Classical Skiers get the shaft agfain at the Birkie

Diva wrote:

Jeff, what rollerskis did you eventually end up with? I stopped in at the XC
Ski Shop in Grayling when I was up there in early March and talked with Dick
Fultz

Yeah, that's a great shop.

I bought my Aero125s from him and he went beyond call of duty thru the whole
'bad wheels' situation with those skis.

Anyway I haven't gotten classics yet. I was all set to get Jeseniks from
Czech...just to give that route a try (about half price of usual skis)...when I
heard about a pair of possibly good shape old carbon 3 wheelers for
supercheap...but I haven't heard back from the guy so I will probably just
spring for the semi-cheapies pretty soon.

--

Jeff Potter
****
*Out Your Backdoor * * http://www.outyourbackdoor.com
publishing do-it-yourself culture ... bikes, skis, boats & more ...
plus radically relevant novels at the ULA's LiteraryRevolution.com
... free music ... tons o' articles ... travel forums ... WOW!

How were the Birkie tracks? Would you recommend classical skiing it if one
enjoyed both techniques a like amount?

Which Birkie? I classic skied both this year.

US Birkie - awesome, skied it from the fifth wave, hardly any backup,
skaters stayed out of track.

Norway Birkie - what track? Not their fault, though, it was bad
weather.

bt

"John Galt" wrote in message ...
Got my Bicrch Scroll, no results for Men's Classical Birkie. All that hard
work and the Birchie organization yet again finds a way to treat classical
skiers as second class skiers. (I hear us classical skiers will be getting
a sheet of results mailed to them sometime in the future, 'Suitable for
insert into your Birch Scroll'. Whoop de doo.)

The American Birkie has been a freestyle race for years. I doubt they
will ever run it as a classic only event. That's just the way it is.
The international and national talent skate the race.

I guess I look at it as the Birkie folks have been gracious enough to
run a concurrent classic race, but the real event is the skate race.
Although Grant Nelson won the men's classic (51 km) event, I didn't
see his mug plastered all over the Duluth paper after the race. I
don't think the Birkie folks are out so screw Grant, it's just that
the freestyle race is the big race.

Now the fact that the classic results were left out, well, there has
been bigger mistakes and I really doubt they did it on purpose. Last
year at the Blue Hills race in WI, about three of us out of different
waves all finished within about 2-5 seconds of each other, but the
results were scrambled by a "volunteer" at the finish line. So, no
results and no refund.

This year they managed to find another way to screw up. If you wanted
to be placed anything but the last wave, you _had to_ pre-register,
but on their website, they stated "Adults who pre-register can request
wave seeding."


Jay Wenner