US Team waxing staff and a long story about testing
Zachary Caldwell
> I posted a week ago asking about the role of skis and waxing in the fate
of US
> top racers. Has our tech sucked too often? No one much replied. Was it
really
> hard waxing conditions? Is it tough a lot of the time in WC racing? I
hardly
> ever really botch my own skis. Or would a good ski for a citizen racer
likely
> be a horrible ski for top racers? Do US techies botch it too often
compared to
> Euros? How about with the issue of "fast skis" in general. Do US skiers
tend to
> have fast skis? Is this a sizeable factor in results? Any generalizing
possible
> here? It seems like it would be a base that skiers and managers would make
sure
> to have covered properly. But maybe we outsiders don't know what it's
really
> like. ---In the reports on those races you mention, I kept seeing the
winners
> talking about their great skis.
Well Jeff, I may not be the guy you were looking for to provide some insight
on this subject, but noboday else seemed to be jumping in...
I'm fairly familiar with the National Team waxing staff. I was one of the
coaches at World Junior Championships a couple of years ago and I had the
opportunity to spend some long hours in the wax room with Larry Poroma (a
Swede) who was at the time the head US wax technician for cross country. At
this point Larry works with some other people, including Rob Powers (a
longtime combined coach) on a National Team waxing staff. Chris Hall from
Sun Valley has also been hired this year. I'm pretty familiar with all the
national team coaches and always poke my head in the wax trailer at bog
races to see how they're testing is going. Those guys are pretty generous
with their information.
In general it's safe to say that the US Team is right in the thick of the
mix with the rest of the world on the ski-prep end of things. They don't
have the staff or the budget that the traditional ski powers have, but
they've got some knowledgable and hardworking people who do a very good job
by anybody's standards.
It's important to realize that we're talking about degrees of subtlety in
testing and waxing that most of the regulars on this newsgroup don't work
with. For the most part the concept of "botching it" isn't some thing that
these guys worry about. They do so much testing that it would be quite
difficult for them to come up with something REALLY bad. The exception comes
when conditions are changing rapidly and the trick to getting things right
has to do more with anticipation than with knowledge. It's a tricky balance
though, and this is where the personality of waxers really starts to come
through. Some people are very quick to assume that their experience in the
conditions will guide them accurately while others tend to agonize over all
the different things that MIGHT happen. Some people tend to go straight to
some special personal favorite combination (often untested prior to race
application) while others try to look deeper into their test results for
information that isn't really there. I'm sure you recognize these personalty
types at regional and national competitions - it's no different in really
big races.
In my experience the mark of a really good waxer in 90% of the conditions
faced is the willingness to spend some long hours at testing. Wax testing
for a major competition is a full time job, not something that's done
quickly the morning of the race. At World Juniors I spent several hours a
day in the waxroom for the week leading up to the competition. Much of this
was spent simply taking care of the test skis and preparing new tests.
Another couple hours a day was spent testing. Then Larry would crunch all
the numbers and come up with some more tests.
I'm sure there are days when Justin Wadsworth would happily exchange skis
with you. And there are other days when your best wax job wouldn't even be
in the running. Waxing at the top level isn't that different. It's just a
whole lot of work to try to eliminate the hit and miss quality that us
citizen racers know so well. They're using mostly the same stuff that we've
got access to, just spending a lot more money to learn how well its working.
And the US crew does an exceptionally good job considering the resources
they have.
Here's a somewhat long story about testing and waxing from the most recent
National Championships which might illustrate some of what I'm talking
about...
At US Nationals in McAll I worked with Peter Hale (he's been around the
Nordic world for a long time and used to work for NorTur out of the Twin
Cities area - he's now with Madshus) to test skis for the mass-start skate
races. We used a set of six pairs of very well matched test skis. We started
out about 9:00 the morning before the race by "blanking" all the test skis -
waxing them all the same just to make sure that they were starting from the
same point. We didn't need to zero the skis this time because Peter is so
familiar with the set. Then we set about waxing underlayers. We used a
pretty good range of swix waxes to test the effect of fluorcarbon content in
a given temperature range and we also each picked oone or two personal
favorites that we thought might be running well. We headed out to start
testing at very close to the time that the first race would start the next
day. I skied all the skis for "feel" while Peter ran them through a speed
trap. While we did the waxing we were both somewhat aware of what was on
each set, but we do our best to ignore that. Ideally we'd have different
people waxing and testing the skis and the testers wouldn't have any
knowledge of what was on them.
