going nordic = going ghay?

[sb]

Awesome!

Finally made it to WG, the farm was alright but the hill conditions deteriorated pretty quickly. Made it to round top so the gf could hand feed chickadees.

Worth it for that smile.

[MarsB]

Awesome!

Finally made it to WG, the farm was alright but the hill conditions deteriorated pretty quickly. Made it to round top so the gf could hand feed chickadees.

Worth it for that smile.

One of the best traditions at WG! And of course the jars of shine in the shelters. Both the girls in my pic are ex-Canaan valley locals.

[plugboots]

Dirt in town, but fast conditions just outside the valley bottom.

[Laps]

Today’s 13 mile ski. Good lord we need some snow.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[AlpiNord]

Wet snow, then rain, then cold temps = dust on ripping fun & fast, firm crust in late December!

[singlesline]

Ok this is helpful thanks. What about for skis with no stickers. So many used nordic skis for sale that I can't find any info about on the internet. Older models etc and the ski companies don't always have the info available for older skis.

I'm 170-175ish pounds and want some classic skis. No idea what length etc to get.

For your description, just get some fishscale (waxless) skis anywhere from like 185 to 200. Some companies also mark their waxless skis in S/M/L/XL rather than a specific length and you're probably an L.

Fishscales are a lot less sensitive to getting the perfect flex, and you don't have to futz around with maintaining kick wax and matching it to the conditions. Just make sure the scales themselves are in decent condition: want to see nice sharp edges that you can easily catch with your fingernail. They are what you want for being able to just grab the skis and go get some cardio...you can still wax the non-fishscale areas, and even use liquid/spray waxes on the scales for more glide/snow shedding.

If you want more speed down the road, you can decide if you want to get classic skis with kick wax or just get skate skis (which, IMHO, is the way to go), but a good old pair of fishscale skis is the kind of thing everyone should have floating around the garage/basement.

You do need to pay attention to binding standards on used gear...


SNS gear is going to be harder to find boots for...there's also old 3-pin and NNN-BC which is not compatible with NNN (although nothing wrong with mounting NNN-BC bindings on mid-width classic skis...some people prefer the burlier attachment and warmer/more comfortable boots).

[bobz]

^ The Pilot and Profil systems are obsolete now, I think. Salomon was supporting both NNN and Profil/Pilot for a few years, but that's over. So Profil/Pilot is pretty much the realm of used gear and maybe a certain amount of closeout stock. And at this point you don't want buy into a standard where replacement boots or bindings will be strictly used market stuff or replacing both boots and bindings. Unless you're trying to go cheap, in which case lots of XCers probably have Profil or Pilot bindings that they'd just about give away. Salomon's version of NNN (Prolink) does have the advantage of being screw-compatible with previous Profil/Pilot mounts, though. If you're looking at used gear, there's also the obsolete Salomon BC, similar to but not compatible with NNN-BC, neither of which are compatible with Profil, Pilot, or NNN.

Basically, it's all NNN now for groomed XC, NNN-BC or light 3-pin for XC touring, and now there's Xplore for more turn-oriented XC (plus 3-pin in that category). And then of course there's XCD and tele, which is a different discussion.

[teledad]

Also very few skate or in-track classic skis are sold flat any more, so you're forced into the NNN system to buy new skis even if you're happy with your Pilot boots. (The system bindings are all NNN, and the mount plate can't be removed without destroying the ski.) Not speaking from experience or anything...

[bobz]

Nevada Nordic, near Mt. Rose Summit, is just about the only thing happening in Tahoe-area groomed skiing (unless you want to pay $50 at the Donner area resorts that are barely open, each with a short loop only). NN is limping along as well, just 2K of trail that you can out-and-back a few times on; but it's free! We went out there a couple days ago; here's my teen kid:



Then yesterday, we did a little XCish tour out of the nearby Tahoe Meadow, one of relatively few areas where there's something resembling backcountry happening without a walking approach.



Yeah, my wife's on tele gear; I was on more appropriate stuff for XC and low-angle stuff, trying out the Xplore system for the first time:



I'm quite pleased! They stride really nicely; if anything, the binding is more pivot-y than NNN-BC (which is probably because these boots, Alfa Vista-Advance, are stiffer than the Rossi BC-X5s that I'm using with NNN-BC). It was a short tour with not a lot of turning, but turning control is quite good as well, considering that the boots are not a lot heavier than my skating boots. I'll have more to say when I take them out on a more significant tour.

[singlesline]

Got some laps in at the Kimberley Nordic Club yesterday.

Really nice facility. Warming lodge with a fire burning, 30+km of groomed trails, some lit night skiing, seemed like a high quality grooming operation.

and most importantly, everything was open unlike our local terrain which is still grass.

[andy m]

Jessie Diggins won the 20km pursuit today (by 46.5 sec!) in Toblach, Italy, and leads the Tour de Ski by 47 seconds, with a sprint freestyle in Davos on the 3rd. She also leads the FIS World Cup rankings, with Rosie Brennan in 3rd.

https://www.fis-ski.com/en/cross-cou...tend-tour-lead

[plugboots]

^^^ She slid 100 m on a downhill in the warm-up and then did that. Crazy.
Tonight I skied and we had a really hard melt-refreeze and I did a downhill that kind of scared the crap out of me. Falling hurts so much on that crap. She’s a freak.

[sb]

NYD was nice at WG, light upslope flowed in and gave some great sugar snow on top of 37 kinds of base. The GF had her best day ever so far, we ventured into intermediate trails and other folks made it up to the Natty Nord. Good times.



