DIFFICULT WEATHER

Skiing has always and will always have weather as a variable in racing.br /Last weekend at the Methow Super Tour it was magnified. To begin with, thebr /Methow Valley in north central Washington state has received very littlebr /snow this year. Talking with the locals, seems it hasn’t been this badbr /since the mid 1970s. Secondly, along with little snow and warm temps, itbr /has rained a lot. Last weekend a group of 11 Webskis adventurers traveledbr /up the road to Winthrop for the Super Tour. It was mild and cloudy andbr /sprinkling on the way up on Thursday. On Friday we went out to ski thebr /sprint course and found dozens of volunteers feverishly shoveling everybr /last transformed snow crystal they could find onto the 1.3km course. Theybr /did a great job.br /br /So, I had skied the course, found snow temps to be about -.5C and thebr /forecast was for 34F and chance of rain. I waxed for that condition onlybr /to awake Saturday morning to find it 19F and sunny. As always, I hadbr /hedged my bets and waxed three pairs of skis, one soft pair with F40br /yellow and Flour 100, one medium pair with F40 Red and F40 Yellow mixedbr /50/50 topped with Fluor 100, and one stiffer pair with F40 Red and Fluorbr /100. At race time the stiff F40 Red skis were the best; they were good.br /Another SOLDA athlete was on F31 orange with HP04 and it was running well.br /br /br /On Saturday morning we sprinted ( and I have never been a sprinter) in thebr /sun on frozen snow. It was fun to see the really fast skiers going reallybr /fast.br /br /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://www.webskis.com/uploaded_images/sprint-fast-guys2010-776394.jpg”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;” src=”http://www.webskis.com/uploaded_images/sprint-fast-guys2010-776240.jpg” border=”0″ alt=”” //aFast Skiers at Methow Super Tourdivbr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://www.webskis.com/uploaded_images/sprint-bert-start2010-785796.jpg”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 292px; height: 320px;” src=”http://www.webskis.com/uploaded_images/sprint-bert-start2010-785367.jpg” border=”0″ alt=”” //aBert at start of qualifier.divbr //divdivbr /br /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://www.webskis.com/uploaded_images/sprint-cyn-2010-700810.jpg”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 317px;” src=”http://www.webskis.com/uploaded_images/sprint-cyn-2010-700646.jpg” border=”0″ alt=”” //aCynthia Engel at start./divdivbr /br /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://www.webskis.com/uploaded_images/sprint-aaron-start2010-788016.jpg”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 294px; height: 320px;” src=”http://www.webskis.com/uploaded_images/sprint-aaron-start2010-787856.jpg” border=”0″ alt=”” //aAaron Tarnow in qualifier./divdivbr /br /br /After the race I went up to the trails at Loup Loup Ski Bowlbr /(because there was not enough snow in Winthrop for the 15km classic) tobr /ski the long classic course. By the end of the day it was 28F and snowing.br /Good, back to winter I thought. I went home, checked the weather oncebr /more. It was forecast for overnight low of 26, 100% chance of snow andbr /high near 30 the next day. Great.br /When we arrived at Loup Loup it was already 34 and raining. Raining on 3br /inches of new snow. It was one of those nightmares for kick waxing andbr /nothing I tried seemed to work. Even Rex Powergrip was failing me. Zerobr /skis were the choice if you had a pair. Some Crown skis were working. Ibr /tried making “hairies” on my soft cold skis and they worked for a while,br /but after a few kms I was herringboning every hill./divdivbr /br /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://www.webskis.com/uploaded_images/methow-bert-fin2010-769227.jpg”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 285px;” src=”http://www.webskis.com/uploaded_images/methow-bert-fin2010-769051.jpg” border=”0″ alt=”” //aGlad the finish is in sight./divdivbr /What did I learn? Not much. We all know how weather can change and howbr /unpredictable it can be in the mountains. If you have the time and placebr /to work, it is always best to glide wax when you are pretty sure of thebr /snow conditions. I know one guy who gets up about 4:00 to check thebr /weather and snow and rewax if necessary. On the World Cup the wax techbr /guys get up at 5 or so on race day to do the last prep over a good base.br /They also go with more than one combination and test to see what runsbr /best.br /Hope you have good racing and are up for the intellectual andbr /organizational challenge of waxing skis.br /br /Bertbr //div/divdiv class=”blogger-post-footer”img width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6589659500745667109-2185357950050088080?l=www.webskis.com%2Fwebskisblog.html’ alt=” //div