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Old May 13th 13, 11:54 AM posted to rec.skiing.nordic
Jon[_2_]
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Default Classic Roller Skis: Swenor v. Ski-Go v. V2

Jim:

Thanks very much for the feedback. Your point is well taken about keeping the fun aspect of skiing with roller-skiing...

Here are two good articles I found that discuss wheel speed:
- http://www.xcottawa.ca/articles.php?id=614
- http://skitrax.com/43512/

Both seem to conclude that the best approach is to be Kikkan Randall and have rollerski companies give you a bunch of different models of different speeds.

I had a chance to try the Ski-Go Carbon Classic roller skis and they're incredible (night and day improvement over aluminum shafts). You can really feel subtilties of classic timing and the flex makes the ski very comfortable on bumpy roads. They are very fast though--a small hill I usually do a quick double-pole sprint up (close to a max effort) didn't feel like anything on the Ski-Go's. FWIW, Boulder Nordic reports that next year Ski-Go hopes to offer wheels of different speeds.

On Swenor, they actually offer a #4 ("extra slow") wheel option also, but Mr. Swenor at Swix said even Kris Freeman finds them too slow (which is interesting since the fact that Swenor makes them in the first place indicates that somebody in Scandinavia thinks they're a good thing to train on.)

Personally, I think Ski-Go's will be the ideal once they offer slower wheel options (seems too risky now to be locked into just one (fast) speed). Runner up options seems to be Swenor Fiberglass and switching between #2 and#3 wheels . (Boulder Nordic guy thought Swenor's were close to Ski-Go in terms of overall performance.)

Jon


On Saturday, May 11, 2013 9:25:46 AM UTC-4, Jim wrote:
For what it's worth, I have some experience with both V2 and Swenor.



I have a pair of the original V2-900s with steel shaft and VERY slow wheels that I use from on a hill right outside of my house. They have no brakes, but the wheels are slow enough that I can ski back done the hill without too much danger of getting out of control (just a little alpine-type back and forth).



The pair I use most are Swenor Fiberglass with the medium-speed wheels. I use these nearly every day from my office on a flat 10-mile ski along the Charles River in Boston. Although these wheels are notably faster than the ones on my V2-900s I definitely don't feel like I'm not getting a sufficient workout!! There is often a 10+ mph headwind along the river and I really would not want to work any harder than I do at those times. Another more personal comment is that I enjoy the exhilaration of being able to ski reasonably fast on these skis, getting a satisfying return for my effort. It's that fun aspect that keeps me out there every day.

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