(looong read) Worst training for XC Ski, but I love it!

I found that with heavier poles that shorter is OK. That is, I cut my
heavy poles down a bit---having them lighter seems more impt than
having them long.
I'm certainly no expert, but I doubt it's weight that's helping you there.
Longer sticks swing slower. Take a cord and a weight on it's end. Regard the
cord weight;ess, and the weight a constant. A 170cm cord will have the
weight swinging at half the frequency (is that right?) of that with 85cm.
What you see is the natural frequency of the "pole" as each given length. It
takes extra force to swing faster. A lighter pole will take less force
obviously. Same weight pole with the center of gravity higher up may
actually have a higher natural frequency at the same length.
From all I read on here, it seems whatever I want with the sport, it's going
to be super-expensive. Carbon poles to get some V1 going, 3 sets of ski's to
always have the correct stiffness ready. 10 kinds of wax. Multiple
rollerski's...

Maybe they meant regular speedskating purposes? Speedskates have a
locked heel (unless they're clap-skates). XC has free heel. ("Free your
heel, free your mind." --an XC downhill slogan)
Perhaps. I did some poleless skating, semi-neatly at all my might, but would
hardly call it "speed"skating. Or possibly just a feaure for feature' sake.
For now it feels quite natural to me to have the fixed heel. No lower leg
sores or anything, just the tightly strapped boot. My thighs are suffering
the most.

schreef in bericht
ups.com...
PS: Do you have ICE around and any ice skates? If it's wild ice, you
can REALLY use the poles and skate along. A headwind gives decent
resistance like a hill. --JP
No ice. Our winters are super tame lately. This one was all rain and wet
snow. There were 3 or 4 occasions this winter where I should have had old
cheap ski's to skate on 1-3" of snow, before it melted away within 24hrs.
I grew up with 1-4 weeks of safe ice each winter. That doesn't happen
anymore, and the ice skate business is suffering badly from it, full stocks
of skates that no-one is buying.
Wind we have a plenty :-) I could take cyclepaths into the farmlands and get
more workout than is fun. First get my endurance up so I reach the borders
of my town, and back.

Jan Gerrit Klok wrote:
I found that with heavier poles that shorter is OK. That is, I cut my
heavy poles down a bit---having them lighter seems more impt than
having them long.
I'm certainly no expert, but I doubt it's weight that's helping you there.
Longer sticks swing slower.

....And longer heavy sticks swing slowest of all. Maybe too slow.
Cutting down somewhat speeds them back up again to acceptable rate.

Take a cord and a weight on it's end. Regard the
cord weight;ess, and the weight a constant. A 170cm cord will have the
weight swinging at half the frequency (is that right?) of that with 85cm.
What you see is the natural frequency of the "pole" as each given length. It
takes extra force to swing faster. A lighter pole will take less force
obviously. Same weight pole with the center of gravity higher up may
actually have a higher natural frequency at the same length.

[ ]
From all I read on here, it seems whatever I want with the sport, it's going
to be super-expensive. Carbon poles to get some V1 going, 3 sets of ski's to
always have the correct stiffness ready. 10 kinds of wax. Multiple
rollerski's...

You have both top racers here and midpack racers, and both dreamers and
everyday skiers.

I raced for 10 years with 1 pair each for skate and classic plus cheap
wax---that set-up could get me into the top 20 easily. Cheap equipment
doesn't keep you out of top 20.

Spending at least $50 on poles is very smart---find the cheapest carbon
poles, they should be fine. Then find a couple sets of garage-sale
2ndhand budget skis for abusive training. (Every 10 years I retire my
race skis and downgrade them to rock-ski status and get more race
skis.) It's true that even the budget race ski companies (Visu?) charge
about $200 a pair for new. But 2nd-hand rock skis can be easily gotten
for $20 a set.

Whatever sport you get into where you want to get solidly and regularly
into the top 10 you end up spending all your money. Isn't that how it
goes? Even if you're sponsored on a factory team, you end up broke.

