Glide Wax Area

Dear All,
checking an old book on waxes and it made this recommendation about
determining glide area. You place your fingers behind the bindings and
squeeze the 2 skis together until the gap closes to 75 cm. Where they join
will give you the limit of the glide area. This gives me a much bigger area
than I normally use. ( It would explain why I am slowing down as the years
slip by). My skis are quite stiff and is quite awkward to do.
Do people agree with this formula.
Thanks,
Neil

Depending on the stiffness of the skis relative to your weight and the
ski's construction, kick zones are typically 50-60cm, starting
approximately from the inside of the heel forward. If your kick wax
zone is truly 75cm, then the skis are too stiff for you (or you've lost
a lot of weight since they were fitted). If they are correctly fit for
you and you've been waxing 75cm long, then you will feel your skis
dragging when they should be gliding and the wax will be wearing to a
much shorter length. Have you looked closely after skiing? What's the
book? Where are you located? A ski shop will be able to guide you on
this.

rm

"Neil Smith" wrote:

Dear All,
checking an old book on waxes and it made this recommendation about
determining glide area. You place your fingers behind the bindings and
squeeze the 2 skis together until the gap closes to 75 cm. Where they
join will give you the limit of the glide area. This gives me a much
bigger area than I normally use. ( It would explain why I am slowing
down as the years slip by). My skis are quite stiff and is quite
awkward to do. Do people agree with this formula.
Thanks,
Neil

On Mar 21, 11:46 am, "Neil Smith" wrote:
Dear All,
checking an old book on waxes and it made this recommendation about
determining glide area. You place your fingers behind the bindings and
squeeze the 2 skis together until the gap closes to 75 cm. Where they join
will give you the limit of the glide area. This gives me a much bigger area
than I normally use. ( It would explain why I am slowing down as the years
slip by). My skis are quite stiff and is quite awkward to do.
Do people agree with this formula.
Thanks,
Neil


Grip area (and therefore glide area) depends primarily on your body
weight vs. the stiffness of the ski. If you can somehow correlate
your hand strength to your body weight, this MIGHT be some sort of way
to mark the zones.

You mentioned that this is an old book. I haven't seen this technique
used by any knowlegable ski fitter since the 70s, and even then, the
good shops used the "paper test". Don't pay any attention to the
squeeze test, it's worthless. (IMHO, of course!).

Actually, the squeeze test is an amazingly accurate quick and dirty way
of seeing whether a ski might fit or not. If you can close them
completely, too soft; if there's a big gap, too stiff; if you can
almost close them, probably a good or close fit. I learned it from
someone else, but a couple of years ago one of the companies, probably
Fischer, mentioned it somewhere, maybe in one of those factory team
booklets. As for measuring a kick zone that way, that seems like an
approximation of an approximation.



"Camilo" wrote:

On Mar 21, 11:46 am, "Neil Smith" wrote:
Dear All,
checking an old book on waxes and it made this recommendation about
determining glide area. You place your fingers behind the bindings
and squeeze the 2 skis together until the gap closes to 75 cm. Where
they join will give you the limit of the glide area. This gives me a
much bigger area than I normally use. ( It would explain why I am
slowing down as the years slip by). My skis are quite stiff and is
quite awkward to do. Do people agree with this formula.
Thanks,
Neil


Grip area (and therefore glide area) depends primarily on your body
weight vs. the stiffness of the ski. If you can somehow correlate
your hand strength to your body weight, this MIGHT be some sort of way
to mark the zones.

You mentioned that this is an old book. I haven't seen this technique
used by any knowlegable ski fitter since the 70s, and even then, the
good shops used the "paper test". Don't pay any attention to the
squeeze test, it's worthless. (IMHO, of course!).

The book was by M.M. Brady and it was published in 1986.
Some mentioned a paper test. What is that?
wrote in message
...
Actually, the squeeze test is an amazingly accurate quick and dirty way
of seeing whether a ski might fit or not. If you can close them
completely, too soft; if there's a big gap, too stiff; if you can
almost close them, probably a good or close fit. I learned it from
someone else, but a couple of years ago one of the companies, probably
Fischer, mentioned it somewhere, maybe in one of those factory team
booklets. As for measuring a kick zone that way, that seems like an
approximation of an approximation.



"Camilo" wrote:

On Mar 21, 11:46 am, "Neil Smith" wrote:
Dear All,
checking an old book on waxes and it made this recommendation about
determining glide area. You place your fingers behind the bindings
and squeeze the 2 skis together until the gap closes to 75 cm. Where
they join will give you the limit of the glide area. This gives me a
much bigger area than I normally use. ( It would explain why I am
slowing down as the years slip by). My skis are quite stiff and is
quite awkward to do. Do people agree with this formula.
Thanks,
Neil


Grip area (and therefore glide area) depends primarily on your body
weight vs. the stiffness of the ski. If you can somehow correlate
your hand strength to your body weight, this MIGHT be some sort of way
to mark the zones.

You mentioned that this is an old book. I haven't seen this technique
used by any knowlegable ski fitter since the 70s, and even then, the
good shops used the "paper test". Don't pay any attention to the
squeeze test, it's worthless. (IMHO, of course!).

It's what they do at a reputable cross country ski shop. Do you
have one nearby? Same idea as your squeeze test, except you stand on
the skis on a flat surface in different positions and the fitter runs a
card or paper underneath the skis to see how you and the skis' camber go
together. When you find a pair (or bring yours in), they also mark a
first approximation of the kick zone for different conditions.


"Neil Smith" wrote:

The book was by M.M. Brady and it was published in 1986.
Some mentioned a paper test. What is that?