As the saying goes, there is more than one way to “skin a cat”, or in this case, since we are not into killing cats, to have fast skis. We had a great showing at the Birkie this year with a quick recap of results as follows:br /Webskis/Solda skiers did well overall and in their age groups. br /Brad Bauer 33rd overall and 3rd in age group.br /Dave Knoop 3rd 50-54 ans 91st overall.br /Per Johnsen 2nd 65-69 classic.br /Pat Lanin 1st in 70-74 classic.br /Hilary Garrett 31 overall women’s classic, 3rd in age 50-54.br /Mark Nienstaedt 5th in 55-59 classic.br /Brian Smith skied “easy” and came in under 3hoursbr /Seems SOLDA had many waxes that produced fast skis. Here is what folks said to me.br /3 layers of F15 Blue ironed in twice each with HP05 70/30 ran really good esp in the second half. I was coming up on people on the steeper downhills.br /Brianbr /I had really good skis. I had F-31 Violet with S-20 cover on the glide. For kick a very thin Swix orange binder, with a layer of thinbr /blue Rex klister, covered with 2 thin layers of Rex blue Power Grip (onebr /long one shorter) covered with four thin layers Rode Special blue hardbr /wax. Fresh snow not withstanding, I had great glide, and my kick lasted all the way to the end. I was a happy camper. Conventional wisdom indicatedbr /fluoro, fluoro, fluoro. What can I say, my stuff worked great. br /Pat Laninbr /I skied on F 15 Blue with Power Jet 4 ironed in over top. I had several layers of F15 Blue. My skis were great. I didn’t feel my best, but my skis worked really well. Nobody had faster skis around me. br /I was skiing with a huge pack placing guys from 25th to 40th placebr /overall. br /Bradbr /A number a factors were considered: br /1. Flex and grind. Friday was different than race day. A softer flex was used race day with an inch of new snow covering the track. Friday it was bullet hard. My softer flex Madshus were an XC02 grind from Nordic Ultratune, my stiffer flexed Rossi’s had a 615b grind.br /2. Grind, many of the top skiers on race day were on Nordic Ultratune 615b grinds. I elected XCO2 as it released with better acceleration off the back of the hills. It actually saved me about two strides per every hill. I could not believe it but actually had guys who would race me up EVERY hill. I conserved and let them win that inconsequential race as they hammered it, then when they were winded at the top I glided off the back with less effort expended and passed them. Those skiers that wanted to win those individual hills were not to be seen the last 10k. br /3. Ah wax…..!!!!!br /I spent a lot of time on this. A cold base layer along with some black moly was put down twice and brushed out thoroughly. Then a liberal coating of straight S-30 base hardener was laid on top as a separate layer. (They looked so diamond hard black and shiny!!!!) A hard brushing effort then expended. Then the choice was Solda HPO5/S30 70/30 as the top layer. The next part was a very thorough roto-cork and hand corking. Then a felt cork hand application after that. As a result next to nothing came up when scraped. Finallybr /roto brushed with a long haired black synthetic brush. br /4. Race day morning was one of quiet confidence as the skis were ready to rock and they did. My friend, Ian Harvey dropped me off at the start with his special credentials to get passed security and he picked me up after the race. How’s that for a buddy who rep’s “the other brand? ” Ian is a class act. He overheard some guys who had skied with me during the race on how I had hurt them bad with such fast skis. Ian said this in a car with Duncan Douglas 5th overall, John Bauer 20th overall and Meiko Hoemke 43rd overall all using other wax. br /That’s my wax, grind story, probably more than you wanted 🙂 br /Cheers, Dave br /Chris Weaton said he followed the recommendation we came up with to a tee and had great skis. That combination was br /Solda FC27 covered withbr /Solda F15- Blue, covered withbr /Solda F40 SPECIAL – Green, covered withbr /Solda HPO5/S30 70/30 mix.br /So there you have it. A common denominator was starting with F15 Blue. HPO5 S30 mix was also working. br /Thanks to team members for sharing. I pass this along so we all can learn. Feel free to comment.br /Have a good next race,br /Bertdiv class=”blogger-post-footer”img width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6589659500745667109-5998580042223810964?l=www.webskis.com%2Fwebskisblog.html’ alt=” //div
