Over 150 Toko Waxing Seminars Schedule Available To You

Over 150 Toko Waxing Seminars Schedule Available To You

Toko Tech Team members have scheduled many wax clinics for your benefit.  Currently there are over 150 nationwide for you to benefit from.  Keep in mind that all of these clinics are being given by people trained on waxing.  These are not random clinics given by people that we do not know well.  We sanction these clinics.
Click here for the wax clinic schedule.

Race Wax Tips for Hundreds of Events Each Year

We consider the race wax tips that we make available to the public, the most important service that we offer.  These tips are the product of local knowledge of the area’s weather and snow and of the course, often times discussions with the groomers, excellent knowledge of Toko waxes and tools, and a strong determination to “get it right”.  Click here for more information on how the wax tips are created.

If we do not have solid information on an event (including weather, current conditions, expected time of grooming, how many loops, start time of course, etc), we will either not submit anything or we will delay submission of the wax tip.  For this reason, sometimes information on a race will not be sent out in the eBlast that goes out in the winter on Thursdays with the wax tip information.  You should have this link to the main wax tip portal, so you can check to see if races have been added or perhaps and update has taken place.

Toko Gloves are Unique

Toko gloves are known for their fit, comfort, and durability.  All Toko gloves are also covered by an unconditional one year warranty.  If you rip or tear a Toko glove within a year of buying it, we will replace it.  The materials and the manufacturing techniques that we use are solid enough that we are comfortable with this guarantee.  Furthermore all Toko gloves can be washed and dried in the machine!  This makes the gloves not only more comfortable and sanitary, but also last longer!

Update from the Field – CXC

The CXC Team has been out in West Yellowstone since November 12, so we’ve been lucky enough to ski the last few weeks. A lot of skiing equals a lot of waxing, and we’re stoked to have Toko as a sponsor.

We’ve been prepping new Salomon skis pretty simply: First, we hot-scrape with S3 Yellow to get any dust/gunk off the new skis. We then put another layer of S3 Yellow on and iron it several (3-4) times to saturate the bases, letting the skis cool between cycles. (This is one instance where it’s nice to be waxing 10-15 pairs of skis, rather than one; going through them all allows them to cool nicely.) From there, we do the same process with the Base Prep Grey (which is roughly as hard as the Red waxes) — so the skis have been “waxed”

somewhere between six and eight times.

Because the weather was so cold at the beginning of the week, and we needed to test skis and get them ready to race, we proceeded to harden up the bases a bit with S3 or LF Blue — again, ironing a few times.

At that point, I considered the skis to be ready to go. And so we went skiing.

For Thursday’s sprint races, we ran some tests and came up with our base wax: Straight HF Blue. It felt like it “broke” slightly better than the S3/LF Blue and the various ratios of S3/LF/HF Blue and X-Cold Powder. Happily, top-end speed between the LF and HF was similar, but in a sprint with so much climbing, the break rate is more important — if the LF had been faster at max speed but broke worse, I still would have stuck with HF.

For some reason, HF Blue seemed faster than skis prepped with Jetstream Blue powder on Wednesday, so we skipped applying pure fluoro in the wax room, but come race day (sprint), Jetstream Blue bloc and HelX Blue improved glide — the HelX getting the nod. Kick-waxing in barely FIS legal temps was easy — a thin layer of Carbon Basewax Green.

Because we’d done testing Wednesday and raced Thursday with good skis, it made waxing for Friday’s skate races simple. Again, we prepped with HF Blue, applied Jetstream Blue and, at the benches in the morning, tested HelX vs. Bloc and went with the fastest — Bloc, in this case.

And that seemed to be a good choice, as Tad Elliott took the win in the 15k.

Saturday was forecast to be a bit warmer, so we had to speculate a little bit — we prepped with HF Blue and HF Grey Moly, 1:1. For top-coat, we mixed the Jetstream Blue and Red powders, and at the venue, we tested Red and Blue HelXs and Blocs — HelX Blue broke best and had an excellent top-end, so we went with that. Kicker was pretty straight-forward — a couple thin layers of Carbon Red covered with a couple thin layers of Carbon Blue. Most of the CXC Team waxed a little long and pretty thin — I could see the sanding marks in the kick zones on some skis after waxing, but they still hooked up. It helps to have well-fit skis and good technique! The skis worked really well — a great combination of kick and glide. Brian Gregg was sitting around 6th at the top of the big hill with about 2k to go, but really worked the flats and downhills on fast skis to move into third.

All in all, with four races in three days in the bag, Gus and I are pretty happy with where the team is sitting. No one raced extraordinarily good or bad, but that’s what we expected for this time of the year and the training load we’ve got in. We’re looking forward to another week of skiing in West Yellowstone and then heading to Silver Star and Rossland for NorAm races. Hope to have some good reports from there!

– Jason Cork, Head Coach CXC Elite Team

Update from the Field – Methow Olympic Development

After the first week of mild temps it has been a frigid November here in Norway and Finland.  The daily highs are averaging around -17C which as I recall is pretty close to the old goose egg on the Fahrenheit scale.  Your suggestions for learning about Toko’s cold wax performance has been a must and I have to tell you that the entire line of cold waxes has been getting a workout and I have figured a few things out.

Last weekend Torin was second in a Norway Cup skating sprint.  You might have read my account on our blog but to summarize; after extensive testing of a wide range of products, including some I have only seen in abundance over here, we ran on Toko HF Blue covered with X-Cold powder covered by Jet Stream Blue rub on block roto-corked..  I reapplied the rub-on between heats.  His skis were as good an anyones and better than most in every heat he was in.  I am no waxing pro by any means and most of these top skiers had pro wax techs working on their skis.
As an interesting aside:  An acquaintance of mine Per Knut Aaland who is the Rode importer here in Norway and former Norwegian ski team wax tech. Per has a solid background.   He had numerous top ten World Cup finishes during his career including a 6th in the 50km at the 1976 Olympics.  He was also the man behind Bjorn Dahlie’s skis so he has seen some things in his career.  Anyway, back to my story.  Per and I had been doing a little collaborating on waxes this past weekend.  Of course he was real partial to Rode and had a wax that he always loved in those super cold manmade snow conditions. He had waxed with it for several Norwegian national champions.  We were doing a simple run out glide test and my skis were faster.  I knew they felt really free on the uphills, which as you know, in those super aggressive snow conditions, is hard to achieve. I suggested that Per take my Rossignol test skis for a spin.  He came back about 10 minutes later with wide eyes and a big smile.  “These skis feel very good on the uphill! What is the wax”.  He then hurried of to his wax cabin.
We’ve also been using a lot of the green hard wax binder and the green klister binder in this man made, very abrasive snow.
We are headed off to Dusseldorf this week for the WC sprint.  Then back in the Methow on the 8th.
– Scott Johnston, Head Coach