Telemark Talk / Telemark Tips Forum

When you do XC skiing, what are the techniques you use? What does your k&g look like?

We have almost no snow so all I can do right now is ski on groomed tracks, and there I use all 3 traditional classic techniques with my Gammes.
Even more so now that I shortened the skins to a bit in front of my heel so the glide is much improved. I still have excellent grip and only have to use herring bone if it's ridiculously ultra steep.

What does your double poling look like?

I'm finding that with the short skins, in order to get max glide, I lean back against the high uppers of my boots and have my weight far back while double poling. It's still a work in progress as I've only been out twice after getting the glide good enough to make double poling a sensible option.

I bet you are light for the 210 Gamme, so get better glide with the skins.
With the skins being short, being weight-back gets you more off the skins for better glide.
I think the same concept of weight-back for glide is applied to shiftable bindings.

I haven’t done much track skiing myself, and am just happy when conditions are good enough for double poling at all.

I ski the Gammes in 190, and that's also the correct size for my weight.

What I meant is, I'm starting to develop a somewhat efficient double poling technique based around the limitations of BC skis with skins, i.e. don't get up on your toes as that slows you down, but instead create up and down motion with the weight on your heels.

No way I'm gonna drop the ease and always perfect grip of the 30mm mohair skins and start playing around with kick wax, so instead I'm adressing the issues around glide when double poling. A BC-specific form of double poling, where you take advantage of the stiffer boots you have and can work somewhat efficiently while in the back seat.
It's in its infancy though, so that's why I wanna hear how everyone else does it?

Sometimes I dbl pole with a kick. I think I only pole plant every other kick. It's more for relaxing then speed.

Kick & glide
Skins
Skating

Skating in my favorite, by far.

In certain conditions (flats) you can skate with skins. Get up on that edge and off the skins, and you can move pretty fast.