Post
by mca80 » Sun Jan 16, 2022 5:39 pm
Nansen 190s arrived, bought Alpina 1600 from a shop here, waxed the skis this morning and tooled around with them for the first time, on my property and just briefly. Tomorrow will drive 5 min to the wilderness and ski the hiking trails for 3 hours or so. Initial impressions from someone who has only been on one pair of skis prior to this in his short skiing life: I think the 190 recommendation was good for increased speed, float, etc., but I have questions given my brief 30 min experience today--whether my technique is poor, or I dont weigh enough for them, or if it's wax or some combination. Contrary to waxing advice I received here, I took them to a shop and they glide waxed the tip and tail and used a binder in kick zone and some polar and green. I may have to end up redoing it following Gareth's old school technique of ironing polar into the whole ski, as Woodserson told me I would if I had a shop do it with glide wax, but I at least wanted to try this way first (and got a first hand demonstration of everything, which I find better than youtube). Anyway, I noticed I was slipping backward a bit, mostly going up hill (there's a fairly steep hill on my property and I am bad at judging grade but I am able to walk up it with the rossi ot65 in 185 with only a little slippage). Going down I was able to turn fantastically well compared to the old skis. On flats I was flying (soooo impressed with how much faster, easier and quieter they move compared to the rossi waxless) except even there on rare occassions I slipped a bit both sideways and backward (mostly in compacted snow from where I snowblowed a long path previously and where the dog walks and I have skiied the rossis as well; in the deep powder I sunk down quite a bit which surprised me, I thought there would be more float). So I put a thin layer of blue extra on top of the green. Grip was better, still zipped in glide, but snow was gathering in kick zone. Maybe I put it on too thick? Anway since they are brand new skis, after that I brought them inside and let them warm up, scraped off the kick zone and redid it with polar and then green, trying to do it as thin as possible. Also I went an inch maybe two past the skin inserts to see if that would give me more grip. Will find out tomorrow. Might need blue but not sure.
If anyone has any suggestions or comments I would love to hear, being a real newbie to this. Overnight low will be warm, 14F and I will head out in morning when its high teens and ski into the high of the day which should be 22.