Around here, the top 10 hopefuls probably do have a good quiver of skis
and the best wax. $2K can get you a lot, though. But probably $3K by
the end---for rollerskis, wax-form, wax-iron---for someone who wants to
do it right and who has a good job and plenty of cash. But one can
easily spend that on a bike. One can do top bike racing and top ski
racing much cheaper if you try.

--JP

...And longer heavy sticks swing slowest of all. Maybe too slow.
Cutting down somewhat speeds them back up again to acceptable rate.
I have a small stupid idea. I may try to weight my poles even more, but
somewhere halfway it. This should make them quicker swinging, but obviously
even harder to speed over that. Could work out well, could be disastrous. I
don't fear a bit of extra workout, or I'd sold my girlfriend to fund some
racey rollerski's :-)

Whatever sport you get into where you want to get solidly and regularly
into the top 10 you end up spending all your money. Isn't that how it
goes? Even if you're sponsored on a factory team, you end up broke.
I must be honest and confess that I've always said that every hobby costs
exactly the same : what you have to spend. Running could have been an
exception, but then your money goes to special clothing, bandages and
medicines.

Me coming from cycling, skiing might not be too expensive after all. What I
consider a worthy race mountainbike probably retails for $3000+. I've got
multiple of those, though bought in richer times. Not all $3000+, luckily. I
guess $2000 towards skiing equipment does go a long way. Too bad I can
hardly find some skate ski's here, even for full Euro retail, let alone test
them out somewhere without needing a travel agency.

BTW, I managed to figure out torrent downloading, quite cool. I've got a few
vids now, but even with my newest Mediaplayer they won't open. Perhaps a
170Mb vid is just too much for my PC...

I've just skimmed some of the posts, so forgive me if I've missed
points.

If you're going to be a skier, you have to spend quite a bit of time on
snow. Some strong cyclists, rowers, runners, etc can bring their
strength and fitness to XC, but XC places a premium on technique,
balance, and the ability to glide. When I rollerski with my buddies,
many of them can really hurt me on rollerskis, but when we get on snow,
it's a different story. I'm not very powerful or strong, but I'm a good
glider. It not something that can easily be taught. If you said you had
raced alpine and were a strong mt biker, that would be a good
combination.

Also, classic technique takes forever to learn. If you're a quick
learner, maybe 10 years to be excellent. It's kind of like playing
guitar, you can not be a smokin' guitar player in five years. In
classic there's a lot of technique and a hidden feel for the snow
that's really difficult to develop (and it's something I don't have).
Of course there's the whole waxing aspect also.

Jay Wenner

Jan Gerrit Klok wrote:

Thanks! As I'm trying to become more of an allround athlete, running
does belong to that. There's an X-Terra traithlon a couple hundred
meters from my birthplace in June, and I'd like to take part and not
look like too much of a newbie. So, running it is for the coming
months. 4 weeks ago I did my first 10km in 10 years, and again in the
45min it used to take me back in the days. Planning to go sub-40
before June. Hopping, really.
I've read that running is good for skiing, another good reason for me
to do some more and get faster with it. I guess before I raise any
brows in skiing, I'll require a 36min 10km fitness or something?

I don't have a car. The biggest hills I can reach by bike are up to
35m tall, former waste dumps turned recreational areas. Some have
indoor ski halls stuck to them to save building material.
One 10m tall hill, 17km from my home, is used for a rollerski course,
open to the public.
1km from my home is a tunnel open to pedastrians and cyclists, around
10-15m to conquer over 500m.
The rest is either extremely steep with rough pavement, or offroad
paths.
I guess I could run up and down those small bumps to build leg muscle.
Closest thing to moutains we have starting 2+ hours in the car, peaks
of just over 300m above sea level. 4+ hours by car, we have
Winterberg in Germany.

300 m sounds good.

--
Terje Henriksen
Kirkenes

As for jobs near ski areas, try Royal Gorge in the Sierra Nevada
Mountain Range, Soda Sprngs California. Typically, they hire many
foreigners
usually from South Africa and New Zealand. But their jobs are open to
anyone and can help you get into the country.

