Friday was pretty straightforward with waxing at Ponderosa State Park for Masters Worlds. We worked with the Swix crew, Toko guru Clarke Sullivan and other industry wax heroes to identify what was running best from each company and then we tried out the best from each brand and a couple combinations we thought would run well.
Of course, the weather forecast looks completely different for the race tomorrow, but we did test a lot of wax and it was useful to get out on the course with lots of different combinations. Important observations we noticed were that most of the climbing is out of the sun and therefore quite a bit different than the flat sections. We liked skis that were a bit on the slick side for the flats, but had enough kick to get us up the hills. For strong skiers with good klister technique, we think this is a good strategy. If you don't have a lot of double-pole power or you can't finesse kick in the hills, then it is probably best to go with more kick.
We were slammed today as we were not only testing waxes, but also getting situated in the venue, our wax room, etc. We did not have a lot of extra time so our wax report didn't really happen. We should be able to post more information in the coming days, however, so stay tuned for future updates.
It will be different race day, but we liked Start Universal Wide klister today. We didn't cover it, but a nice hard wax cover would have made it perfect. Glide wax is far less important than getting the kick right. We liked Swix HF8BD under FC8. We have some FC8BD that we got on the World Cup and it was great today, but not good enough to warrant its use for the classic race Saturday. The glide wax is not really that important relative to ski selection, structure and kick wax, so focus on those things first. The FC8BD we have is very expensive, so we're going to hold onto our limited supply until it will make more of a difference - probably on the skate days or if the snow becomes very dirty.
With the expected snow and/or rain overnight, things might be a bit crazy Saturday. Hairies are a possibility, and we expect to have a lot of panic going on as they are forecasting weather right around 0C with 90% chance of precipitation. This is a wax-tech's nightmare, but we are excited to step up to the challenge. We'll post updates on Saturday's races and our testing for Sunday some time Saturday afternoon.