Ski

Thanks, POC, she's destined for a life in the fifth percentile, though...you know that chart? But it was cool that she moved up from 70's to 80's without even noticing. 10 extra cm's for a little kid is a big deal, but they are the same color Race 5's and I didn't tell her...and the stability of the longer ski makes a lot of difference. Skiing with your kid is just Fing great.

OLN's coverage was better than I expected. They'd sometimes skip a half dozen racers at a time and have made it Bode/Daron versus the Austrians, but coverage of the mens DH and SG from Lake Louise was pretty good. What SUCKED was Bode Miller, who caught an edge while skating to the first downhill gate and almost fell, then got completely off line a few more times to finish way back in the pack. He was so bummed, he jumped out of the finish corral to hide from reporters. In Sunday's SG, Bode fell on his hip, but popped back up and finished far back again. He dropped from 2nd to 6th in the Overall Cup standings. Svindal Aksel-Lund of Norway leads the overall, with Maier right behind. Rahlves had a crappy DH, but finished 3rd in the SG on a mountain that he's always had terrible luck (and results) skiing.

Temps around 55, with no rain, and mostly hardpack snow...tickets were $30 for adults and $5 for really short people. We pulled into the lot and I thought they were closed...maybe 10 cars? Interesting to just ski the lower mountain, down below the main lodge where all the long green circle runs are. 'Dude, 'Mom, and I skied down there once last spring, but we spent the whole afternoon today absolutely alone doing laps. The fog is the worst kind of snow killer and they'll be struggling by mid-day tomorrow. But a GREAT day today...

Every mountain is filled with ITC people this time of year...I was up Sunday for 10 quick runs. But I was bringing my 5yr old up today, Monday...instead, we're heading to Belleayre. Rain? I'm with 'Dude on that one. Wipe your goggles with a little shampoo ahead of time (or RainEx) and it's not an issue. Rain just keeps the lift lines short...

She'll be fine flat. Once she starts ripping up blue squares and laying them over, then she can start looking for extra leverage. But she'll get on this set-up and wonder why she hasn't been doing this skiing stuff more often. I'm so freaking jealous of all you people with skiing moms.

Bummer that you guys won't be open this week, though...I heard a lot of people today hoping to come back Monday because PA schools are closed.

They are the Tyrolia SL100's, correct? If so, they are hugely popular and sold with tons of beginner/intermediate packages. They are extremely light and a great binding for what you were buying them for.

Bummer...

CB hasn't cared about an early opening in a long time...I remember having to buy day passes to JF the same day we picked up our CB season passes. DaveK always used to say that the goal is "to have terrain for all abilities before deciding to open". I would rather my home hill open with a six foot ribbon of snow and a few rocks here and there, than wait an extra week. Early openings are more about cost and the bottom line for the ski area, rather than snow preservation.

I missed what that's about Glad you came through it Montageskier...broken knuckles make it a b*tch to hold ski poles. We got yelled at for not liking his mountain.

We'll start a fund for bail money and Rob can start a "Free Montageskier" movement!

Yeah, all races are broadcast in Europe...mostly live. But ratings aren't great because Europeans are out skiing during the broadcast times. That's why they've been sampling with the night slaloms, trying to pick up ratings and sponsors. Even Canada gets better coverage. The SLC Olympics had 100's of hours of ski race coverage in Canada. It's amazing that an American with a flashy personality wins the overall title and coverage gets cut to next to nothing...in an Olympic year, no less. Freaking Americans would rather watch poker. There's something seriously wrong with us.

You need the satellite service that gets EuroSports Network, I suppose. OLN reduced coverage to highlights only. We get OLN and they'll have highlights of the DH and SG in their Sunday broadcast. But highlight shows are even much worse than what they do to the Olympics.

I know we've poked Phil enough about his 20 days that he'll at least be getting to VT more...

Ha, Mt. Peter kids? Well, that's in the town where SnowSnow is from, for anyone that remembers. The #1 internet psychotic wacko ever known. Mount Peter's team is a more low-key program than Windham, Hunter, or a lot of the others. They typically get trounced and are DFLers (dead f**king last). The vert is about 450ft and they have a lot of NYC kids. You can kind of do the math from that.

Great read, Dthmtl...The Wall's short, but an awesome headwall, isn't it?

We can't see the sky...trees and more trees...

I don't think there's any at all. I've been trying to to talk my mom in Florida to search satellite listings and throw in a video tape...I just don't see that working out, though.

A reminder for anyone that cares: The WC resumes tomorrow with a men's DH at Lake Louise, CA, then a men's SG on Sunday.

Are you using the Renew Zoom Graphite and hot scraping? 5 or 6 coats of base prep is overkill...you see little pinholes in what should be a smooth coating if there's still fluoro left in the base. Once it goes on smooth, you've prepped enough. You won't hurt anything overprepping, but you're efforts should go toward loading the bases with multiple hot waxing---a ski base is like a sponge and it can only absorb just so much wax each time you hot wax. As I'm sure you know, the idea is to load up the base and the wax will slowly release to the surface as you ski. A new set of World Cup downhill skis will get 90 or more hot waxes before they see the snow. I'll hot scrape once (to clean), then hot wax and scrape one to three times as prep for a race. Lately, I've just been using one coating of a Swix LF (for whatever temp. I expect the snow to be), then put my energy into a speed overlay. For recreational skis after a stone grind, I'd use a prep wax, then a hydrocarbon wax like Swix CH. I'd wax, wait three hours, scrape, then repeat two times. Dominator makes great stuff, but have a look around Dr. D's website at http://racewax.com/ He's a PA guy from down in Waynesboro. Lastly, this is just the way I do it. It seems like everyone I know has a variation...

Yep, it's like being in a high school cafeteria. Those kind of tables are ugly, but are probably the most efficient use of space.

Sh*t, you're hired.

Actually, there's a guy in Washington state and another in PA that buy wholesale quantities and sell it online (including on eBay for 1/10 the price of Swix, Toko, etc.). I've used Swix Cera Racing Pro that runs about $150 for 30g and then tested it against Dr. D's Wicked Wax that I get at about $30 for 100g and cannot tell the difference. If I were a NorAm racer, then I'd probably spend the $150...but I tried the cheaper pure flouro on a fairly flat tuck course at Montage and then again during a 35 degree, drizzling ASRA race and was blown away by how close the quality was. I still use the reasonably priced Swix low flouro waxes, but will never again pay hundreds of dollars to cover the marketing expenses of Swix and Toko's speed overlays. You don't have to be a big name wax company to sell a good product. In case you want to check out Dr. D's website: http://www.racewax.com/ Always good to keep an eye on your competition...

Crayon and cork are a good quick method of waxing. Nowhere near as god as a hot wax, but much better than a wipe on. The heat comes from the friction of the cork. A lot of racers do it before their second run. On warm days, cork is used to rub in pure flouro overlays like PTFE, which is Telflon. The Teflon doesn't melt, so you are heating up the wax and mixing in the overlay. Atomic and 'Dude were nice enough to help me test a new brand of pure flouro at Belleayre, Sunday. People thought we were a little odd with our skis laid out at the top of the run, corking in PTFE.

Think's absolutely right...the faster the lifts, the more crowded the slopes. In CB's 'olden days', 50 school buses would pull in at 4pm and we'd line up in a corral that looked like some crazy rat maze. Lift lines would be 30 or 40 minutes, then you'd creep up the mountain at half the current speed. The upside was that everyone was always in the lift line or on the lift, so the slopes were relatively empty on the busiest nights.