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Dream snow in Austria for my XC christening!



 
 
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  #1  
Old March 21st 07, 05:00 PM
Jan Gerrit Klok Jan Gerrit Klok is offline
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Location: Netherlands
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Default Dream snow in Austria for my XC christening!

I got bad and good luck : car broke down after 113km/910km. Had to leave it behind, it will be taken apart, it`s a wreck.
Good luck : all other students cancelled, I now have 5 days of private skate lessons, and the morning I got there by train, the snow started. We now have 50cm of fresh white gold in the Seefeld valleys. Postcard stuff, and at times 100% skating tracks.

This is my first true snow experience. First 2 days a lot of no-poling to get some snow feel and balance. This third days some more serious climbing efforts. Man, it`s hard! Not fysically, just the coordination of things. I suck. But I WILL learn this, some day...

End of March, and it`s the best snow they`ve had here all winter, climate`s a mess. Everyone leave their cars at home as much a you can please? I want more of this...

Instructor says I`m doing well for a newby, the liar... :-)

Greeting from Seefeld in Tirol!

A definate skating devotee for life,

Jan Gerrit
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  #2  
Old March 21st 07, 11:14 PM posted to rec.skiing.nordic
John Forrest Tomlinson
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Posts: 447
Default Dream snow in Austria for my XC christening!

On Wed, 21 Mar 2007 17:00:48 +0000, Jan Gerrit Klok
wrote:


I got bad and good luck : car broke down after 113km/910km. Had to leave
it behind, it will be taken apart, it`s a wreck.
Good luck : all other students cancelled, I now have 5 days of private
skate lessons, and the morning I got there by train, the snow started.
We now have 50cm of fresh white gold in the Seefeld valleys. Postcard
stuff, and at times 100% skating tracks.

This is my first true snow experience. First 2 days a lot of no-poling
to get some snow feel and balance. This third days some more serious
climbing efforts. Man, it`s hard! Not fysically, just the coordination
of things. I suck. But I WILL learn this, some day...

End of March, and it`s the best snow they`ve had here all winter,
climate`s a mess. Everyone leave their cars at home as much a you can
please? I want more of this...

Instructor says I`m doing well for a newby, the liar... :-)

Greeting from Seefeld in Tirol!

A definate skating devotee for life,


That's great.
--
JT
****************************
Remove "remove" to reply
Visit http://www.jt10000.com
****************************
  #3  
Old March 21st 07, 11:50 PM posted to rec.skiing.nordic
Eddy Rapid
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Posts: 45
Default Dream snow in Austria for my XC christening!

This is great, Jan! In some way's I envy the freshness of the
experience you're having ;-) Look forward to your progress reports.

Parham.


On Mar 21, 1:00 pm, Jan Gerrit Klok Jan.Gerrit.Klok.
wrote:
I got bad and good luck : car broke down after 113km/910km. Had to leave
it behind, it will be taken apart, it`s a wreck.
Good luck : all other students cancelled, I now have 5 days of private
skate lessons, and the morning I got there by train, the snow started.
We now have 50cm of fresh white gold in the Seefeld valleys. Postcard
stuff, and at times 100% skating tracks.

This is my first true snow experience. First 2 days a lot of no-poling
to get some snow feel and balance. This third days some more serious
climbing efforts. Man, it`s hard! Not fysically, just the coordination
of things. I suck. But I WILL learn this, some day...

End of March, and it`s the best snow they`ve had here all winter,
climate`s a mess. Everyone leave their cars at home as much a you can
please? I want more of this...

Instructor says I`m doing well for a newby, the liar... :-)

Greeting from Seefeld in Tirol!

A definate skating devotee for life,

Jan Gerrit

--
Jan Gerrit Klok



  #4  
Old March 22nd 07, 02:32 AM posted to rec.skiing.nordic
Bellsouth Ijit 2.0
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Posts: 21
Default Dream snow in Austria for my XC christening!


"Jan Gerrit Klok" wrote in message
...

I got bad and good luck : car broke down after 113km/910km. Had to leave
it behind, it will be taken apart, it`s a wreck.
Good luck : all other students cancelled, I now have 5 days of private
skate lessons, and the morning I got there by train, the snow started.
We now have 50cm of fresh white gold in the Seefeld valleys. Postcard
stuff, and at times 100% skating tracks.

This is my first true snow experience. First 2 days a lot of no-poling
to get some snow feel and balance. This third days some more serious
climbing efforts. Man, it`s hard! Not fysically, just the coordination
of things. I suck. But I WILL learn this, some day...

End of March, and it`s the best snow they`ve had here all winter,
climate`s a mess. Everyone leave their cars at home as much a you can
please? I want more of this...

Instructor says I`m doing well for a newby, the liar... :-)

Greeting from Seefeld in Tirol!

A definate skating devotee for life,

Jan Gerrit




--
Jan Gerrit Klok



Awesome!



  #5  
Old March 22nd 07, 09:04 AM posted to rec.skiing.nordic
[email protected]
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Posts: 37
Default Dream snow in Austria for my XC christening!

On Mar 21, 6:00 pm, Jan Gerrit Klok Jan.Gerrit.Klok.
wrote:
I got bad and good luck : car broke down after 113km/910km. Had to leave
it behind, it will be taken apart, it`s a wreck.
Good luck : all other students cancelled, I now have 5 days of private
skate lessons, and the morning I got there by train, the snow started.
We now have 50cm of fresh white gold in the Seefeld valleys. Postcard
stuff, and at times 100% skating tracks.

This is my first true snow experience. First 2 days a lot of no-poling
to get some snow feel and balance. This third days some more serious
climbing efforts. Man, it`s hard! Not fysically, just the coordination
of things. I suck. But I WILL learn this, some day...

