Jay T's Birkie '05 Report

I've been getting tons of emails from fellow RSNers asking for my '05
Birkie Report...

First, some background information;
My training has been pretty bad this winter. Had we recieved decent
snow, I would have been training around 9 to 10 hours per week.
However, we had a lousy snow year (hope we don't get anymore at this
point though...) and my largest week for hours was 8. I had a lot of 5
to 5 1/2 hour weeks and one at 4 hours. Also, the Birkie was only my
second ski race this year and I did no speed work. My largest weeks
including cycling. We had days in the high 40s and low 50s. I 've
already biked 8 days this winter. Oh yeah, I didn't do any hill work
except for 8 repeats of a decent hill on my bike. I know, I know, wah,
wah, wah...

As a result, I was very happy with my Birkie this year. I followed the
Swix wax recomendation and put on LF6, LF7, HF7 and FC100. Saturday
morning, the temp was much lower than expected. It was -4F at the start
in fact. Anyway, I rewaxed the skis before the race with LF6 and FC100
on top. I figured the hills would really get me this year and they did.
A few kilometers into the race, I was roasting. I had two poly layers
on top with a vest and then my bib. I wore a headband with a hat on top
of that. I did my best to stay with various groups through the hills.
One of my buddies worked the feed station at the top of the Seely Fire
Tower climb. I pulled over, took off my bib and handed him my vest, hat
and sunglasses. I put my bib back on and ate a Power Gel. I was ready
to go. My skis were rockets though so that helped a lot. I skied okay
up the remaining big hills before County Highway OO. After OO, the
course is a lot more downhill. I began to catch and pass a lot of the
skiers who got ahead of me in the hills. On the uphills, a few skiers
would get around me. Then, on the following downhill, I let my skis do
their work. I'd pass those same skiers back and put some distance on
them. On the flats, I V-2'd and Open Field'd past a lot of skiers on
slower skis. By the time I hit the lake, I was behind two guys who
V-2'd the whole lake. I stayed behind them and we blew past tons of
skiers struggling to get home. Last year, I placed 243rd on my rocket
Fischers. This year, on those same rocket boards, I was 377th. Not too
bad by my standards considering my training (8 pounds heavier than last
year and I felt it on the uphills!). I figure I lost a couple of
minutes when I took my vest and hat off. Otherwise, I figure last year
I would have been about 7 to 8 minutes faster. Like last year, my skis
were the thing that saved me. I think my Fischers are the perfect
Birkie ski. They are a firm ski with a softer tip. I have Tom Novak's
Uni grind on them. Tom works for Finn Sisu.

Jay Tegeder
"Keep training, lycra never lies! JT

Nice report Jay. Nice race, really. I've shared a similar snow
frustration this year. I threw in a dose of flu after the Noquey.

I was also on an old Fischer - yellow - before the red sidewall
underfoot ones, maybe 1998 ? Cold base, some nice looking grind from
somebody in europe.

I waxed these with The Dragon PFX10 Low / Blue which is the cold "HF"
equivalent. Not exactly like HF6, but think of it along these lines,
actually 5 - 23f. Also had the Dragon powder, Medium. A killer combo in
these conditions. At the start, especially, it seemed to be a real
advantage to be able to close up those gaps, which are like open
invitations to move up a couple skiers in that Wave 1 melee (what a
freakshow that is !) Fast skis make you look good !

After about 30k I think "the motor" was perhaps tiring slightly...or I
am still learning how to ski the Birkie. I have noticed that
experienced Birkie skiers (I've got 4 now), tend to hang back untill
25, 28, maybe 29k, and then start racing. A couple trains moved out
around there. I lost one which was 10 seconds in front of me until
then, and I kept another in visual contact, but I did manage to catch
the back of it single handedly across the lake, which I found I was
able to do a nice V2 Alt & make some time up. The lake experience was
10,000 times more fun than last year's blasting wind tunnel.

What a great snow surface ! HARD track. Blue sky. MAD MAD crowd on the
Main Street finish. Man I love the birkie.

Congratulations on your race. I'm curious what led you to use the
powder in these conditions? Was it for later in the race, as it warmed
up?

