Everyday Wax Line?

[Tony S]

Well, I do skate, and I do race alpine - in my own pathetic little beer league way. And I absolutely can tell the difference. I already have a smattering of LF waxes that I use more sparingly, including Butter, Race Zoom Old Snow, and Bullet. Plus some Swix and SkiGo that I use mostly for xc.

But yes, right now am looking for basic HC, but good basic that will satisfy someone who would be skiing on fluoros most of the time if he could. Ordered the HX and looking forward to trying it.

 

[Muleski]

I can't resist jumping in. We have always used Holmenkol in our family {well...for 20+ years} as we got it in big volume, either free or dirt cheap. It was very easy for our kids to figure out with the help of coaches who were familiar with it. Three temp ranges of Hydro, Fluoro {GW25}, Graphite, and clear base prep {back in the day}. They even scored free glacier wax. Coaches supplied the "juice" as needed. Kids learned to of their own skis early on.

I still have plenty of Betamix and the newer blue Ultra, as mentioned by @Scotskier. I keep my skis and my wife's full of it.....mostly Beta. It works plenty well for our needs. We can ski...and like good running skis. No clocks in our life anymore.

We also have a tub that probably has 20 plus "bricks" of Dominator Hydro. The old stuff: green, pink and yellow. And original Zoom. That stuff works just fine as well. My daughter just packed six bricks in her suitcase heading back to the Rockies after being back East for Thanksgiving. Easy.

I have posted this all before:

1. We have a friend who skied his way into a USST nomination a few years ago. He was on a tight budget. He used Beta, and nothing else, for an entire season of GS and SL. He would mooch some flouro every now and then. He won a lot of NorAms on plain Beta. I think he closed out the season at about 8 points in both disciplines....and points were generally higher back then.

2. His training and race partner got somebody to throw him about a dozen blocks of Dominator Zoom "old" and "new"....all he used for the entire year. Starting in NZ in August and ending in the Far West spring series in late April.....and he skied a lot of SG. It worked.

3. Our son was a pretty high level NCAA racer. He used Beta for 95% of his training and racing. Only varied if the snow had a ton of humidity, or if it was brutally cold. It worked. He used remarkably little GW25, and graphite. Our daughter was doing the same. Beta, Beta, and more Beta. Easy.

So....my advice. Keep it simple and keep it cheap. It works.

If you guys can all tell the difference, though, good on you. Maybe I'm too cheap, had a MS in my house and held her back. Or not!

 

[Tony S]

, had a MS in my house and held her back

Oh the shame! Dad, dad, dad, dad ...

 

[Muleski]

Bit of sarcasm, haha!

I recall dad's juicing skis at lollypop races when she was four. At some levels, the wax matters. At many more, nope.....

At 30, she seems OK with it, BTW. Seems to have been a good experience regardless of the wax.

 

[Tony S]

Bit of sarcasm, haha!

I recall dad's juicing skis at lollypop races when she was four. At some levels, the wax matters. At many more, nope.....

At 30, she seems OK with it, BTW. Seems to have been a good experience regardless of the wax.

My son was on the local HS xc ski team. At one point - he was closer to my size then - we were sharing a pair of skis. Basically he was using my (better) skis for race day. After a big race I got on my skis, that his coach had prepped, and promptly fell on my ass after half a stride because they were so GD slick. Once I adjusted I had a totally awesome outing. I think I even dropped @Wending that day.

 

[Muleski]

That XC stuff is dangerous......for sure. Firmly believe this is a gravity sport. And yeah, I "kinda" knew what I was doing. And more importantly she, her brother and their coaches did. And later on, their techs.

 

[ScottB]

tony,

I totally agree about the Dominator Zoom series being hard to decipher. I emailed the dominator rep who used to be on epic. He sorted it out for me, or greatly simplified it. I went with the zoom series for my wax needs. I will dig up some of the posts or info, I saved it for future reference. To briefly write it (you probably already know this) Bullet for cold, I think old snow as a single choice of the two choices, straight zoom (green) for practice and all temp wax, hyper zoom for just under/over freezing temps, and butter for way above freezing. I have used both the race zooms and the hyperzoom is 95% as good and there is only one, so simple. The info I got explained what is the difference in all the other flavors, but I didn't find a huge benefit. I boiled it down to hard wax for cold, all temp, fluro, and butter which is heavy fluro and soft spring wax. For racing, use the hyperzoom as all temp and mix in bullet if cold and use butter on top if really warm.

I am not implying anything negative about any other brands or wax. Like you are thinking, pick one series and get to know it. Dominator claims the zoom series is simple, but when you look at all the flavors, it is totally confusing.

