How can the typical racer who doesn't arrive on the snow until the day of the race know how cold the snow is going to be?
Many of the solutions commonly given to avoid this problem while good often don't contain the necessary scope of things to check or address to solve the problem for sure.
Toko made a number of changes this season around what waxes to use when. Here's Ian's guidance, followed by questions the use Toko's Liquid Paraffins, Ian's response, a new guidance on applying Toko's Liquid Paraffins.
OK, so you got some new skis or you stoneground some skis... There are three steps you need to make the skis ready for snow.
Toko has a number of new products including High Performance Powders, to be applied on top of a hot waxed and scraped and brushed HP layer.
We are innovation driven: first dedicated waxing iron, first fluorinated hydrocarbon glide wax (ie HF, LF), first brand to use molybdenum, first perfluorocarbon in bloc form (Streamline/WetJet/JetStream).
Here are some general grip waxing principles and then some Toko-specific tips. How you wax your skis has a lot to do with not only the conditions but also your skis and how they are related to you.
I think the best way to look at cold snow from a practical or usable point of view is to break cold snow down into cold and slow, cold, and cold and fast. Each wax has its “sweet spot” and there is no one wax that performs best in each.
Many people think that if the snow is especially cold or abrasive then this is when they should use X-Cold Powder. While this might work much of the time, I wanted to make clear when X-Cold Powder is the most effective.
In general, Toko High Performance Hot Wax covered with Toko High Performance Liquid Paraffin is faster, with one exception. Ok, make that two exceptions...
Soelden 15 is a test wax (a non fluorinated top coat) that did extremely well in testing two weeks ago so I contacted our chemist and he flew some out to me for the races.
At Soldier Hollow, we just tested lots of different new formulas of new fluoro free Topcoats and were surprised and pleased by the results.