Amy and Erik Mundahl have set up shop and started testing out in Houghton for US nationals. In this first round of testing they’re just trying to get the lay of the land, and get a handle on some of the basics. There will be more testing tomorrow, and then weather turning colder for the first race on Sunday.
Paraffin
The major goal here is to figure out underlayers, hardeners, and bulk wax. This test was designed to provide basic answers to a few different questions. Those questions, and answers, are as follows:
LF Green, HF Green or HF Blue?
The answer is clearly LF Green (no surprise). This is notable because it’s fairly warm out there right now, and will only get colder. Looks as though we’re looking at the green range of products. Tomorrow they can start to broaden the testing scope in that range.
Is a graphite underlayer an asset or a liability?
Clearly an asset, at least in the speed trap. This is consistent with what we’ve seen in Houghton at major championships in the past, where a graphite underlayer has figured strongly into the final race build-up. The Vauhti LF graphite is seldom the best of the graphite underlayers, and tomorrow they may choose to run some other reliable graphites like Star Map Black (maybe a bit strong), Ski*Go LF graphite (this would be my bet), and Rex RCF Graphite (also perhaps a bit strong. Ooooh – they should check some Start stuff as well. They’ll also want to test this for feeling (it’s a skate race, afterall) and for durability (it should only get better with added Ks, but if it doesn’t feel great to start with, this becomes important – when does it become a real advantage?).
Does a hardener work, either as an underlayer or a shell on top of the paraffin?
Interestingly, the 30F (that’s the coldest of the Vauhti hardeners) ran identically as an underlayer and as a shell. In both cases it narrowly (insignificantly) out-tested LF Green alone.
Fluoro Coats
We’re not trying to do a top-coat test here. This is strictly a test of a primary fluoro layer. We have liquids in this test because the liquids are a viable stand-alone solution for a 15K race, and we want to know whether they’ll outperform the powders, or vice-versa.
It’s interesting and a bit surprising to see the 21.1 liquid win the test, and to see both liquids ahead of the powders. I definitely wouldn’t have predicted this based on conditions, though I suppose I should stop being surprised by those liquids.
It’s also worth noting that Amy’s initial impression was that the 15.1 powder felt best as she was running the speed trap. But Erik confirmed these results with a preference for the liquids in his feel testing. This is clearly something to pursue further.
We haven’t had a lot of experience with the 21.1 liquid, and so I’m interested to see how that goes. It’s worth noting that Jeff Tumbleson has had some interesting results recently in testing the 21.1 liquid in Hayward. It has been terrible in the extreme cold, but surprisingly good as it warms up. Jeff interpreted that as a difference in the grinds, but now we’ll want to take another look at that.
OK – that’s it for day one. More to come…