End of March, and it`s the best snow they`ve had here all winter,
climate`s a mess. Everyone leave their cars at home as much a you can
please? I want more of this...

Instructor says I`m doing well for a newby, the liar... :-)

Greeting from Seefeld in Tirol!

A definate skating devotee for life,

Jan Gerrit

--
Jan Gerrit Klok


Way to go!

Just don't get hooked on that silky-smooth feel and sound of skating
on snow, or you might have to move! ;-)

Joseph

  #7  
Old March 22nd 07, 01:53 PM posted to rec.skiing.nordic
[email protected]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 95
Default Dream snow in Austria for my XC christening!

Ah...

....The glide.

....The fresh air.

....The whiteness.

....The dyno simplicity.

The steepest learning curve: chomping down fresh new meat every day!
Huge leaps and gains.

Can you imagine getting off of rollerskis and onto snow for the first
time? Wow!

Lucky newbie! : )

--JP

PS: And one of these days you'll add CLASSIC... : )

  #9  
Old March 24th 07, 06:44 PM posted to rec.skiing.nordic
Jan Gerrit Klok
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Posts: 220
Default Experiences and contemplations from the utter newbie on a mission

Back home after an easy flight home. 62mins airtime or a whole in stupid
trains, hmmm...

Funny, I honestly had never seen anyone in person use XC skis till about a
minute before my first lesson started. The Germans and Austrians there don't
understand that hardly anyone in my country even knows about skate skiing.

Yeah, and he hasn't even tried backcountry gliding down smooth hillsides
with a nice 5-cm cover of 'blue extra' powder. :-)

Well, something that didn't convince me yet was the gliding down bit. Part
(small part) to be blamed to me losing my brand new sunglasses (?7,99) even
before I first got to put on the skis. I know the one shuttle driver found
it as the glasses where against the windshield when i saw the bus parked
later, but the next day the other driver of the same bus didn't know about
anything. Damn those glasses were nice.
Anyway, I got as close as filling up pants as it gets. Skis are just so
fast! And what's with the totally nervous wobbling when going in a straight
line? Maybe the rentals (Fisher SCS Skatecut 192 Medium) were already too
soft right there. No stiff for this week to be rented though.

I did try RCS 192 Stiffs for a short while on perfectly groomed and flat
trail. Seemed to run better, much less sliding away, and more float over the
softer patches. I am 85kg before I put on my carbon shoes and extra layers
of silly looking gear. Weight advantage was not noticed, although there on
the scales.

Downhills I'll have to practice on, and a lot. Till they become fun to do.
The Skating Centre in leutasch has some what seems like perfect WC-style
training hills, with the downhills mostly to the right (my bad side). Man
did I get luck the snow was not just ON the trail, but even more besides it!
Note to self : good move to wear those polyester DH bike shorts. Life's too
short for a cold behind, or worse : front.
When I get back to Tirol, I'll be suffering for many of those (3000m?) laps
till I round them without hickups and over 20km/h average.

Climbing sure is something! Fit as heck on a bike or pair of sneakers, but
useless on skis unless you know all the secret handshakes and pull them all
at the same time so the strenghts of the body are actually used for
propulsion. Getting it "close" is "going nowhere". Harder than I feared.

A positive thing proved to be the just-skating-along. I had to look down to
confirm I was on skis and not Crosskates, so incredibly similar. I had
expected more JSK crashes. I did have some. One on the 2nd day already,
after the instructor kept insisting to place the poles closer together. Man
that hurt, I never got closer to breaking a wrist (stuck in strap), and till
the next day wasn't even sure I hadn't. Of course it happened on a slight
downslope where I was showing off my high speed smoothness. Must have been
30kph.

My expectations about ski length proved true, 192cm is nothing. Didn't get
in the way one sec. Longer will be better for me. I tried some 1994 200cm
Germinas shortly, and apart from a rotten base, they handled just fine. They
felt lighter than the SCS's too.
210cm Skate skis will be fine, especially if I get some more practice than
just 5 days from total zero.

Going down, I was positive I glided twice as fast as anyone. My instructor
took all of 3mins total per day to wax 2 pairs of skis. So was it the new
ski prep prior to it at the shop he rented them from, or does Master Gravity
just want me?
Wearing a helmet on skis would sure boost my confidence, I flet pretty naked
out there. But that looks even more dorky than DH shorts, I guess? Glad I
didn't crash the last afternoon, it was pretty much all ice after some sun
and frost.

Goals for now :
- on rollerskis, learn to get my poling right (let go of grip, stick in
closely) till it becomes automatic. It now SO is not...
- somehow get a more upright upper body
- unlock the knees, get to use some of that awesome leg extension power now
totally lost
- make many kms, so I don't get a sore left butt cheek every couple 100m's
- V2. I hit it perfectly right for a few strokes on my very last km of the
week, with darkness hitting and diner waiting. Shot forward, till I lost
balance for a split second.
- find a place to ski again this summer. Tunnel? Gletcher?
- get over my fear of speed going downhill somehow with or without practice,
I can't use that if I am to push through and try some racing.


  #10  
Old March 24th 07, 09:41 PM posted to rec.skiing.nordic
Jan Gerrit Klok
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Posts: 220
Default Dream snow in Austria for my XC christening!


schreef in bericht
oups.com...
PS: And one of these days you'll add CLASSIC... : )


Euhm, well...
As 2-dimension as it always did and still seems to me, after having it been
seen done I do feel like giving it a go sometime, even if only for training.
It seems easier to put energy into, but may well prove to be extremely
technical as well. I do not look forward to doing downhills with the
slightest corners through those tracks. Did that a dit on the skate skis,
and it wasn't fun.
I'd really like to be a good double poler, that seems like some fun. I try
that when the legs get lazy, but don't get much done that way yet.


 




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