Telemark Talk / Telemark Tips Forum

The title says it all. I recently found a 250$ deal on FIscher Spider 62s, including Rottefella NNN BC automatic bindings. Bought them straight away, since they usually selld for 400$ CAD brand new. I strictly plan on using these skis to follow my girl partner on groomed tracks.

Now, here are my two questions:

1. Do you think it was a good deal?

2. Has anybody got good or bad comments about the Spiders?

Observations so far:

-The sole of the skis are of great quality compared to the entry level Salomon/Rossignol I once tried (typical Fischer stuff).
-The quality of the rest of the ski really looks cheap-ish, which is a bit decieving when knowing the full sale price.
-They sport a very soft camber (looks like a camber and a half/single camber to me). I was a bit surprised at first for such a narrow ski.I believe they will be quite slow but versatile.
-The grip pattern looks very efficient. Fischer stuff again.

My other option was a pair of brand new 360$ CAD Fischer Transnordic 59 (E89s). A bit more tight on the budget than what I wanted, but I could easily sell back the Spiders for the same price I bought them if I ever change my mind this season.

It’s a good price. You discovered the good and the bad of the spider already. It’s a very, very soft ski. This makes it very stable and easy to turn, but also makes it feel slow, especially at the Nordic center.

I think it is a fantastic casual or first bc-xc ski, but dedicated skiers will soon want something quicker (like the transnordic 59)

Have not personally used them bit there's a YouTube account called Tahoe Trail Guode and the guy on there uses them pretty heavily all sorts of uses including some modest turns, they can't be a bad ski

Great price. Especially this year, where inflation seems to be hitting the skiing community hard.

Spider 62s are a good ski. The dimensions are in the Goldilocks zone… not as limiting as a skinny track ski and not as cumbersome on the flats as a wide BC ski.

The Spider’s dimensions and metal edge will be an advantage after fresh snowfall on a groomed track… particularly in the center lane. They’ll handle descents much better than a standard XC track ski (edgeless, stiff camber, ~44 mm width).

Good fish-scale on Fischers too. One of the best in the industry. Auto bindings can be fiddly at times but they don’t ski any differently than the manuals or magnums.

I think it is a good price. Personally I have no use for a slow skinny ski. It is my personal opinion that cross country skiing would be more popular if not for the plethora of slow, easy skiing, recreational skis. Just me, but what’s the purpose of a slow ski on a groomed XC surface?
I realize this wasn’t a glowing endorsement, but the OP asked for an opinion. I know it’s a strong opinion, but I doubt many people that have skied a ski with some kick and glide, wouldn’t be interested in kicking around on slow skis.

Your opinion is on XC, not the ski. Wasn’t the OP’s question.

The question about the ski is a relative one, not an absolute one. Will the ski work in the context of its proposed use (read what the OP wrote)? Of course it will.

As for speed, it’s entirely in the control of the conditions and the skier… see video below.

Highly fit, energetic, daring? Moderate speed on the flats and remarkably fast on the downslope.

Unfit, overweight, lazy? Slow as molasses on the flats. Never make it to the downslope because the climb is too hard.

Consider the range of possibilities. You could put these guys on 15 mm wider skies and they’d be just as fast overall. Slightly slower on the flats, even faster on the downhill curves. Why? Highly fit, energetic, daring skiers.



One of these days, gear junkies are going to wake up and realize that the skier is the part of the equation that makes the most difference.

We sell alot of these at the shop in work at, seems like a pretty nice deal to me. It's a nice xc ski.

Ha, while I agree with you that generally gear is overrated over ability, some of this is just not true, so wouldn’t want anyone not familiar with groomed track skiing to be fooled. “Slightly slower on the flats”. Have you ever tried skate skiing on a groomed deck on BC skis? I have regularly skied the same course conditions on BC classic ski gear and top of line skate skis. I’m about twice as fast on the latter kit per effort exerted, and that goes for flats, climbing, and anything but a alpine ski slope down. Lol.( I do this when I ski with novices and need a handicap. )

The skiers in the video are executing Nordic step turns on a gradual twisting descent; doing this on a metal edged, 62mm ski with bc boots and a wax less pattern base would …. Look far different.

Manney wrote: ↑

Sat Oct 14, 2023 8:42 pm

As for speed, it’s entirely in the control of the conditions and the skier… see video below.

Highly fit, energetic, daring? Moderate speed on the flats and remarkably fast on the downslope.

Unfit, overweight, lazy? Slow as molasses on the flats. Never make it to the downslope because the climb is too hard.

Consider the range of possibilities. You could put these guys on 15 mm wider skies and they’d be just as fast overall. Slightly slower on the flats, even faster on the downhill curves. Why? Highly fit, energetic, daring skiers.

Not sure why anyone would skate ski on a BC ski. Their geometries are totally different. Camber, stiffness, length ratios, bases.

It would be like saying “have you ever jumped Lillehammer on a skate ski?”. Totally different ends of the sport… not variations on a theme within a single ski discipline, such as exists between a 44mm underfoot and a 50-something mm underfoot. Not to put too fine a point on it but a Spider 62 isn’t some kind of hard assed BC ski pretending to be a XC racing ski. It falls within the bounds of a general recreational ski.

As for skiing on groomed deck on a BC ski… Done that so many times have lost count. Certainly hundreds of miles. It’s often faster than in the tracks as the BC ski approaches 70mm at the shovel. Faster than a skinny classic ski in glazed track.

Even in ideal conditions for a classic ski, a light BC ski would balance the equation between skiers of different physical capability.

Does technique change with gear? Sure. But we could get into an excruciating debate outside of gear. Like tuning… base and edge bevels.. waxing, flattening… rilling. Those guys are doing step turns because they’re on edgeless skis. If they were on an edged ski, they could set an edge. Hence my comment about the likelihood of being faster on downhill turning sections.

The point of the video was to illustrate than any ski, when used effectively, can be fast. The key difference is the skier. Lots of other people on the same patch of snow and on comparable skis in the video… none of them ripping like those skiers.

My understanding is that the soft camber causes excess drag with the fishscales om consolidated snow, whohx is why this ski is slow in some conditions.