Snow and ski - Start Grip Tape Review

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Start Grip Tape Review

I got to try the new Start Grip Tape for the first time today. It is a
roll of klister like stuff you apply as kick wax for classic skiing. It
is supposed to have a very wide temperature range, and well suited for
someone like me, who doesn't want to mess with wax, and hasn't been able
to make it work often, and has variable type snow conditions often
(Eastern US).
So I sand the kick area of a pair of skis (seems like sacrilege to rough
up bases this much!) and apply 380mm worth of the tape (about my shoe
length) to each ski, then rub it on as instructed. They do not tell you
how long a strip is needed, just a minimum (I think that was 150mm).

I did hit as few spots where the tape unrolled and there were holes in
it. I was able to overlay a little more tape there and rub it in.
The actual skiing was pretty good, nice glide and decent kick. I need to
learn to kick better, so problems I had climbing hills were most likely
me and not the wax.
Conditions of the test were untransformed snow, some loose, some very
packed, some almost icy. Temp. around 25 degrees F. No icing occurred at
all, when I was done I scrapped the snow off the kick tape, and after it
warmed up, placed the peel off paper back over it to keep it clean for
next time.
No wear or damage was noted to the kick tape, even though the snow was
very thin and I went over dozens of icy and dirty spots and earth
clumps, and twigs.
Skis used for the test were 50mm wide old Fischer Europa Glass, 205cm long.
For comparison I then did a little skiing with a very similar pair of
waxless/fishscale skis (Fischer crown elite, 50mm wide, 215cm). There
was noticeable less glile, and of course the occasional annoying
fishscale noise. The grip was much better (remember that this is the
normal type of ski for me!) The grip pattern of this fishscale is easily
3 or 4 time the length of the Start grip wax, so maybe I was not using
enough grip wax.
gr

I also liked the tape: I tried it last year. I even started skiing
classic (before I did not bother with the wax)

I'm now also interested to challenge myself on classic skis.

A friend reported to me that the tape may not last long, especially
when steep dowhills are on the course.

A general rule about sticking something on a surface is to prepare well
the surface to stick onto.

So, what are the "secrets" of applying grip tapes ?
How much/deep to sand the base ?

I've been using the new Rex grip tape (universal - 10-40F) and it works
pretty well. Ahvo of Finn Sisu says it should last about 150k. I've
now skied four sessions with it, two on man-made and two on natural
snow. The latter had some new snow, so I put some Toko blue over it the
first day and turquoise (cold) the second. What I've noticed is skiing
w/o poles on steeper inclines is the grip breaks down, but I've yet to
determine to what degree that's the wax, conditions or me. Ahvo says
the tape is fine for racing, but performance can be improved with a
little fluro powder on top per conditions, application still in the
experimental stage.

Gene

gr wrote:

The way I do it is remove the remains of the previois wax/tape with
SWIX orange solvent (read: any wax solvent), sand it just a bit, to
make it look mat, then apply the tape. I'd say, 75% of tape stays after
2 hrs of skiing - much better than any "real" kick wax I've ever
applied.

I agree that a real kick wax job, well done, will perform much better,
but for me the tape gives the highest value of the equation (of
pain-of-waxing)*(fun of skiing)

"gr" wrote in message
...
I got to try the new Start Grip Tape for the first time today. It is a roll
of klister like stuff you apply as kick wax for classic skiing. It is
supposed to have a very wide temperature range, and well suited for someone
like me, who doesn't want to mess with wax, and hasn't been able to make it
work often, and has variable type snow conditions often (Eastern US)....
gr

A few observations from my use of the Grip Tape last year:
.. kick surface must be rough (sanded) otherwise tape will come off. The
sanding I had done for kick wax was fine.
.. typical application lenght is same as klister.
.. it will work in most temperatures, snow type and moisture levels.
.. it will wear off the edges when "braking" in downhills, same way as
klister does.
.. life expectancy depends on conditions (dirt in track, braking, etc).
.. do protect the grip tape when you take your skis off; this stuff will
stick to anything.
.. don't allow your ski bases to touch each other... you will have to pry
them apart, and tape will end up all on one ski.
.. soak with wax remover and let sit for some time before removing with a wax
scraper.
.. grip tape is thicker that the typical 3 thin layers of grip wax. If you
skis have a very "thin" or "low" wax pocket, you may experience glide
problems...

Overall, a good product. I often go out for a few kms, when I have a free
hour in the evening. I often spent more time getting the wax right than
actually skiing. Now that I have a pair of skis with grip tape on, which I
call them my "evening" skis, I do ski a lot more : )

However, for long daytime trails, I still prefer the regular kick waxes.
Besides, I have to justify those 40+ tubes of wax stuffed in my wax box!

BarryT