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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 ===== Rob Bradlee Java, C++, Perl, XML, OOAD, Linux, and Unix Training |
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#2
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Official Toko view of Birkie
Rob, thanks for posting this. I think Ian got his days mixed up.
According to the NWS, the Hayward temp was 17F Saturday mid-evening and continued to drop into Sunday morning. The Friday/Saturday overnight low was 29-30, falling to ~26 at race time. The temps at Telemark were within a degree of those (not always the case). That it didn't drop was unexpected and commented on by some, including Justin Wadsworth in the post under Birkie week fun. The sun did come out and warm temps into the upper 30s during the afternoon, but it didn't hit 32 in Hayward until close to 1 pm, which was long after the front waves had finished. For one record of all this, see http://www.wunderground.com/history/...lyHistory.html I was also curious where Swix came up with its midweek prediction of 9F overnight, which it never altered. I follow five weather sites, including the NWS official, and the closest to that earlier in the week saw a low of 14, the highest (AccuWeather.com) 22. I find the latter is often very different and more accurate than the NWS. Some of Ian's other comments, especially about the colder snow, are accurate tho not unique. I don't know whether HelX cold turned out to be the right call in these conditions. Gene Rob Bradlee wrote: 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 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. |
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Official Toko view of Birkie
Wow, Ian seems to have a healthy imagination. I can't imagine
thinking a Blue/Red mix was "spot on" when the temps didn't even get below 30 the night before! This seems to be a pretty optimistic view, even for company propoganda ;-). Brian In article m, Rob Bradlee wrote: 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. |
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Official Toko view of Birkie
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#5
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Official Toko view of Birkie
Gene Goldenfeld wrote in message ...
Rob, thanks for posting this. I think Ian got his days mixed up. According to the NWS, the Hayward temp was 17F Saturday mid-evening and continued to drop into Sunday morning. The Friday/Saturday overnight low was 29-30, falling to ~26 at race time. The temps at Telemark were within a degree of those (not always the case). My buddies and I thought the temp would be closer to 30F Saturday morning and not the predicted 18F. The weather service had been saying all week that the temps would drop overnight on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday but they never did. I was also curious where Swix came up with its midweek prediction of 9F overnight, which it never altered. I follow five weather sites, including the NWS official, and the closest to that earlier in the week saw a low of 14, the highest (AccuWeather.com) 22. I find the latter is often very different and more accurate than the NWS. I talked to Roger Knight. He said they couldn't find a place to run off 5,000 more copies that would have been updated. However, their wax reccomendation never changed. Roger and Zach Caldwell said HF7 worked better than HF8 even at the warmer temps because of the fresh snow. They also stayed with their FC7 call. Jay Tegeder "Keep training, lycra never lies!" JT |
#7
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Official Toko view of Birkie
Mike Seaman from Michigan???
(telewhacker) wrote in message . com... It seems to be fashionable to bash Toko on this group. But, I used their HF Red, with Helx Cold and had fast skis. I started with bib 4257 and finished about 750 so I had lots of opportunities to compare glide as I passed people. At worst my glide was comparable to others. In most cases (90%+) I had better skis. (Ron Bott) wrote in message . com... wrote in message ... Wow, Ian seems to have a healthy imagination. I can't imagine thinking a Blue/Red mix was "spot on" when the temps didn't even get below 30 the night before! This seems to be a pretty optimistic view, even for company propoganda ;-). Brian An extremely optimistic view is right. I was unable to ski the Birkie this year, but I must of talked with at least 8 people who used the Toko recommendation and were extremely dissapointed in the results. In fact not one person said they had good skis with the Toko wax of the day. Of course there are many other equipment factors to consider in addition to the wax, but to say the recommendation was "spot on" I find rather insulting, based on the feedback I had gotten. Ron Bott |
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Official Toko view of Birkie
I'm not sure how much wax testing the wax companies actually do at the
