Skirack has learned that the Toko/Swix LF and HF waxes will not be able to ship this year 🙁
HOWEVER, they recently received an inventory of Start brand HF and LF wax. Until the end of the day today (Monday, 2/11) they are offering MNC members 30% off these waxes! Simply download the order form below, and email it to spikec@skirack.com
The order will be ready in a few days for you to pickup/pay in-store.
In addition to this special sale, Skirack will also be receiving additional Start and Vauhti brand HF and LF waxes at 15% off for MNC members!
Coach Adam recommends Start HF10 green, as well as the “BMR” (“Black Magic Racing”) line of molybdenum races, which are especially good in slushy, dirty spring snow during late February and March.
Congratulations to all those kids that raced this weekend in our MNC Skiathlon! It was awesome watching you all ski! Check out the BKL Blog for a recap and pictures coming soon!
Klister: It’s time to take it off!
We’ll be switching back to hardwax by the next time we classic which will be on Thursday. Here’s a tutorial on how to clean the klister off skis:https://youtu.be/DicChDocWWY
Tuesday: Skate (Penguins: Classic)
A big snow storm is supposed to start late this afternoon and continue into Wednesday. Check the weather before you come to determine if you will be OK driving to & from your home and of course, check the MNC website. At this point, the storm isn’t supposed to really get going until later in the evening so I don’t foresee that we will need to cancel.
VIDEO DAY: Vince Franke is a videographer form Peregrine Productions and has kids in our program. He has volunteered to make a Video of our BKL program for me and is going to be videoing our BKL skiers and probably interviewing some of them. We plan to post this video on our website. If any parent would like us NOT to film their child and post it online, please email Rosemary: sheacobb19@gmail.com
We’ll be playing lots of games, practicing tucking on the downhills and racers will be practicing how to pass skiers.
Coming up:Tuesday 2/19- Our Annual Mini-Marathon! We will need everyone to bring snacks (to share) and a couple of parent volunteers to man the food table and lap counting sheets. E-mail Rosemary if you can help that day: sheacobb19@gmail.com More about the Mini-marathon next week!
Thursday: Classic Relay Day!
With a high of 31F predicted, we will probably be waxing with Swix purple or a mix of Toko Red & yellow.
Sunday: Racers: Ski/Cheer Intervals at Rikert
Middle school racers have a championship race on Saturday, so we’re going to have practice on Sunday down at the Rikert Touring Center where the Eastern Cup races are happening and I will be helping Adam wax for the Juniors. Tentative plan is to meet at 12:00 and watch the start of the Open Men’s 15 km race, then ski out to watch and & cheer and go for a ski. I will email later in the week to confirm plans.
We have a few great reports from the Craftsbury Marathon Festival, from Karen and Rick. Here’s the lowdown from Rick on both days:
Saturday’s classic race – It was a coaches dream for both kick and glide. Pretty much everything we tested for grip worked quite well. TOKO Blue, Swix VR30, VR40, and even some colder green waxes were working.The tracks were hard packed powder with just a slight bit of transformed snow worked in which created fast tracks that never broken down for the entire race. Hardwaxes were working fine over both a hardwax binder and klister binder. Some of the 50K skiers opted to add some klister in the binder to help with durability. Most of us used TOKO green binder ironed in then covered with anything in the green to blue range. Liam and I liked the feel of the Guru Green but felt grip could be a little better. A little Rode Super Blue was perfect… Just a little better grip in the tracks with no perceptible loss in speed. On my own skis I also added a little Vhauti Super Base binder in with my TOKO Green. I’ve found this to be extremely durable and I still had great kick after the race was over. Some of us also applied a Vahuti LF green liquid/gel shortly before the start that really helped speed up skis.
In talking with the Craftsbury coaches and skiers after the race I found out that most of their team also used Rode Super Blue.
On Sunday the course for the skate race was fairly soft due to several inches of new snow during the night. We skied the course backwards from what was use on Saturday. It was quite fun to ski the loop in the opposite direction but most of the competitors I spoke with felt that this seemed more difficult, perhaps because we were pretty beat from the classic race. The long climb up Ruthie’ and across Creek Road was grueling, followed by a very nice decent down Sam’s. However, going up Elenor’s hill (twice) was a tough and made more difficult by the fact that there really isn’t any recovery from there to the stadium. I can’t speak for others but the Duck Pond Loop never felt so hard!