Royal Gorge's season runs from mid-November to Mid-April. They could
stay open through May but no one wants to ski then. Normally in the
west, it is the lack of skiers and not the ski conditions that cause
the ski areas to shut down.

Currently, Royal Gorge has 4 meters of snow on the ground. Check them
out at www.royalgorge.com

There are other areas in the Pacific Northwest that typically have huge
bases including Mt. Bachelor (about 5 meters as I write this) which is
located about 35 km from Bend, Oregon.

Also, there are many local areas with really good snow. It is a shame
to see these areas so under utilized. The best area near me has
(today) about 2.5 meters of base, a mid-day temperature of -10C which
is perfect for classic skiing and skate skiing wasn't bad either.
Unfortnately there were only about 20 people out skiing. Such a waste.
This area could stay open through May this year due to the cold
temperatures at that location.

The point of this long winded response is to encourage everyone to head
out to the western US in order to enjoy some really good skiing. And
you might be able to find a job on top of this.

An update from the absolute skating newby. (happy ending, for today)

All of last week I just did one longer bike ride on the road on monday, and
some commuting on thursday and friday. In 4 sessions I logged about 50km
between saturday and friday on the Crosskates, totalling my experience on
anything rolling-skate or anything pole to 70km this lifetime.
Yesterday was a bike beach race, and my cycling form was supposed to be
really bad. I was 4th of my class, riding solo for over half the race till a
group overtook me, so I got 12th, still quite happy, all considering. Maybe
not-cycling doesn't mean get-slower at cycling if it's stuffed with
ski-skating :-)

Just now I did about an hour of tooling around on the Crosskates. I had
serviced them a bit today, tightened some loose bolts, added grease, fixated
the heels much better as there was some side-to-side movement before, not
fun.
As I got started, already the first stroke felt WRONG. Front wheels where
dragging the road (I know, those fixated heels didn't help now...), lots of
near-crashes, worse than ever. No speed, no rythm, nothing. I couldn't step
through turns anymore, the pivoting front wheels seemed to pivot or shatter
at will, and all at once the same winds we've had for weeks seemed to be
able to sweep me off my wheels. For at least half an hour I thought I was
going to give up this whole dream of being an XC skier/racer. I put on my
Camelbak as I thought maybe it's a funky balance change from the last rides.
Either that, or I had just un-learned all I had fought for, or my skates are
just broken and I can't tell what it is.
Then, on the tailwind sections, part focus on technique things to try to
find back, part agression, I found back some of my natural rythm.

I timed my friend on a flying lap over 1km, and he scraped off 7s, 2m24.
Different direction than before, the winds were getting old after having
them the same all the times we were there. So I gave it a go (old direction
though), and shaved off 22s, 3m25. At the end I wasn't fysically exhausted,
just a bit disbalanced so I tried to add another pace lap, but that was not
to be, I aborted. A couple minutes later, I did another attempt, now the new
way around like my friend just did, wind directions all reversed, obviously.
He now followed me on his bike, continiously calling speeds, and calling me
a slacker. As I was timing myself, the start was slow, 16kph or so. First
headwind, my speed rose from 18 to 21 (previous tail wind best). First
right-hand corner I stepped through very slowly (my wrong direction), then a
long straight with tailwind, where I cheanged pace a few times, but topped
23.4 while already getting tired in the legs. 2 slow DP'd corners, and the
final headwind straight I just tried to skate well and not crash, which
seemed to be about to happen with my poles trying yto find the wheels. 3m06,
another 19s off, 19.3kph average! That means I've already accomplished my
long-term goal, firtness and technique for cruising 20kph and averaging
15kph on longer rides!! Now what? My lap was a mess, loads of wind, I was
still shaky from all the near-crashes, and then that to-me super high pace!
Was my long-term goal too easy? 2 weeks ago I couldn't sprint-skate faster
than I jog the 10km!
After the wonder lap and some rest, for a few strokes with tailwind, I
finally managed to pull off a decent V2, although it will be very hard work
to manage the same pace I "open field/V2 alternate" now, let alone use it
for shorter bursts of speed.
I also found a few ways to further improve my glide, and with every stroke I
just seem to go faster and faster.

