through the years, but haven’t gotten a lot of traction until the fluoro free era.  The Rode fluoro free glide products might be a little behind in marketing, and in pricing (they’re quite inexpensive), but in terms of performance they’re at the front of the curve. The Racing Gliders (block-form iron-on) are on par with the best – especially the R30 violet. And the Racing Liquids are frequent test winners – especially the Med.
New this year is Racing Extra Liquid, and we don’t know anything about it except that the pricing has been adjusted to be more in-line with the market and the realities of covering expenses in a fully fluoro-free future. Based on the success of the original racing liquid, we will absolutely be testing the Racing Extra early and often.

Rex
Rex came to market two years ago with their G liquids, and immediately produced good results. Last season they introduced a new line of “RG” liquids at nearly twice the expense. The packaging makes it look as though the RG stuff has twice as much of the “N-Kinetic” additive in it, but that’s not exactly how it works.
N-Kinetic is Rex’s branding for their proprietary selection of fluoro-free additives, but it doesn’t describe a specific additive or chemistry. Different waxes can have different additives. The G and RG lines have different additives – not just different amounts of additive. In our testing last season we had better success with the original G liquids than the new RG stuff. And we continued to have our best results with Rex when we applied the product well in advance of putting it on snow – ideally allowing it to cure overnight before finishing with roto fleece.
The Rex liquids work really well for the people who learn to use them, and to select the products prior to race day. It’s difficult to utilize these products as part of a race-day testing program because you’ll never get the best out of them without that overnight cure time. We have played with laying down a layer of Rex “in case” it’s the best thing the next day, and then coating new material on top of it if something else wins. I don’t have conclusive information on how this works, but it didn’t seem to hurt anything.
Rex also has RG solid paraffin (to be ironed) which we’ll be working on testing this season. The G line of block paraffins did not perform as well for us as the liquids. Lots of testing to be done!

Red Creek
With fluoros phasing out of racing, more attention and care will be paid to procedure (scraping and brushing), and to hand structure. These are categories where Red Creek make absolutely the best tools available. We don’t have any new products to push from Red Creek, but among increasing requests for hand structure tool recommendations, I’ve finally put together a menu for help selecting starting points for the Red Creek lineup.
As always, these recommendations are easy to poke holes in, and there will be exceptions. But this menu is an accurate reflection of where we’ve landed with our testing over the past several years. I’ve also highlighted our mostly commonly used structure tools (and brushes) on the price list, for your shopping convenience!

From the department of recycled marketing material…

We’re getting ready for the second ski selection trip to Europe of 2022 – a welcome return to in-person selection in ski factories after two years of Covid travel restrictions. This means that it’s time to ramp up our efforts at marketing our services. To order skis, you can use the PDF form linked from the image above, or else you can fill out our Google-based ski request form using this link:
https://forms.gle/7dsXnkFE2NTNBhUS8
We’re going to re-share some videos and articles that we’ve already sent out into the world (with updates and modifications).

First, here are the preview videos we released this spring on the new skis from each of our brands.

What Makes Us Different

We want to point out what differentiates our methods from other similar retailers. “Ski fit” is a term tossed around by almost every ski retailer out there, and it implies an evaluation of static properties measured against the skier’s body weight. Sometimes this is done on a flex tester, and other times it’s on a flex-board or using some kind of paper-test. While we do consider skier weight and carrying capacity in our work, we don’t do “ski fitting” in the sense that most people understand it, and we end up getting really grumpy about the use of the term. “Ski fitting” as a term resides in just about the same place as “skate skiing” in the hierarchy of xc-ski related vernacular. Yes, we are snobs. What differentiates our process from most others is that we focus on dynamic properties. Skiing is a motion-based activity and different skiers have different ways of moving. The dynamic properties of skis play a much larger role in the suitability for a given skier than any single measured static value.

This can sound like a level of refinement that is beyond the scope of all but the most advanced skiers. Isn’t all this “dynamic” hoo-ha more the realm of the World Cup than the regional marathon circuit? No!! Here’s the thing – professional athletes (and young athletes as well) are very adaptable, and can adjust their skiing to take advantage of most any platform. In fact, this process is automatic. Those of us who are less skilled, perhaps a bit older, maybe have some physical limitations… we’re the “old dogs” that will always struggle to learn new tricks. While the pros can jump on any ski and make it work to its best, most of us can benefit tremendously from skis that work in harmony with the movement patterns that we’ve developed and printed into our neurology over years.

What Makes Skis Different

To understand the dynamic properties of skis and how they vary, you need to understand what factors contribute to ski characteristics. The material composition and the shape (thickness profile and sidecut) are major differentiators from brand to brand. Within a brand and a model, these material characteristics vary by length – each length is essentially a whole different object. These material differences govern the stiffness profile of the ski (material stiffness along the length of the ski), the torsional stiffness of the ski, and the damping characteristics of the ski (the speed of the material in rebound, and the vibration characteristics of the material). Within a model and length, the skis are all pretty much materially the “same”. When we’re making brand/model recommendations to skiers, we’re usually focused on these material qualities. To sort out the differences from one ski to the next, we have to look at camber. Camber is the specific shape of the arc of the ski at rest, and it determines how and where the skis will deform under load – including basics like “tip splay”, but also including more advanced (and more important) subjects like material tension, release angles, length of the contact areas, and camber progression. This is where picking individual skis becomes an art. The entire reason we travel to select skis, is to examine and select specific cambers.

