Hi all,

I'm new to newsgroups, tried searching this group for info but nothing came
up for me.

I'm J, 29, from the Netherlands.
The snow my coastal region gets, comes 2-3 times a year, most often under 3"
of it, and typically takes shorter than 24 hours to melt away.
Hoping to become a skate-skier and find some cheap starter gear soon. when I
get confident I won't look like a fool in the snow, I'll just book a
vacation a week before a race, train a lot, and try the race. I'll never
know unless I try...

Being a mountainbike racer with some stupid summer asthma I picked up a few
year back, my urge to try XC Ski racing some day has fueled even more. In
winter time my lungs are just SO strong. However I don't come from a
wintersports family, just a couple acquaintances go snowboarding once a year
in the Alps. A couple years back I did one evening of indoor snowboarding,
it was fun, but not my thing. Never tried ski's, too scared.

I once obtained a pair of Crosskates (www.crosskate.com), with the intention
to help them find a good distributor. Unfortunately they seem to have gone
out of business before I got anywhere with that.
Recently I've found the balls to actually do a more serious effort (longer
round around the block) on them. It's very hard for me, I hardly move
forward, but when I do something right, it's instantly rewarded. Right now I
top out at around 10mph, but I feel I can improve with this.

I know about the existence of rollerski's, have researched some, but that's
about it. They seem to demand really perfect asphalt and technique.
Competition average speeds are so high, it makes me wonder if they shouldn't
just leaves the poles and use the things like inline skates.
Although they seem to mimic snow speeds much better, my Crosskates are
really heavy, and I may not be strong and skilled enough to use them offroad
too soon, so looking for ways to make them a tad quicker/easier to live
with.

My real question is : who's using these, or something similar? Are they a
good preparation for my body and technique before I some day find myself in
Germany on a Langlauf camp?
Are there any websites to bug for specific tips and info? I'd like to find
faster (road)tires for my Crosskates, and they went bust just before they
started offering them.

I'm now using rubber "asphalt" tips on my poles, but on anything less that
perfectly dry rough asphalt they slip out with the walking speeds I'm
currently reaching. Before I had the standard Swix triangular tips, but
those just seemed to skid off the surface. Just me going too slow? And what
would be good off-road pole tips? The local outdoor shop sold me the Asphalt
ones as they didn't know about Crosskates whatsoever. I do keep it to
pavement for now.

Thanks a lot for your help pointing me to good off-road rollerski resources
or special off-road ski tricks.

Happy trails! (don't ever take snow for granted)

J