What are typical low end temperatures for XC?

On Jan 19, 10:05*pm, DirtRoadie wrote:
OK, maybe this is a silly question, but while I live in an area with

Just curious. TIA

DR

When it gets cold, as others have remarked, classic is more fun and
less work than skating. We have had cold here for almost a week - down
to minus 20 F at night with daytime highs from minus 5F to minus 15F
(the same general area as where the Pepsi Chalenge was cancelled
because of predicted wind chill in the area of minus 45 - 50F)....and
have classic skied every day in brilliant sunshine. If you can go with
others and change lead, the tracks are actually fast (and because I am
lazy am on blue glide wax) and kick of course is wonderful - I'm a big
fan of Swix Polar on these days. Our weather is always so changeable
that I'm not sure what would be "typical"; we regularly ski in up to
40F and in January often in below zero F. Personally, if it's below 10
F I prefer classic to the push required for slow skating. The cold
snow makes skating a drag, regardless of glide wax.

Burgess

On Jan 21, 6:04 am, polarpoler wrote:
On Jan 19, 10:05 pm, DirtRoadie wrote:

OK, maybe this is a silly question, but while I live in an area with

Just curious. TIA

DR

When it gets cold, as others have remarked, classic is more fun and
less work than skating. We have had cold here for almost a week - down
to minus 20 F at night with daytime highs from minus 5F to minus 15F
(the same general area as where the Pepsi Chalenge was cancelled
because of predicted wind chill in the area of minus 45 - 50F)....and
have classic skied every day in brilliant sunshine. If you can go with
others and change lead, the tracks are actually fast (and because I am
lazy am on blue glide wax) and kick of course is wonderful - I'm a big
fan of Swix Polar on these days. Our weather is always so changeable
that I'm not sure what would be "typical"; we regularly ski in up to
40F and in January often in below zero F. Personally, if it's below 10
F I prefer classic to the push required for slow skating. The cold
snow makes skating a drag, regardless of glide wax.

Burgess

I agree with everything said above. Classic skiing is the only way to
go when it's cold. My personal line is 0F - above skating is OK,
below skating is awful. I always get a kick out of the unidimensional/
incomplete skiers who only skate and will be out there below zero.
What a joke!

I enjoy skiing to about -15 to -20 F. I have skiied at -30 and had
fun, but it's tougher physically as it requires a lot of energy to
move and keep warm.

Bright sunny days at -10-15: couldn't be better. Easy to dress for,
decent glide (with the right glide wax and very, very find structure)
and EASY kick!

I guess the only thing I disagree with the above poster is that if
you're using Swix Polar for kick, you darn well shouldn't be using a
blue wax - it should be a flavor of the coldest waxes. I'm very
familiar with CH4, Holmenkol EC, Start Green and Star NA 8. All
excellent waxes for cold weather - I start using them at about +5-10
F. Toko Blue is definitely inferior at very cold temps, unless you
add cold powder, in which case it works pretty good. Adding moly or
graphite seems to help in cold, dry temps also.

This weekend I skied all three days.

It was near 5-7F on Friday and quite windy, maybe 15 mph with gusts.
Bad ass day for skiing. I skated for an hour out in the open. (I
didn't want to drive further.) I had to quit when it got dark and I
couldn't see with the goggles on. Yes googles, they work. If I had
more time, I would have only gone another 15 min or so.

It was about -4 to -1F or so on Sat with a 10 mph wind. It was cold in
the open against the wind, but maybe 80% of the course was in woods or
wooded areas. I classic skied for 1:52.

It was about -2 to 0F or so on Sun with light winds. I skated for
2:06.

Windstopper (the Gore fabric) is wonderful. Once you stop skiing, you
have about 100 seconds to get in the car or inside. Some areas of the
body are wet, some dry, and you cool off really quick when you shut
off the motor.

Jay

On Mon, 21 Jan 2008 09:56:54 -0800 (PST), Camilo
wrote:

I agree with everything said above. Classic skiing is the only way to
go when it's cold. My personal line is 0F - above skating is OK,
below skating is awful. I always get a kick out of the unidimensional/
incomplete skiers who only skate and will be out there below zero.
What a joke!

Some of us enjoy skating and/or are bad at classic. Thanks for your
insight and commentary....

I've got decent glide on old snow at -8F - the problem for me at that
temp is not the propulsion/glide of skating. It's just that I don't
like being out much in weather of that temp.

