On Fri, 7 Jan 2005, George Cleveland wrote:

On 7 Jan 2005 13:14:29 -0800, "SkiFit" wrote:

Sadly, I'm currently without a pair of classic skis. I do have
multiple pairs of skate skis and am considering waxing up a pair of old
Rossi Delta Cobras. I'm doing this to classic with friends and have no
intention of racing on them. My plan is to hot wax in a hard wax in
the kick zone to use as a binder and then applying kick wax as normal.
Does anone have any advice or ideas of what I might expect?


How far are you going to ski?

20 ks or less and I bet you won't have any trouble. Farther than that
and you might have to rewax if the trails are hard.

A lot depends on the snow conditions. I can remember doing this
several times in races and getting away with it. Once for a 65km
classic marathon in klister conditions. Worked well and I didn't
have to re-wax. Also didn't lose my kick due to skis being too
stiff (for me) for that long of a race. I did make sure to iron
in green klister first as a binder.

Other times I did it were in ski-O races when there was several
inches of new ungroomed snow. Standard classic skis would have
been too stiff in these conditions unless kick wax zone was
significantly lengthened.

Another time was a shortened classic race held on a shortened 1k
course due to lack of snow. The course was straight up a steep
hill (herringbone), turn, and zoom back to the bottom of the hill,
take about a dozen striding steps and start herringboning again.
In klister conditions. Something like 7 laps of that to complete
the race. After 1 warmup lap I decided to chuck the classic skis
and klistered up a pair of skate skis. I figured that with 95% of
the race time being split between herringbone and a steep downhill
that included a sharp turn, the shorter more maneuverable skis
would be better. Turned out to be a good choice. I saw a number
of good skiers crash on the downhill turn at least once. I would
have too on my classic skis.

-Mitch