We’re half-way through the racing at the Canmore World Cups, and things have gone well enough. No disasters, but also no really notable successes so far, at least with respect to ski service. We’ve been putting people in the races, which is our number one job. We’re still looking for advantages.A few notes of interest:

Cold grinds are running well, but they’re less important than the right skis. We’ve had a lot of people out on ZR1s and ZR1 XLs from both Boulder Nordic Sport and myself. Also, some Finn Sisu grinds and some Ultratune grinds have run well. I’ve done a little bit of grind testing, and have found the Q0-3 to be a bit better than the C44 and the C40 that I’ve got on my test skis, but again, the differences are minor and the major thing is to get the right skis out there with a ballpark grind.

I metal-scraped a ski to test against our grinds, since it’s been so cold. I regularly hear from people claiming that a totally blank or metal scraped ski is great in super cold conditions. I’ve never found it to actually test fast, and it really sucks here.

In yesterday’s sprint race the guys who double-poled the course on skate skis just totally dominated the event. What became apparent during the heats is that, in this case, the advantage was not on the tucking downhills, where the kick-waxed classic skis were running about even, but on the double-pole sections. The guys who were on classic skis would slow down notably as soon as they stood-up out of a tuck. Anybody who pays attention to classic ski construction will understand why this happens almost immediately. It’s worth noting that surprisingly soft kick waxes were testing well prior to the race. However, most of that evaluation was made striding and tucking. We seldom evaluate the specific double-pole speed of a wax job. There is a big difference between the shape of the camber at half-weight in a forward position (double-poling) and full weight in a neutral position. It’s also worth noting that the forward position used by the sprinters is notably farther forward than your average forward position for a distance skier - even for the same skier at a World Cup level. Many lessons learned on the sprint day. If you have aspirations toward sprinting on the world cup, go practice your double-pole.

Tomorrow is the 10/15K individual start skate race, and the next day is the skate sprint. Today was the one off day of the series, and it was a flurry of activity. Athletes and coaches testing skis for the coming days. Speed trap and feel tests of paraffin underlayers, pure fluoro top coats, and fluoro-block optimizers. With a couple of notable exceptions in the first two races, the US results have not been outstanding. Everybody is working hard to evaluate any possible shortcomings and ensure the best possible results in the next two days. As I said, we’ve done well, but there’s room for improvement and we’re looking to do better.