Earlier in the season, at the opening races in Silver Star, Peter and I came
up with almost identical results in our independent assessments of the same
skis. This time around I found it almost impossible to make subjective
distinctions between the skis by feel. Peter was also somewhat confounded by
his speed trap results. In the end we could draw very few conclusions about
what was running well. Instead we eliminated things that really weren't any
good. We also spent some time talking to other people who were out testing
and who had similar experiences.
We then went back in to the wax tent and re-blanked several sets of skis
with one of the better underlayersand prepared to test fluorocarbon
top-coats. Our second round of testing was conducted in the same way, only
this time we kept our best performing underlayers in the mix, along with
three different Fluoro powders. Again, we found very minimal distinctions
between the wax jobs. However, we had succeeded in determining that the
fluorocarbon powders didn't slow down the underlayers very much at all,
which helped us decide to go with a top-coat, even if the temperature was
starting pretty low and it wasn't significantly faster. After all, it was a
30K race for the men and durability and dirt resistance was an issue.
It turned out that the forescast for the race day was for significantly
colder overnight temperatures than for our testing day. We decided to go
with a combination that tested pretty well in our mix, but that we were both
confident in for a couple of different reasons. The combo involved a mix of
high-fluoro parrafins - one VERY hard and one pretty soft. Such a combo
seems to provide a pretty broad range and the hard wax tends to improve
durability. It was also a sentimental favorite from a wax company that no
longer imports product, but which we both have in our boxes and like quite a
lot.
The evening before the race we started waxing race skis. For folks who had a
couple of pretty well matched pairs I waxed up a "warm" ski and a "cold" ski
to try to cover our bases as well as possible. This involved some pretty
extensive examination of the skis structure. Then we started with an LF 10
underlayer to put a little fluorocarbon into the base and to provide the
penetration that only a really soft wax can provide. This was followed with
a very hard graphite wax which bonds well with other waxes and will by
anchored into the base by the softer underlayer. This "Yellow/Black"
treatment is very commonly used by almost everybody at high levels. Then we
put on our underlayer combination before closing up shop until the morning.
We didn't want to have powders on all those skis if the conditions ended up
being totally unpredictable.
Sure enough, it was as cold as forecasted overnight. I left my digital
thermometer near the course overnight and the starting temperature was
about -17 c. Heck of a day for a blue/yellow combo covered with a pure
fluorcarbon! The temperature didn't warm fast at all and people all over the
place were madly rewaxing for colder conditions. Peter and I decided to
stick with what we had for a couple of reasons. We'd been looking at the
temperature profile all week and had noted that things didn't start to warm
appreciably until about twenty minutes before the race was scheduled to
start. We also knew that the day before very cold waxes weren't running
significantly better than waxes designed for temperatures close to freezing.
Also, we figured that in a mass start 30 K the time when you REALLY want
fast skis is the last 10K or so. So we stuck to our guns and started putting
on top coats.
It worked out pretty well. Most of the folks who had skis waxed by us in
addition to other people ended up skiing on the ones we'd done. Some of the
folks who went with colder underlayers and no top-coats complained of slow
skis toward the end of the race. As it turned out there were people out
there with Start Green and others with pure fluorocarbons on tops of HF8! It
was one of the most ambiguous days I've seen, but I think that wax made a
difference. Jesse Gallagher, racing on skis that Peter and I prepared, made
a move on the group he was with at the start of one of the bigger downhills
on the course, coming into the last few kilomteres. He got away and stayed
away, putting up his best National result since he was a teenager. Katerina
Hanusova, racing on a pair of Peters demo skis (he could only apologize for
the condition of the bases), skied away from the rest of the field with Nina
to come in second be a few seconds. Unfortunately we used up our entire
stock of the secret wax!
John Craychee
was terrific reading--more please!
Zachary Caldwell <ne...@sover.net> wrote in message
news:dPfa6.17177$Mo6.1...@e420r-atl1.usenetserver.com...
Terje Mathisen
>
> Thanks for a fascinating post Zachary! For a citizen racer like me, this
> was terrific reading--more please!
Absolutely, a more interesting story than I've ever heard from the
norwegian waxers when interviewd, either before or after a race.
:-)
Terje
--
- <Terje.M...@hda.hydro.com>
Using self-discipline, see http://www.eiffel.com/discipline
"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"
Janne G
>
> Well Jeff, I may not be the guy you were looking for to provide some insight
> on this subject, but noboday else seemed to be jumping in...