Birkebeiner. I think they go by the weather report. That's why Zach Caldwell was so invaluable at the race this year. He tested about a dozen pairs of skis with all kinds of wax. I think the skis were the same flex and only the wax and structure were different. He re-tested waxes and structures every day during the week. I think all of the wax companies have missed the wax in the past. Once again, hats off to Zach! Jay Tegeder "Keep training, lycra never lies!" JT (Ron Bott) wrote in message . com... wrote in message ... Wow, Ian seems to have a healthy imagination. I can't imagine thinking a Blue/Red mix was "spot on" when the temps didn't even get below 30 the night before! This seems to be a pretty optimistic view, even for company propoganda ;-). Brian An extremely optimistic view is right. I was unable to ski the Birkie this year, but I must of talked with at least 8 people who used the Toko recommendation and were extremely dissapointed in the results. In fact not one person said they had good skis with the Toko wax of the day. Of course there are many other equipment factors to consider in addition to the wax, but to say the recommendation was "spot on" I find rather insulting, based on the feedback I had gotten. Ron Bott |
#9
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Official Toko view of Birkie
I'm a Swix guy myself and was confused by them sticking to the 9F
morning low prediction. I waxed using the NWS "meteorogram" graph which showed about 18-28 degree spread. My truck told me it was 22F when I parked at 0740 and it showed 29F when I drove home at two o-clock or so. Shmo (telewhacker) wrote in message . com... It seems to be fashionable to bash Toko on this group. But, I used their HF Red, with Helx Cold and had fast skis. I started with bib 4257 and finished about 750 so I had lots of opportunities to compare glide as I passed people. At worst my glide was comparable to others. In most cases (90%+) I had better skis. (Ron Bott) wrote in message . com... wrote in message ... Wow, Ian seems to have a healthy imagination. I can't imagine thinking a Blue/Red mix was "spot on" when the temps didn't even get below 30 the night before! This seems to be a pretty optimistic view, even for company propoganda ;-). Brian An extremely optimistic view is right. I was unable to ski the Birkie this year, but I must of talked with at least 8 people who used the Toko recommendation and were extremely dissapointed in the results. In fact not one person said they had good skis with the Toko wax of the day. Of course there are many other equipment factors to consider in addition to the wax, but to say the recommendation was "spot on" I find rather insulting, based on the feedback I had gotten. Ron Bott |
#10
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Official Toko view of Birkie
Hey everyone-
I thought I would help clear something up on this whole Birkie thing..... 1. Swix does test wax during the Birkie week, although how valuable tests are when it is 40F the day before are debateable. We work very closely with Zack, and the Subaru Factory Team. I have been personally at the Birkie the last four years and we have nailed the wax every year...that may be lucky, but we'll take it! 2. We do not update our recommendation on the sheets we print up, as we print them up ahead of time and there is nowhere in the Hayward area that is affordable to print these up. We DO tell everyone who comes by New Moon or the Expo what the weather is currently(within the hour), and what that does to our recommendation. This year, the change in weather did not change our rec, as it was still on the money. Our guys had great skis, and I heard from a bunch of people after the race that they used our wax rec and loved their skis....so that always makes us feel good. We actually recommended more structure than other companies, just a fine structure, but not super fine. This was actually key, as the snow felt drier than it was. Skis with a fine structure ran much faster than skis with a very fine structure, just ask Pat Weaver. He and Justin Wadsworth waxed with the exact same thing, and at the finish Pat told me his skis were the worst of the lead group, and Justin told me his skis were unbelievable. They had waxed the same wax (Solda actually), but Pat had a much finer structure....so it was obvious the difference. 3. The best way at the Birkie to get the most up to date results is to come see us at the booth. I don't have time to update the websites because we work from 6 am until 11 pm those few days....I apologize. 4. Guess what the Italians had on their skis? They come talk to me every year at the Birkie, partly because we usually have a guy with us who can speak Italian, but partly because they use mostly Swix powders. They actually used FC040 on their skis. This is the old version of FC7.....they tested FC040 vs. FC8 the day of the race and found that FC040 was better for what it is worth. I had the opportunity to talk to their coach/wax tech both before and after the race....they were very pleased with their skis.... 5. Thank you to everyone who supported us this year, both at the Birkie and throughout the rest of the season. We will continue to recommend wax based on what runs fastest, not what we have in our warehouse. For those of you who don't know, we were almost sold out of FC7 and FC1S going into the Birkie....but we recommended it anyway...it probably cost us thousands of dollars, but our recommendation was fast. Thanks again. Roger Knight Nordic Operations Manager Swis Sport USA |
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