Toko at Dogsled World Championships

Photo Credit: Britt Coon, www.brittcoon.com

Toko helps sled dog world championship victory

Arleigh Reynolds and his team of dogs win the recent Dog Sled Open World Championships in Anchorage, Alaska. This was Arleigh’s 12 time participating with his previous best finish being second. The event was made up of 3 days of racing.

Tyson Flaharty, an elite Cross Country ski racer and Toko service team member, waxed Arleigh’s sled. Tyson waxed the runners each day with Tribloc LF Black, Tribloc HF Blue and finished with JetStream Blue in all 3 races. Tyson also used a Blue structurite on the runners. Tyson remarked, “it was warmer out (mid 20s), but we wanted to err on the cold side for durability and to try to keep things cleaner since the race started and finished on dirty trucked-in snow for several miles”

After winning the championship, Arleigh commented that the runners were the fastest that he had ever had. Congratulations to Arleigh, Tyson, and the dog team!

Report from Sun Valley Ski Team from the Yellowstone Rendezvous

We had a pretty successful weekend in West Yellowstone. We had Patrick Johnson win the 50km, and Nicole DeYong and Alexa Turzian went 2-3 for the women.

We skied Toko top to bottom this weekend. Went with LF blue/moly 1:1 for a base, HF Blue/Red 1:1 for a second layer and covered with blue powder then blue block. I tested the night before the race and blue powder was killing it, while the mid range powders weren’t in there. Skis were awesome for the first lap on packed powder tracks. It warmed up substantially during the race, into the mid 30’s, and having some red powder mixed in there for the moisture definitely would have been better in hind sight.

We had a number of juniors race the 25 km classic and for that we had great skis with straight Toko red hard wax.

Chris Mallory, Assistant Coach, Elite Team

Rutland High School's Isaac Wright Winning States. Photo Abby Weissman. — Rutland High School’s Isaac Wright Winning States. Photo Abby Weissman.

Vermont State HS Championships

Nordic Grip Wax Red worked super well in the Vermont State High School Championship Race at Prospect Mountain on February 21, 2013.

This is a 5 k event with 275 participants. We anticipated low temperatures to be 20 F the night before the race, and a race day high of 37 with partly sunny skies. We anticipated a combination of hard grip wax and klister for grip.

The venue’s elevation of 2,740 feet had a lot to do with the wintery and powdery conditions that we found at 8:30 when we got to the site. The race start was 10:30. We tested Nordic Grip Red and others. The Toko Red was the best. We were watching the warming trend as the sun was rising. Although the start finish areas were becoming a little glazed as they are in the sun, 99% of the course was still cold (snow temp 20) and powdery in the woods. Because the trails are on the west shoulder of the mountain, the sun does not hit them until later in the day. At 10:10 the clouds completely blocked the sun keeping things cold. For the afternoon relays at 1:30, slightly warmer and more humid conditions caused us to add Nordic Grip Yellow.

Nordic Grip Red has worked amazingly well on a number of occasions this winter in the east. It has such a broad range, it kicks and it is not grabby. It works equally well at its low (14F) and high (18F) ranges. It also seems to perform very well when it’s humid.

Jim Levins, Toko Tech Team (Thanks to Abby Weissman for the photo).

Toko : Going the extra mile for you. Toko "Tow Truck". — Toko : Going the extra mile for you. Toko “Tow Truck”.

Garrott Kuzzy is a friend who skied successfully for Toko for years. He is now working for VBT (Vermont Bicycle Tours). In the winter, Garrott leads cross country ski tours in the Canadian Rockies, The Alps, and the Dolomites. (Click the links to see photos of the tours in the respective areas). You can also visit the VBT facebook page that addresses the ski tours here. Garrott is such a personable and well organized guy. I’m sure any tour with him would be very enjoyable as well as super rewarding.