Thursday, May 17, 2012

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Stone Grinding & Waxing Services

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Boulder Nordic Sport is a full-service ski shop offering premium stone grinding, ski and waxing services at our retail locations in Boulder, CO and Portland, Maine and now at events with our traveling race service shop, BNS Mobile.  Top racers from across North America send their skis to us because we do the best quality work in the country.  Have your skis prepared by the pros and see how much better they go!

BNS Mobile

BNS Mobile - Professional Race ServiceThe BNS wax crew hits the road in our new rig, BNS Mobile, pushing our goal of providing World Cup Service for Everyone at events across the country.  BNS Mobile travels to races offering professional race waxing services and a mini-BNS store. It serves as a base for our testing and waxing operations and is a great resource wherever you are headed.  Visit the BNS Mobile page for more information, including event schedules and the latest test results and wax recommendations.

Stone Grinding

Stone grinding flattens the ski base, removes burnt and damaged base material and provides important micro-structure.  Bottom line, it makes your skis faster and easier to wax.  We have advanced Tazzari stone grinding machines set up in our Boulder shop.  Skis can be dropped off at our Boulder, CO or Portland, Maine stores.  If you are shipping skis to us, please ship directly to our Boulder store.  Click this link to see our Stone Grinding Menu and Service Schedule/Lead Time.

Hot Box Wax Treatments

Saturate your base with wax for durability and glide.

Basic Saturation $19: Basic Saturation involves applying a very soft paraffin wax to the ski and placing it in the heat box for 90-120 minutes at a temperature of about 55 degrees Celsius (131F). This ensures excellent saturation of the base. The skis will need to be hardened with colder wax for the appropriate conditions.  This hardening can be done with 2-3 layers of ironed-in wax or hot box treatment.

Extreme Saturation $29 (Recommended): This is a two-step process with the first step being application of a very soft paraffin which is placed in the heat box at low temperature (50-55C) for a long time (6-12 hours).  The skis are scraped and a harder paraffin wax is applied followed by the heat box at 60C for approximately one hour.  This second step is still very safe for the skis, but the temperature but may hasten any inevitable movement of the base away from dead flat.  We notice that some skis, especially older models, tend to get concave tips and tails after heat boxing, even after grinding.  The same thing will happen over time and with ironing, but the heat box may accelerate the process.

This treatment will saturate the base and then harden it to a level where it can be race-waxed with high-temperature fluoros and cold waxes.

Race Ready $49: Extreme Saturation plus finish with the specified Swix race wax (LF, HF or HFBD).  The skis are saturated, hardened and then two layers of LF/HF are applied, scraped and brushed, leaving the skis ready to race or for application of Swix Cera F pure fluoro.  Cera F treatment can be added for $20.

Race Wax Services

BNS wax techs offer race waxing services out of the shop and on-site at several events each winter.  We can prepare your skis for any race, just bring them in and we'll get them ready to go.  $39 for High-Fluoro (LF & HF Layers) and $85 for pure fluoro (LF, HF + Pure Fluoro). 

Weekly Nighthawks race special: $15 for a race prep LF wax.  Drop your skis off any day by 3PM and pick them up the next day after 2.
  

Wax Recommendations

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Seeley Classic Wax Recommendation

Categories: Shop Blog, Wax Reports | Author: Eric Pepper | Posted: 1/13/2011 | Views: 1366

 

Seeley Classic

22k and 42k

Writeup – Bill Pierce

 

Event Description – The Seeley Classic is a classic only race held on the Birkie Trail out of the “OO” Trail Head.  The shorter distance event is an out and back heading South from the Trail Head on the Skate Trail.  The longer marathon distance heads North on the Classic Trail to the Fire Tower Food Station and then U turns back to “OO” on the Skate Trail.  It then joins and follows the course of the shorter event.  As far as terrain, it’s the Birkie Trail.  Start,up, down, up, down, etc( repeat about 100 times)… finish.

 

Event Groooming:  The final grooming will take place after dark on Friday.  If it is not snowing it will be done before midnight and have 10 hours of time to set.  If it is snowing(which it now appears to be the case), grooming will start at 3AM and be complete by 7AM with 3 hours of set time.  The tracks will be predominantly firm new snow with little or no abrasive old snow or ice.  The track set will not be super hard, as the temps are only going to get to the high single digits Friday night.  The course should be perfect for a classic race!

