Gary Jacobson wrote:

I doubt that there are any good combi skis these days. At least I haven't
heard of any.

Same here.

Years ago I and many other skiers used a Peltonen Combi ski that was gray
and blue. I did a bunch of marathons with them and thought that they were
good even if the base wasn't the most porous. I think that these were
popular with Ski-O folks too.

Are you referring to the old Peltonen Quasar combi ski? We somehow
stumbled
onto these up at High Peaks in Lake Placid and found them to be quite
useful
for some ski-O meets. I had a pair of the gray ones and then replaced
them with
the newer yellow ones, which are still in my rock ski collection.
Probably going to
use them tomorrow in fact.

I remember one particularly strange race where I took 2nd place in the
NY State
Ski-O Champs on these skis. There was a big dump of snow the night
before
the race and no grooming. However the park roads running up the middle
of the
area were plowed but still covered with hard snow, so quite skatable.
It was a
beautiful blue hard-wax day, so I waxed up the kick section with
several layers
of swix extra blue and headed for the start. At the gun the pack
sprinted down
the road in an all-out skate for a mile or so until turning left onto
the first untracked
trail. I was just barely hanging onto the rear of the lead pack. Into
the woods
for the first couple of controls and then a long leg to another section
of the map
for #3. I didn't like the way the leaders went on that one, looked
like many fewer
contour lines to climb by taking a different route that crossed the
road earlier.
So I cut off by myself across the road and had to break trail by myself
all the
way to the control. But I still managed to get there first by a couple
minutes!
It was a long course that day and eventually 2 of the leaders from the
pack
caught me back up. The 3 of us duked it out for quite a while until
one made
a tactical error and left the other 2 of us to sprint it out for the
win. That was
a really fun race and the combi skis were just about perfect for the
deep, soft
snow, where a high wax pocket just makes it that much harder to get a
good
classic kick.

That said, it's actually rare these days to race ski-O like that. Most
days you
just make up your mind before you go out whether you're going to ski
classic
or skate/DP and stick with you choice. The choice is mostly determined
by
terrain, snow/grooming/trail conditions, fitness level, and your
confidence (or
lack thereof) in your ability to climb hills without kick wax,
regardless of track
width.

-Mitch