>
> I'm fairly familiar with the National Team waxing staff. I was one of the
> coaches at World Junior Championships a couple of years ago and I had the
> opportunity to spend some long hours in the wax room with Larry Poroma (a
> Swede) who was at the time the head US wax technician for cross country. At
> this point Larry works with some other people, including Rob Powers (a
Could not resist jumping in with this, Larry Poromas nick name when he
was active was, "Hakkas Expressen" Hakkas is his home village and Expressen
is what it is, maybe in English it is Express.
He was a fairly god skiier in his time.
Maybe JAy T has more information?
Janne G
ESChandler
>Newsgroups: rec.skiing.nordic
>Lines: 175
That may have been the greatest insight into waxing for big events I've ever
heard. I've got way more knowledge than I had a few minutes ago. Thanks.
Eric "Shmo" Chandler
"Shmo rhymes with Snow"
Jeff Potter
--
Jeff Potter j...@outyourbackdoor.com
"Out Your Backdoor": Friendly Zine of Modern Folkways and Culture Revival
outyourbackdoor.com ... for a full line of alternative outdoor culture books,
bookstore & forum
Zachary Caldwell
> was active was, "Hakkas Expressen" Hakkas is his home village and
Expressen
> is what it is, maybe in English it is Express.
> He was a fairly god skiier in his time.
Yeah, Imagine testing kick wax with the guy. You have to be in pretty good
shape to be of any kind of use at all. He's definitely quite strong (still).
Jay Tegeder
That was more information than we needed to know. As if us citizen racers are
not anal enough about waxing already, now we need to put in even more work!
Anyway, great post and insight.
Jay Tegeder
"Keep training, lycra never lies!" JT
Jay Tegeder
of "Hakkas Expressen"
Jay Tegeder
"On the podium if the right people don't show up!" JT
Janne G
Hakkas IF club when they where active, Christer is now the proud owner
of the brand "Ski-Go" and does ski waxes and klister. http://www.ski-go.com/
He even suplys Per Elofsson with wax.
I recomend his red Klister when the snow is very wet and icy, i had better
result with that klister than Rodes "rossa" witch all complained that it freezed in.
Janne G
Tomas Bystrom
>I know of "Molle", "Slacken", "Lacka" and "Otto" (an easy one), but I didn't know
>of "Hakkas Expressen"
Ah, then you missed "Säcken" (The Bag) for T. Wassberg and "Oljan" (The
Oil) for Thomas Eriksson... :-)
/Tomas - trivia is my middle name (well, sort of)
--
Caps and foobar are normally not parts of my address.
Jay Tegeder
Jay Tegeder
"On the podium if the right people don't show up!" JT
Jan Granstrom
>
> What about Svan, Magnusson and now Elofsson? Any nicknames?
>
Gunde "iingenting är oomööjligt" Svan. But he got that after his skiing
career was over in a TV-show, translation is "nothing is impoossible"
it's a little variation on his dialect in Swedish also.
Janne G
Tomas Bystrom
>What about Svan, Magnusson and now Elofsson? Any nicknames?
As an addition to what Janne G said about Gunde Svan I'll say that his
first name more or less became his nickname - mostly because of his
dialect ("dalmål" in Swedish) which is very distinct and considered
exotic. I happen to come from approximately the same area so I have been
mocked about speaking like him. I wish there were some of his qualities
that I also had...
/Tomas
Gene Goldenfeld
Tognar Tools website (wax tips):
SNAKE OIL?
Watch out Dr. Science...the black magic of waxing is still alive and well! A
heavy thaw and extremely dirty snow conditions at the 1995 Nordic World
Championships in Thunder Bay, Ontario had veteran wax experts completely
baffled. Regular ski waxes didn't work since they let too much dirt build up on
bases. Before one race, technicians went running to find alternatives. What'd
they try? Automobile windshield washer fluid, 2-cycle snow-mobile oil (Esso
was the brand of choice, we hear), car wax and diesel fuel! Ski bases still
became so filthy that towels soaked in wax remover were laid down during the
race in tracks to wipe away some dirt as racers skied over them. Question about
the legality of this were ignored since all competitors did it. One ski
manufacturer even drilled holes in the tops of their skis and poured wax remover
into the core, hoping the solvent would seep into the sintered p-tex base
and help remove dirt. Swix did more testing during the 1995 Nordic World
Championships (over 2500 test runs through the speed trap) than ever before in
history. Snow conditions were about the most bizarre anyone had ever
experienced or heard of before.