 

 

Weather – The forecast is calling for new snow Friday night and temps around10-15F at race time.

 

 Hayward, Wisconsin (54843)

 

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

12 AM

3 AM

6 AM

9 AM

12 PM

3 PM

6 PM

Temperature / Dew Point (°F):

11 / 9





11 / 7





9 / 4





9 / 4





13 / 4





16 / 4





9 / 2





Humidity (%):

91%

83%

79%

83%

66%

58%

68%

Wind (mph):

WSW

5 mph WSW

(250°)

West

6 mph West

(270°)

WNW

7 mph WNW

(300°)

NW

9 mph NW

(310°)

NW

9 mph NW

(320°)

NW

8 mph NW

(310°)

NW

6 mph NW

(310°)

Conditions:

Snow

Snow

Chance of Snow

Chance of Snow

Chance of Snow

Chance of Snow

Mostly Cloudy

Probability of Precipitation (%):

70%

70%

70%

20%

20%

20%

20%

Cloud Cover (%):

93%

93%

83%

83%

69%

69%

70%

                           

 

 

 

Test Based/Forecast Based Recommendation:

The testing was done on Thursday the 13th at 11AM.  The snow temp was 11F and air temp was 13-16F.  Light snow was falling and there was about 1” of new accumulation.  These conditions were right at race time for Saturday and exactly what is forecast for Saturday’s weather.

 

Testing Discussion:

8 different race parrafins were tested with a distance test in a prepared track using wax torpedos. (BNS World Wide Headquarters and BNS East have no experience using the wax torpedos. Bill Pierce has used the wax torpedos extensively and in his experience wax torpedos testing provides accurate guidance.)

 

4 different kick waxes and combinations were tested using matched classic test skis and feel testing for kick and drag.  4 different powders were tested using matched skate test skis and these were feel tested for speed and climbing.

 

RESULTS OF TEST:

Kick

1.Holmenkol Blue (Best kick, least drag)

2. Guru Blue (Similar to 1, just a slight more drag)

3. Swix VR40 (Good kick, just a little too draggy)

4. Rode Blue (Draggy)

Note:  Most Blue waxes kicked just fine.  If a wax choice is too slick, then any of the draggy waxes applied under the toe box will help to enhance the kick.  Start short and lengthen and thicken, before going warmer.  The test skis had a layer of Toko Green Binder heated into the ski and 3 layers of test wax corked in.  In ski prep for the event sand your kick zones and apply two layers of Toko Green Binder  with heat before applying the final layers of kick.  I recommend 3-5 layers of race kick wax depending on the event length.

 

Race Glide

  1. Holmenkol Matrix Blue
  2. SkiGo P16
  3. SkiGo HF Violet
  4.  
  5. Holmenkol Black/Blue
  6. SkiGo HF Blue
  7.  
  8. Solda F31 Violet

Note: Numbers 1 and 2 were about 10-15% better in distance glide while the rest were fairly tightly grouped back that amount.

 

Race Flouro Powders

  1. SkiGo C105
  2. SkiGo C22
  3. Star FC powder
  4. Maplus Medium (block)

Note: The powders were feel tested and more will be tested Friday with optimizers tested on Saturday morning.

 

Recommendation

We recommend the following:

Base Layer: SkiGo LF Graphite

Race Paraffin: Holmenkol Matrix Blue

Fluoro Powder: Will further test on Friday.  Right now SkiGo C105

Top Coat:  Will test on Saturday morning

 

BNS will have a table set up by the grooming building adjacent to the warming building and will be testing top coats and kick wax at the race venue Saturday morning. Come by to get our latest test results and recommendations.

 

 

note: BNS imports Holmenkol and SkiGo waxes, and also sells waxes from Swix, Toko, Rode, Solda, Rex, Guru, Innovax, Magnar and others. We search for the fastest waxes for our customers and our testing is professional, objective and transparent. We make our best effort to test what we think is the best from each brand.  However, given that we are testing more options from Holmenkol and SkiGo, there is a bias toward those brands.  With this full disclosure, you can assess the legitimacy of our testing yourself. Visit Swix and Toko for their official recommendations. If you have any questions please contact us.

 



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