After my reading into all different types of "proper" rollerski's, their
relative speeds, and now this easy pace I'm setting, I am wondering whether
perhaps my Crosskates, although heavy, are actually sort of fast?
The tires' microknobs are already wearing nicely, so that helps, but
really....how would V2 Aero 150's compare in terms of open field speed of
good pavement? Everyone seems to think those are closest to snow racing
conditions for speed and technique. With as much as I hate the way the front
wheels wobbled on me today, and the obvious bulk of the monsters, could I be
actually faster still already on Aero 150's, thus also on snow? I daren't
expect that...
I hate that I can't just hop on some ski's or ergotrainer and find out right
here, right now. Also, V2 Aero's seem to be non-existent in Europe? All I
see on Dtuch websites are really slow classic rollerski's and ultralight
race rollerski's. And whatever website I find, hasn't been updated in years.
I found out that on German webshops bindings and shoes really don't cost a
fortune good to know. SNS Pilot bindings is what I "want", right? ?40.
Salomon's Skate race boots, ?120 on sale. Now if I could find some mildly
used V2 Aero 150's for a nice price...but people seem to all love them to
bits! :-s

Is skiing still as much fun when you hit the plateau and don't make mayor
breakthroughs like this anymore? Hard to imagine...
It would be so nice to now just have a benchmark, to know whether I have any
talent for this, for going too slow to ever make it to a results sheet.
Probably the pace I'm setting is just half of what the super-fast rolling
Crosskates are capable of?
I just don't know, apart from that when I get it "right", it feels oh so
easy and fast, and I still haven't found a way to really start using my
strong knee-extending muscles...

I'll let you out of your suffering now, thanks for reading and any pointers
or info you might have for me.

Happy trails,

J

"Jan Gerrit Klok" wrote in message
...
...snip..

I couldn't step through turns anymore, the pivoting front wheels seemed to
pivot or shatter
at will, and all at once the same winds we've had for weeks seemed to be
able to sweep me off my wheels.

If your front wheels pivot (steer like a skate board) then these Crossskates
are *nothing* like skis. You can not turn a XC ski by tilting it. Roller
skis will not allow you to turn by tilting the ski. If you want to practice
XC ski skating, you should be on roller skis.

Bob

Thanks Bob!

Yes, I am aware of that. The pivoting wheels were designed to specifically
similate a carve ski's behaviour on downhills, and although I've been
avoiding those carefully, it does seem to work that way. Perhaps I'm
reaching the limit for how hard these can be skated in a rollerski kind of
way without becoming a handful. I may find a way to lock out the front
wheel, as I can step through turn now, and that's easier without the wheel
think for itself.

However unpractical, these babies happen to be in my possession now, and
obviously impossible to turn into cash, as unloved as they obviously are. At
the time I obtained them (bought the poles), they were much more of an open
book than rollerskiing ever was to me, as I hardly knew it existed. All I
knew, I wanted to be an XC Skier or Biathlete. Because they're so bulky and
scare to operate, it took me wathcing all the recent Olympics to get going
with them, I had given up my dreams before.
As I said, I'm seriously looking around for rollerski's, and the most
snow-like I can get. Just wondering before I order them trans-atlantic
online, whether I'm going to be worth them or not. The Crosskates were
supposed to be my "free" ticket to test myself for this sport that simply
does not exist in my country.

Saving up for rollerski's as I'm typing this!

Cheers,

J

"Bob" schreef in bericht
...

"Jan Gerrit Klok" wrote in message
...
..snip..

I couldn't step through turns anymore, the pivoting front wheels seemed
to
pivot or shatter
at will, and all at once the same winds we've had for weeks seemed to be
able to sweep me off my wheels.

If your front wheels pivot (steer like a skate board) then these
Crossskates
are *nothing* like skis. You can not turn a XC ski by tilting it. Roller
skis will not allow you to turn by tilting the ski. If you want to
practice
XC ski skating, you should be on roller skis.

Bob