 

[Dakine]

To Muleski's point about Holmenkohl Beta.
My fastest skis, a pair of 2006 Atomic Women's 21m GS skis I got from a USST member, have only been waxed with Beta.
Most of the time they outrun skis with much fancier wax jobs.
I think it is because many ardent wax addicts get a mixture of many waxes and fluros and additives on their skis and this mashup doesn't work well.
Give those skis a grind and saturate them with a simple hydrocarbon wax and they will go faster.
More than once I have given a pair of skis the full Swix wax job for conditions where fluoros are supposed to work well only to find them not so much.
Building a wax structure of LF then HF then Cera F then Liquid Cera takes a lot of time and you can easily put $50 worth of Swix product on your skis.
This stuff probably helps most at slow XC speeds where it is needed for performance.
It also probably helps alpine racers for the first two gates before they are at any kind of speed but, IMO, you will be faster if you spend that wax money at the gym...

 

[cantunamunch]

Most of the time they outrun skis with much fancier wax jobs.
I think it is because many ardent wax addicts get a mixture of many waxes and fluros and additives on their skis and this mashup doesn't work well.
Give those skis a grind and saturate them with a simple hydrocarbon wax and they will go faster.

I'm not sure it's the mixture composition so much as the saturation at work here - and if we look at the CH4/LF4 method described above by @Scotskier and @BGreen there are quite striking commonalities starting with repeated heat cycling and no wax starvation. Well, striking to this reader anyway.

 

[Tony S]

I'm not sure it's the mixture composition so much as the saturation at work here - and if we look at the CH4/LF4 method described above by @Scotskier and @BGreen there are quite striking commonalities starting with repeated heat cycling and no wax starvation. Well, striking to this reader anyway.

Yup.

Also, there is tons of blatant confirmation bias at work here. Which is TOTALLY FINE imo, but it's good to recognize that that's what it is. Most of us are hacks at one level or another, and we all have philosophies about waxing that we feel comfortable with. I LIKE to goof around with waxes, and once in a while it pays off in some notable way. (Like, being able to keep up with someone on the skate track who normally smokes me.) So for me personally I find it worth the money to experiment very modestly with some of the LF waxes. I wouldn't try to defend it with hard data, but it works for me. On the other hand there are lot of people who have simplicity and economy as their number one waxing priorities. It's hardly surprising that those people feel they get better results sticking with one or two HC waxes.

 

[cantunamunch]

Yup.

Also, there is tons of blatant confirmation bias at work here. .

anchoring bias too...

anyway ...wtf is with Briko/Maplus? Are we seeing a complete implosion of the NA market? I get hits on waxes I know and want but all of them are in cz and pl and de.

 

[Dakine]

All my skis are kept saturated with either Swix LF or CH.
Those old Atomics just happen to be faster than the rest most of the time for reasons unknown.
When I got them I called the previous owner and asked her WTF is with these, expecting to hear about HF exotica.
Nothing but Betamix she said.
The Betamix has impressed me.

 

[JMD]

The Briko/Maplus Race Base Medium Wax is still my favorite daily choice. Great glide-highly durable-wide temp range. I use the Race Base Soft for base saturation with new skis and after base grinds. Still available in NA through Tools4Boards in Canada. 250 gram blocks for $25.USD, plus shipping.

 

[ScotsSkier]

All my skis are kept saturated with either Swix LF or CH.
Those old Atomics just happen to be faster than the rest most of the time for reasons unknown.
When I got them I called the previous owner and asked her WTF is with these, expecting to hear about HF exotica.
Nothing but Betamix she said.
The Betamix has impressed me.

Remember also if it is an ex team pair of skis, depending on the status of the athlete, it is more lilkely to have been a carefully selected pair, some speed skis just have a faster base for reasons unknown, But Yes, the betamix is a good wax, I used to use a lot of it till I started to experiment more with various combinations. And I have Swix, holmenkol and dominator products in my wax box. As to confirmation bias, always a potential pitfall, but for the most part my selections have evolved based on time against the clock. And I suspect BGreen has more data points than me on this....

 

[cantunamunch]

LFG4 how old is that box, 2002?

 

[Dakine]

Impressive, mine is only half the size.
It is really easy to lose your way when you are "outside the box" so to speak.
The Atomics were team skis from a very good athlete at Squaw...until she shattered her pelvis.
I jumped on them because a real deal factory ski in 21 m is real fun when I can get them up to speed.
They don't make them like that any more.
Gliding past my buddies on the flats is priceless...