Official Toko view of Birkie

Hi gang,
Included below is Ian Harvey's official view of the Birkie. Has some
interesting ideas in it as always. Enjoy.

Rob B.

The American Birkebeiner, the largest cross country ski race in America
was held last weekend in Hayward, WI. There were over 6000 starters
from all over the world, although most participants were from the
Midwest. The Birkie actually involves two races - a 51 km marathon or
a 25 km half marathon.

The forecast that was given over a week in advance by the National
Weather Service held up really well. Lows Friday night were about 17
and highs on race day turned out to be in the mid 30s. Snow stayed
pretty dry due to the 10-15 mile per hour wind. It had snowed Thursday
and Friday and the snow was predictably soft. There was also a dusting
of snow on race morning.

On Monday the 16th of February (the race was on the 21st) we
recommended LF Moly, HF Blue/Red mix (for elite and first wave) or HF
Red followed by HelX Cold. We also recommended fine structure.
Thankfully, this recommendation turned out to be spot on.

I have learned to wax "cold" at the Birkie with finer structure than
one would think. This is for a number of reasons. First, the race is
long and the wax needs to be durable. A harder wax is more durable.
Second, there is a ton of climbing in this race. This means that a
skier spends a lot of time going relatively slowly up big long hills.
A harder wax breaks away easier than a softer wax making them slippery
at slow speeds. Also, there is generally some wind at the Birkie which
drys the snow out and makes it act "colder". Lastly, if it is not corn
snow, the Birkie trail is generally soft yielding slower ski speeds.

For these same reasons a finer structure seems to work better at the
Birkie when the snow is not transformed.

For most of these same reasons a soft ski (which in my opinion always
climbs better too) is generally the call for the Birkie when it is not
transformed snow.

In this year's Birkie, I think that a coarse structure or stiff skis
was a recipe for certain slow skis. We gave this advice verbally at
all of the venues (the 3 retail stores and at the Expo).

Our tip of HelX Cold as a final layer was also solid. The Blue/Red mix
for elites and first wavers gave the skis an excellent "feel" and made
them faster at slow speeds. (You know what I mean). The HelX Cold
tested about the same as JetStream Old Snow, but had it gotten a bit
wetter would have kicked in and given some super fast skis on the
downhills. As it was though HelX Cold ran very well.

Before the race, especially on Friday, there was a lot of trepidation
(as always) and people coming back AGAIN asking, "are you sure?".
Everybody seemed to want to panic and "warm up" the recommendation. As
commonly is the case though, the weather can change but the conditions
might stay the same. This was the case here this year, last year, and
three years ago. Luckily, we work with Toko and our waxes have
beautiful broad ranges and these changes were welcomed. After
considering what might happen, we knew that our tip was going to be
excellent almost no matter what change took place (except for rain or
extreme cold).

The Toko Tech Team and Team Rossignol (and some others) represented us
very well in the shops, at the expo, during the event, and in general.
Thank you to all involved for an excellent weekend.

Ian Harvey
Toko Brand Manager
Climb High Inc.

866 TOKO USA


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Rob Bradlee
Java, C++, Perl, XML, OOAD, Linux, and Unix Training