BNS is in Biwabik for the Minnesota State High School Championships. We are excited to get to take in this iconic event. I arrived this morning to a beautiful day with bright blue skis and great course conditions. I setup a speed trap and begun running skis at 9:45am, but it was a windy with some headwind gusts. Trap times seemed to be varying a bit as a result of these gusts so I bagged the speed trap. At 10am I began running skis by feel. Snow Temp was -2C. I ran paraffins, then powders, and then topcoats and structure. I ran the top choices again around noon to check on a recommendation for the classic race. Results and recommendation below. Be sure to check out my notes on handstructure.

Notes: Hand Structure will be very important. Of all the waxes I tried the skis that had a simply SkiGo LF Blue wax and had the various hand structures I tested felt the best. Tomorrow I will be trying a few additional structures combinations from what I tried today.

We will be testing top coats in the morning before the skate race.

Kick waxing is going to be fun, it should get quite warm. I am hoping to get out on some kick skis this afternoon. I will also be testing kick at the venue tomorrow.

Please feel free to ask questions.

Wax Recommendation SKATE

Base Layer: SkiGo LF Graphite, scrape, brush.

Race Paraffin: Holmenkol Matrix Black/Red. Either the Black/Red or the SkiGo HF Yellow would be good choices. They were quite close with the Red/Black running better in my early test and the HF yellow pulling ahead at Noon.

Fluoro Powder: SkiGo C44/7. Hands down the best in the morning. At noon the C22 had caught up.

Topcoat: SkiGo C22 solid. The blocks were definiately better than the liquids, which I found a bit surprising. I'll be taking a look at this again tomorrow to see if the liquids catch up at all.

Structure:Finite Finish AF10. It is a staight linear press in tool.

Wax Recommendation CLASSIC

Base Layer: SkiGo LF Graphite, scrape, brush.

Race Paraffin: SkiGo HF Yellow.

Fluoro Powder: SkiGo C22.

Topcoat: SkiGo C22 solid. The blocks were definiately better than the liquids, which I found a bit surprising. I'll be taking a look at this again tomorrow to see if the liquids catch up at all.

Structure:Finite Finish AF10. It is a staight linear press in tool.

TEST RESULTS

Paraffin

1.       Holmenkol Matrix Black/Red

2.       SkiGo HF Yellow

3.       Swix HF8

4.       Holmenkol Matrix Red

5.       Holmenkol Matrix Blue

6.       SkiGo HF Violet/HF Yellow 1:1

7.       SkiGo HF Violet

8.       SkiGo HF Orange

Powder

1.       SkiGo C44/7

2.       Swix SuperCera

3.       SkiGo C22/C44 1:1

4.       Holmenkol Wet

5.       SkiGo C22

6.       Holmenkol Mid

7.       Swix FC8x

TopCoats

1.       SkiGo C22 Solid

2.       Holmenkol Mid Block

3.       Holmenkol Mid 08 Black

4.       Swix FC8WS

5.       Holmenkol Wet Block

6.       SkiGo C44 Fluid

7.       SkiGo C22 Fluid

8.       SkiGo C107 Fluid

            SkiGo C55/99 Fluid

Hand Structure

1.       Finite Finish AF10

2.       Finite Finish AF10 with V05 over the top of it

3.       Holmenkol Cross Strucutre with 2 rollers, medium pass

4.       Finite Finish V10