Gene

delltodd wrote:

I waxed these with The Dragon PFX10 Low / Blue which is the cold "HF"
equivalent. Not exactly like HF6, but think of it along these lines,
actually 5 - 23f. Also had the Dragon powder, Medium. A killer combo in
these conditions. At the start, especially, it seemed to be a real
advantage to be able to close up those gaps, which are like open
invitations to move up a couple skiers in that Wave 1 melee (what a
freakshow that is !) Fast skis make you look good !

On Mon, 28 Feb 2005 01:27:31 -0600, Gene Goldenfeld
wrote:

Congratulations on your race. I'm curious what led you to use the
powder in these conditions? Was it for later in the race, as it warmed
up?

Gene


My son and I did the short race. My son skated, I classiced
(classicked? classicalled ?). We both used Fast Wax Tan with an
overlayer of Toko Flouro paste for glide wax since, while the snow was
fresh, it also seemed fairly moist. I used Swix VF 40 for kick, with
a little strip of VF 50 under foot. We both had extremely fast skis. I
kept on coming up fast on other skiers at the runouts on the hills and
out glided virtually every skier, skating or classic, on the
downhills. My son, who disappeared down course immediately (There went
my sentimentalist fantasy of a father/son togetherness ski through the
Birkie Trail woods.), said afterwards he was getting almost halfway up
most of the hills on pure momentum from the previous one. Of course
our situatiuon was quite different from the regular racers. We started
at 1:30 and skied fairly stable temps and snow. Having skied the whole
Birkie a number of times, I was shocked at the high quality classic
tracks that remained after 4 thousand skiers had passed through. I've
been going to Birkies for over 23 years, as a skier, spectator and
volunteer and I can't remember a single race day that equalled this
one for overall conditions. WOJB interviews skiers after the race and
usually there is a fair degree of grousing about conditions or waxing
problems. This year I can only recall one person complaining about the
conditions. A great day to ski.



g.c.

delltodd wrote:

I waxed these with The Dragon PFX10 Low / Blue which is the cold "HF"
equivalent. Not exactly like HF6, but think of it along these lines,
actually 5 - 23f. Also had the Dragon powder, Medium. A killer combo in
these conditions. At the start, especially, it seemed to be a real
advantage to be able to close up those gaps, which are like open
invitations to move up a couple skiers in that Wave 1 melee (what a
freakshow that is !) Fast skis make you look good !

Gene,

John DeWall brought one pair of skis to the race (Trabs w/Orange base,
the ski that won the Birkie this year). He had the PFX10 Low + Medium
powder on them at the Trab / Infinity booth, and said he only brought
one pair, and that was the wax on them, no question about it.

I already had the PFX10 Low on my cold pair. So that night when I was
finishing up the various pairs, I took a gamble & added the medium
powder, based on John's incredible confidence.

Evidently he later put the cold powder on top of the medium powder, but
I am not sure that it was actually any faster than the medium powder !
In either case, we were both surprised that the skis felt as good as
they did (real fast & greasy) before the start in THAT cold of snow. I
had run into him just after one quick loop of the test track before the
start, and I actually told him I was silently cursing him out for
influencing me to add the powder, given the ultra cold morning. But I
also told him it was working well. He gave me some nervous laughter as
he skated along, putting his pole straps on even as he skated, he was
so eager to see how it really was working, and he really came alive as
he found out the good news of our skis. I think he got 2nd in age, 25th
overall in the Korte as a upper40's age class skier, I believe.

I had other skis for warmer, drier & wetter conditions, but these were
what I went with, and it was good !

Dell

Gene Goldenfeld wrote:
Congratulations on your race. I'm curious what led you to use the
powder in these conditions? Was it for later in the race, as it
warmed
up?

Gene

delltodd wrote:

I waxed these with The Dragon PFX10 Low / Blue which is the cold
"HF"
equivalent. Not exactly like HF6, but think of it along these
lines,
actually 5 - 23f. Also had the Dragon powder, Medium. A killer
combo in
these conditions. At the start, especially, it seemed to be a real
advantage to be able to close up those gaps, which are like open
invitations to move up a couple skiers in that Wave 1 melee (what a
freakshow that is !) Fast skis make you look good !