Apres were quite enjoyable as a full on beer tasting broke out. Many beers and barley wines on the list and bald spot bottle balance is always a big hit. Complete with flashing Christmas lights.

[romeo tango]

GF didn't want to ding her hybrid/skate skis on low-tide conditions, so,
picked these up at Sally Ann's for $15
bases are mint!

I'm not familiar with this brand, any Finns out there?

.

[andy m]

Jessie Diggins wins her second Tour de Ski!
And Sophia Laukli wins final stage for her first WC victory!

https://www.fis-ski.com/en/cross-cou...atable-diggins

[sb]

[plugboots]

Basically just enough snow to ski. A little bit better if you stay on the trails, of course.

[phishstx]

I did a quick search in here but nothing came up - thought I'd see if there's any experience or recommendations with sleds/pulks. Looking to be able to include a 9-month old on some Nordic laps when we have the chance.

Wife and I only have classic gear for now - etiquettewise I'm assuming I stay out of the track if I have a sled even if the sled skis can straddle it or can be one in/one out. Need to start looking into skate either way, but it seems like skate could be a bit less smooth for the little guy in the sled.

[bobz]

We loved our Chariot with ski attachments. I was able to stride or skate with the kid onboard (intended for machine groomed trails only). Cruised the XC downhills nicely too (with the kid yelling “fast fast!”) They’re kind of expensive, of course, though we got a decent chunk back selling it. Sleds don’t work nearly as well, though they might work for less energetic (and less distance) snow-covered-road type skiing.

[teledad]

I used one of these a few times when my kids were little: https://www.wildernessengineering.com/kindershuttle. It has a flat plastic bottom so no need to worry about messing up the tracks unless they're really soft. You won't set any speed records (especially uphill) but you'll get a workout in. Downhills are actually easier since the sled acts as a brake. For infants you can just put them in a car seat and then put the car seat in the sled (with lots of warm blankets).

You might see if any of your local resorts rent them - good to try and decide if it's what you want before buying. When my kids got a little bigger and could hold their heads up it was easier to just carry them in a backpack, so we didn't use the sled for long.

[OJ204]

GF didn't want to ding her hybrid/skate skis on low-tide conditions, so,
picked these up at Sally Ann's for $15
bases are mint!

I'm not familiar with this brand, any Finns out there?

.

Valtonen ski factory started making skis in Orimattila, Finland around the first world war, not quite sure which year exactly, and shut down shop in early 80's. Their skis were sold under other brands as well in the 70's, but they didn't really adopt new materials/methods (also probably some business continuation challenges) and were bought out by another ski maker Jarvinen (Jarvinen was little higher end brand), and soon after that company went bankrupt. Obviously those skis are their later model, do they even have fish scale or are they waxable?

Here's a photo from the factory, possibly from the 50's.

[BCMtnHound]

I did a quick search in here but nothing came up - thought I'd see if there's any experience or recommendations with sleds/pulks. Looking to be able to include a 9-month old on some Nordic laps when we have the chance.

Wife and I only have classic gear for now - etiquettewise I'm assuming I stay out of the track if I have a sled even if the sled skis can straddle it or can be one in/one out. Need to start looking into skate either way, but it seems like skate could be a bit less smooth for the little guy in the sled.

We loved our Chariot with ski attachments. I was able to stride or skate with the kid onboard (intended for machine groomed trails only). Cruised the XC downhills nicely too (with the kid yelling “fast fast!”) They’re kind of expensive, of course, though we got a decent chunk back selling it. Sleds don’t work nearly as well, though they might work for less energetic (and less distance) snow-covered-road type skiing.

Seconded. We had our daughter in the chariot in her first winter (3months old at the start) and she loved it. Would sleep most of the time. Used it until her 5th year I think? Replaced the skis twice as we even used the skis with the front jogger wheel around town when the snow was deep - worked better than the rear wheels for those conditions. Infant adapter to start, then just the regular seat. Great workout.

Edit to add: the replacement skis were kiddie XC skis picked up at the 2nd hand sports store, just drilled and countersank for the t-bolts. The old kiddie classics performed even better than the originals.

[bobz]

We had him using the skis (with kiddie-cut skins), with kiddie SNS boots/bindings, occasionally for a season or two, after he outgrew getting dragged around. Then I plugged and remounted to the Chariot rig to sell the thing.

As for whether you'll mess up the machine-groomed tracks, don't worry about the tracks; flat skis going in that general direction aren't going to do significant damage to the grooming. If anything, one of the skis might get held briefly in a track, but it'll come out when you'd want it to. The skis are slightly toed-in, BTW. I seem to recall mostly not striding in the tracks when towing, though, because what you're more concerned about is the outer ski of the Chariot getting off of side of the groomed surface. Re etiquette, skaters and everyone else should be accommodating if you're making any effort at all to make room for them; we got nothing but smiles from other folks when we were towing our kid at XC areas.

Some blasts from the past (you can see the dude he grew into further up the page)...



(latter photo: Those aren't the Chariot skis he's on there, those would be K-Booms with strap bindings, but notice the skins. Skins will get a kid comfortable on XC gear really quickly. Later on, we did a thing where we'd backcountry ski uphill with him using XC gear with skins, and then ski downhill using his fixed-heel downhill boots/skis; me carrying a set of boots/skis for him in a pack at any given time.)

[BCMtnHound]

Chariot infant stoke!

[sb]

Awesomeness!

Stopped over to Chippygrass for beers after carving the new ripsticks yesterday at TL, so happy to see parents hauling the pulks around the snow farm.