We just finished the first rest day here at the US Senior National Championships. I finally found a little bit of time to go over my test results from the previous couple of days and give some insights into the racing.
January 1st - Training Day
I am working closely with Evan Pengelly from Swix/Rossi so we took the day to look at where things are leaning towards from the Swix lineup. We spent the morning looking at the race paraffin and how it would stack up against each other. It was roughly ~30 degrees overnight and about 1-2 inches of fluff that got groomed in with the older snow.
- TS8B
- TSP7
- TSP8
- Marathon White
- Marathon Black
- HS7 Liquid
1 > 2
3 > 4
5 > 6
1 > 5
1 > 3
5 > 3
Test Resuls
- TS8B
- Marathon Black
- TSP8
We were able to use the Rossi fleet from Evan which gave us a great opportunity to do paired glide outs. We are both roughly the same build which is great for being able to do glide outs. We found a spot on the back portion of the first downhill that allowed us to do the testing this way. I prefer to do glideouts when possible. While it may take a little longer than a feel test, I always feel more comfortable with the results because you cannot dispute gliding speed. The only wax that really stood out from the pack was TS8B. All of the other tests were relatively close, but TS8B was noticeably faster and both Evan and I were able to pull away when we were on the skis.
January 2nd - Skate Distance
It was fairly similar conditions on the first race day, but the snow may have dried up slightly. I decided to do a feeling test on this day instead of a glideout test as I did not have as much time and I wanted to get a little more product on the snow. I was lucky to get the help of a former athlete Tamer with this test which allowed me to speed up the entire process.
1A - Swix TS8B
1B - Rex Blue
2A - Swix TS8 Liquid
2B - Rex N-Kinetic Warm
3A - Star Beta Warm Liquid
3B - Star Beta Warm Block
4A - Rex G21G Liquid
4B - Rode RL Med
1A > 1B
2A > 2B
3A > 3B
4B > 4A
1A > 2A
3A > 4B
1A > 3A
4B > 3B
Test Results
- Swix TS8B
- Star Beta Warm Liquid
- Rode RL Med
We tested a wide variety of waxes including both melton paraffins and top coat liquids/blocks. In the paraffin test I added the winner from the previous day and put it up against Rex Blue which is a tried and true wax up in the UP in a wide variety of snow conditions. It ended up being the TS8B that won through the test, even beating out all of the other top coat waxes. I ended up adding a second layer of this wax to the race skis and the athletes came back really happy with how the skis felt in the race.
January 3rd - Training Day
There was not a whole lot of valuable testing that could be done on a day like this. Forecasted conditions for Wednesday's race were quite a bit different than what we saw during the day. Most teams and coaches took the opportunity to just focus on ski testing and not spending too much time chasing wax tests. I did one small test in the morning to help get an idea of training wax for the athletes for the day.
1A - Swix VP65
1B - Swix VP60
2A - Rex -1/-4 + Rex N11
2B - Star M21
Swix VP65 and Star M21 were both a little bit on the draggy side. Great kick, but not as fast as I would have liked. Swix VP60 felt a little better than either of the previous waxes, but still missing that free feeling I am looking for. The combination of Rex -1/-4 and N11 was by far and away the best race option that I found in my small test. It was very fast, and just enough kick to get up the one small hill on the course. If it was longer than a sprint, I probably would have looked for something that kicked a little easier, but this was a great option.
