Now's The Time to Get your Skis Ready!

Wed, Nov  16, 2011 - By Benjamin Lannin

If your anything like me you've been planing to prep your skis for the season for some time now, and maybe like me you've gotten less done than you hoped. A quick glance at the calender should help all of the Royal We realize that we're one big storm from being on snow. With NOAA predicting an especially harsh winter (hooray!) for much of North America's ski community, the last thing I want to be doing when it hits is anything inside. 

This is where carving out Saturday afternoon this weekend to assault all the skis you and your family will use over the winter can pay very big dividends.

When I'm behind the eight-ball, I like to make Henry Ford proud, and go full bore assembly line style.  After lining up the family's ski arsenal, I'll scrape and brush them all, with some up tempo music playing to keep the pace poppin'. Next is a cleaning/saturating coat of S3 yellow, by the time I've done the last pair, the first is ready to scrape/brush. Then I like to go with a coat of the grey moly base prep. With this coat I'm looking for deep penetration so after applying a good coat I turn to the rack in my sauna to bake it in. In the absence of a hot box or sauna one can iron in this layer 2-3 times after allowing to cool to achieve full penatration.

Finally I like to hit the family quiver (scraping and brushing after each cycle) with a coat of S3 Red, one of S3 blue, and finishing with LF red and leaving this final coat on.

Now when the snow hits a quick scrape and brush of whatever or whomever's ski is being called on for active service is ready to roll, fully saturated, hardened, and fast. Then throughout the season when conditions change, or you finally get that reluctant skier out, you can be on the trail without a second thought of whats ready and not. With only a quick scrape/brush the K's will be droppin'.

Personally I prefer to spend some of the cold rainy in-between weather knocking out skis in the Wax Dungeon than when powder-sugar coated trees are shouting my name. 

Benjamin Lannin, CXC Marathon Team