Originally Posted by DirtRoadie

In any case, what is the coldest typical daytime temperature that those of you in other parts of the country or world typically ski at? And when I say "typically" I mean just that - not some extreme that you experienced at one time or another.

An Ottawa area view: from a rough-and-ready glance at my log for the past five years, temperature ranges in order of frequency appear to be 0C to -9C, -10C to -19C, over 0C and -20C to -29C. I've only logged -30C or below a couple of times in that period. There's no "typical" cutoff; the numbers just tail off.

The Gold Camp at the Canadian Ski Marathon is often -20C to -25C overnight. I hear claims of below -25C, but I suspect someone's sucking on the bulb to pull the mercury down.

Cheers -- John

On Jan 21, 11:56*am, Camilo wrote:
On Jan 21, 6:04 am, polarpoler wrote:





On Jan 19, 10:05 pm, DirtRoadie wrote:

OK, maybe this is a silly question, but while I live in an area with

Just curious. TIA

DR

When it gets cold, as others have remarked, classic is more fun and
less work than skating. We have had cold here for almost a week - down
to minus 20 F at night with daytime highs from minus 5F to minus 15F
(the same general area as where the Pepsi Chalenge was cancelled
because of predicted wind chill in the area of minus 45 - 50F)....and
have classic skied every day in brilliant sunshine. If you can go with
others and change lead, the tracks are actually fast (and because I am
lazy am on blue glide wax) and kick of course is wonderful - I'm a big
fan of Swix Polar on these days. *Our weather is always so changeable
that I'm not sure what would be "typical"; we regularly ski in up to
40F and in January often in below zero F. Personally, if it's below 10
F I prefer classic to the push required for slow skating. The cold
snow makes skating a drag, regardless of glide wax.

Burgess

I agree with everything said above. *Classic skiing is the only way to
go when it's cold. * My personal line is 0F - above skating is OK,
below skating is awful. *I always get a kick out of the unidimensional/
incomplete skiers who only skate and will be out there below zero.
What a joke!

I enjoy skiing to about -15 to -20 F. *I have skiied at -30 and had
fun, but it's tougher physically as it requires a lot of energy to
move and keep warm.

Bright sunny days at -10-15: couldn't be better. *Easy to dress for,
decent glide (with the right glide wax and very, very find structure)
and EASY kick!

I guess the only thing I disagree with the above poster is that if
you're using Swix Polar for kick, you darn well shouldn't be using a
blue wax - it should be a flavor of the coldest waxes. *I'm very
familiar with CH4, Holmenkol EC, Start Green and Star NA 8. *All
excellent waxes for cold weather - I start using them at about +5-10
F. * Toko Blue is definitely inferior at very cold temps, unless you
add cold powder, in which case it works pretty good. *Adding moly or
graphite seems to help in cold, dry temps also.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Oh Camilo, I don't mean to imply that blue (in this case actually High
Speed tan from the Seeley Hills race) glide is best for extremely cold
weather, only that I was too lazy to change wax. I meant to
demonstrate that in below zero F, classic tracks are actually quite
forgiving as far as glide is concerned - were I waxing I would use one
of the very hard waxes.
And like Bjorn, I too wear something over my eyes (and carry a face
mask just in case).
Bjurgess

See
http://blogs.jsonline.com/offthecouc...tten-toes.aspx

DirtRoadie wrote:

In any case, what is the coldest typical daytime temperature that
those of you in other parts of the country or world typically ski at?
And when I say "typically" I mean just that - not some extreme that
you experienced at one time or another.

The World Masters Association definitely had a fixed temperature below which their member
racers were not allowed to start their race.
Does that still apply and does anyone know the details?
Mike

On Jan 28, 2:42 pm, dardruba wrote:
The World Masters Association definitely had a fixed temperature below which their member
racers were not allowed to start their race.
Does that still apply and does anyone know the details?

I'm out of skiing for a while, but few years back, FIS had rule that
coldest temperature to allow start is -19c. I have no idea if this is
still true, but for skiers sake, I hope they still have limit for
races. It's really not nice to ski, and even less to race at those
temperatures.
As far as original post goes, lately average temperature where I ski
is, believe it or not, around +5c. After 20 years of active racing,
and now 9 years of skiing just for fun, I don't remember that I was
ever skiing in just a t-shirt in middle of January.