Going into this season we have talked about trying to test product more in season than previous years. It is tough to find the time in November and December with sales/holidays/racing, but now that we are into January we are going to try to begin a weekly waxing competition between a few of our managers at the shop. Myself, Matt Clarke, Ian Ivens, and Jakob Ellingson will be participating in the weekly competition as a fun way of learning about product/application.
We will be keeping track of the competition through the entire season in two different ways. First will be in total number of victories. This is easy for us to keep track of. The second way we will be keeping track of it will be in total distance behind the winner. We will be testing the skis for each competition using paired glideouts. You can read about how this testing is done HERE.
Our testing this week was done prior to the Ski de She as a way to guide our recommendation. The Ski de She will be a bit on the cold side and our testing done this morning was at Elm Creek at about 5F. It was mostly man-made snow, but there was definitely still some natural snow mixed in from our snow storm last week.
Jeremy Wax Job: Rex NFX00 Sisu White melted at 180C > scrape > brush > Rex NF31 roto wool > brush.
Ian Wax Job: Start SG10 Green + Toko X-Cold Powder melted at 180C > scrape > brush > Star Dark Cold Powder melted at 160C > scrape > brush.
Matt C. Wax Job: Start SG10 Green melted at 165C, 2 passes > scrape > brush > TSP5 + Toko X-Cold Powder melted at 155C > scrape > brush.
Jakob Wax Job: Start SG10 Green + Swix Polar Powder melted at 160C, 2 passes > scrape > brush.
Test results:
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- Jakob
- Matt C. +5cm
- Jeremy +30cm
- Ian +40cm
We also skied after the glideout to see the feeling of the skis as well. Matt's and Jakob's skis definitely felt better than Ian and mine, with Matt's skis feeling the best. If we were to choose the wax based on testing from today, we would go with Matt's wax job because it was nearly identical on the glide out, and felt better on the feeling test.