If you want a deep dive into the material side of those dynamic properties, then make a bowl of popcorn and settle in for over an hour of discussion of the specifics of ski materials and camber, and how we work with the dynamic properties of skis, in these two videos.

Incredibly, those videos have been watched something like 1600 times. What is wrong with you people??

What Makes You Different

What is much more important to most skiers than the dynamic properties of ski materials and camber, is the dynamic qualities of skiers. This is where we work directly with customers to evaluate their movement patterns and predict what materials and cambers will work best by asking a bunch of questions about athletic background, and self-identified technique goals.

Effective immediately – our retail price for grinding is being raised to $100 per pair. Batch volume discounting applies to this new pricing basis, and all team pricing will go up as well. Details at the bottom of my explanation.

The last time we adjusted our grind pricing my mobile phone was a Blackberry and Gunnar looked like this. It was 2011, and we had just moved back to Vermont after four years in the west. Fischer’s flagship product was the “Hole Ski”, Madshus Redline was still a couple of years away, and we were making a big bet that Salomon was going to become a legit player in the XC race ski market based on what we had seen from their development direction.

Here’s a brief history of our grind pricing:

2002 – We started up grinding skis in a truck(!) with grinding pricing coordinated with Nat Brown when we worked together with Lars Svensson at the 2002 Olympics, where I picked up my first Tazzari grinding machine. “Basic” (one-layer) structures were $58 and compound or layered structures were $68. According to the US inflation calculator those prices would equate to $95.50 and $112 (roughly) in 2022 dollars.

2004 – We introduced the Z40 and related grinds – the first that I developed independently. Our original structure menu was based on grinds that Lars Svensson developed back in the ’90s. We offered the “Z” grinds at $70. That’s about $110 in 2022 equivalent dollars.

2006 – We moved the operation out of the truck and into a shop in West Townshend VT, and bought the Tazzari RP-23 machine. We also reworked the “Z” structures and the new ZR1 and ZR1XL were offered at $75 (still about $110 in 2022 $$). I also somewhat audaciously offered some special grinds at much higher prices; these involved mapping the pressure zones on the skis and creating different patterns and depths in different areas of the ski. It was a cool idea and I still play with it.

2007 – We moved to Squamish BC for two years, and then to Boulder where we worked with Nathan Schultz and Boulder Nordic Sport. During this time the grind pricing remained $75.

2011 – We moved back to VT, and we’re back to where I started this article. Grinds were set at $80, which is the equivalent of $105 in 2022 dollars.

When I first started grinding skis it was the core of the business and the only revenue stream. I did a huge portion of the grinding work on my own, though I had seasonal help from time to time from illustrious folks like Gus Kaeding (during his PG year at Stratton Mountain School) and Nick Brown (pictured here grinding skis in the truck). I introduced new ski sales to the business in 2004, after a couple of years of selecting skis for customers, but selling them through West Hill Shop here in Putney, in an arrangement that Neil Quinn and I put together. Funny story – Neil sold West Hill in 2004 to Jim and Diny Sweitzer, and then Amy and I bought it from the Sweitzers in October of 2020.

When Amy and I started up in VT in 2011 after returning from adventures out west, ski sales were a bigger part of the business, and we also started selling wax. Within a couple of years we were aiming to limit grind business to a manageable volume. We were “helped” in that goal by skyrocketing shipping prices, and also by a increase in the number of good grinding machines and operators around the country. These factors combined to reduce our volume from outside of the eastern region. On average we try to keep grinding in the realm of 1100-1200 pairs per season (although last year was much higher), which allows us to focus on quality. In the past decade we have slowed down the process dramatically (slower drive speeds, slower stone speeds, lower vibration levels, etc). We’ve also developed grinds utilizing more than one stone compound, and other grinds that require more frequent diamond changes, as well as some specially shaped diamonds. All of this takes time and attention, and is really hard to do in a super high volume environment.

Since 2011 our business has evolved. With increasing volume in wax sales, and increasing pricing on new skis, the contribution of grinding to our revenue stream has gotten smaller (as a percent of the whole). The time and energy we’ve put into grinding has moved a little bit from production toward development and testing. Between wax and grinds we do more testing now than we have at any point in our business. And that testing and development work is what keeps the business fresh and exciting for me. When I started, I imagined that I might figure out everything in about four years, and then do something else. That was 20 years ago.

Here’s the problem. Time had passed. Gunnar now looks like this. Inflation has been high, and all of our costs are up. Amy and I now run two businesses, with a bunch of revenue streams. Grinding remains the core and soul of our ski business, and the process and product that I have the most pride invested in. But I need to rationalize this to the boss. Grinding has gone from producing over 20% of our gross revenue and nearly 40% of our profit in 2011 to producing about 4% of our revenue and 8-9% of our profit. I need to convince her that, not only does our reputation and credibility depend on my grinding business and the constant energy outlay in development, but it’s worth it to continue to push skis through that machine at strange hours.

So – all skis arriving on or after October 1, 2022, will be billed based on this new $100/pair rate. A batch of 6-10 pairs will be billed at $85 per pair. A batch of 11 or more pairs will be billed at $75 per pair. Additional team discounts are available based on yearly agreements. Contact us for more information.