Coach Rick: 88km of racing over the weekend! Photo by Liam
For wax on Sunday, where glide was much more important and difficult to find then it was on Saturday, most of the skiers used some sort of HF blue wax with a Fluoro cover. Mike Millar, Emily Stitt and I all used TOKO Blue/Cold Jetstream and then applied a Vhauti HF red liquid/gel which is rated down to 18 F. I believe it helped, especially on the second lap as the temperature climbed up to about 22F.
Overall a Wonderful two-day event that offers something for everyone. Look for this to be a key weekend every winter.
Some stats from Karen!
Day 1: Classic
21 MNC racers participated today!
5 MNC Board members and 3 MNC coaches!
8 MNC racers placed in their age groups! AND
Emily Stitt of MNC was 2nd overall in the womens 50K!
Day 2: Freestyle
9 MNC skiers
6 MNC skiers landing in top 3 of age groups
4 MNC skiers raced in both the classic and skate races Charlie Cobb, Rick Costanza, Mike Millar and Emily Stitt
Emily Stitt – 2nd overall yesterday and 6th overall today
Karen, Renate, and Jen enjoying the race atmosphere!
It was about time for a break, after about two straight months of competing every weekend. Ski racing takes a toll on more than just your body, as it’s a difficult task to motivate and gear-up to put yourself through a lot of pain each new weekend (even if you’re racing fast and feeling healthy!). The same goes for coaches…I think a lot of us were ready for a little less pressure and being able to sleep in for a few days. The final rounds of regular-season racing strike fast and furious, so the timing of an off-weekend couldn’t have been better.
For high school racers, it’s a bit of a different story as we’re in the midst of the Tour De Chittenden. In fact, the final race is about to begin at Cochran’s as I type. MNC skiers have been doing great and it looks like more hard work paying off for the Pugs.
For those of us not racing the HS circuit, this weekend was a chance to hone in on some technique and fitness and check out the next level of racers. On Saturday, a crew went up to Trapps to watch the UVM Carnival mass start race. UVM is dominating on the men’s side, and Dartmouth is equally dominant for women. We also got to watch lots of friends and alums racing, like Eliza, Marika, Will, Greg, and Isaac. Oh yeah, Bill Harmeyer won on Friday and Henry was just off the podium on Saturday (in a UVM 1-6 sweep). Nice!
After checking out the races, the group went out to the Telemark trail for a little bit of race prep for this coming weekend’s EHS/U16 Qualifier. That day is a 3km classic in the morning, and a 3km skate race in the afternoon. To mimic that we did 2 intervals about 8 minutes long: one classic, then one skate. Here’s a bit of video from the classic, bookended by a pass of the UVM women in the race a half hour earlier!
On Sunday, we had one of the most fun skis of the year! We went down to the Capital District (Montpelier) for a skate session on the top-secret trails behind Julia’s house. They’re not actually that secret…but they’re pretty special. A series of connected loops that link up to Morse Farm, these trails were a lot like the Bogburn trails although with a more skier-friendly layout, you could say. There was a ton of snow, and Julia’s dad did an awesome job grooming everything with the super-sweet Bearcat snowmobile and full Ginzugroomer setup that used to belong to the ski center. Can I just say that having 10km of trails out my backyard, with a legit grooming setup, is a life goal of mine. So it was fun to live in this fantasy world for a few hours.
The weather was warm, the trails were nice enough to use race skis, and the loops wound through fields, pine stands, and thin sugarbush forest. It was amazing! We got in a nice long ski and even had some fun with some balance drills like one-ski downhills and swapping skis on the fly.
Gathering at the trailhead, ready to rock some amazing and fun loops
Such nice trails! And of course some hydration from our TOKO waterbelts
Eli and Aidan with some idyllic Vermont ski terrain
Here’s some ski drills to try…the one foot spin (above) and the partner ski-swap (below)
The first swooping downhill out of the backyard and into a lower field was so fun, I tried to capture some footage of it and play it all together. Hopefully this makes you want to get out and ski, and maybe even cut some trails on your own property:
After the ski, the Oliver family was nice enough to make us an amazing lunch of mac n’ cheese! Thanks for an awesome day. If you can’t already tell by the tone of this blog post…it was the ideal weekend off from big races!
