Thursday, May 17, 2012

Wax & Race Service

Stone Grinding & Waxing Services

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

The 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

Coureur de Bois Wax Testing & Recommendation

Categories: Wax Reports | Author: Zach Caldwell | Posted: 3/18/2011 | Views: 1588

Friday 1:30 PM update

This is as firm a recommendation as we'll get out of today's testing

Weighing "feel" testing against speed trap results is important when making a wax recommendation. So is catching your breath, looking at the numbers, and taking stock of the situation. We've done that, and here is what we think:

Weather & Forecast:

Temps this morning were cold. It was 12F when Amy and Nathan headed out to start testing. Temps warmed quickly with snow temp -5C at 9:30, -1C at 11. The forecast low for tonight is 26F with a forecast high tomorrow of 46. Air temp is forecast to cross the freezing line around 10AM. From the sounds of it, the snow is skiing a little warmer than the temps indicate.

Paraffin

Speed trap results below. Amy and Nathan agreed that the Ski*Go HF Yellow/Violet mix was the best for feeling, and it won the trap test by a significant margin. That wax is a known quantity - it sees a lot of action on the World Cup. It has good durability, and will hold up as temps warm above freezing. Very solid bet. The Matrix waxes were not impressive. Second for feeling was Swix HF8, and we're comfortably recommending that as an underlayer as well.

The SkiGo LF Graphite base layer felt terrible to start, but then really took off and by the end was pushing Matrix Blue into contention with the leaders. We think that it is a good call for the 90k skiers, but you may want to bury it under two layers of the race paraffin.

1	SkiGo HF Yellow/Violet	6.084	0.00%
2	SkiGo HF Blue	0.015	0.24%
3	Swix HF8	0.015	0.25%
4	GW/ITO - Holmenkol Test wax	0.019	0.32%
5	Swix HF7	0.027	0.44%
6	Holmenkol Matrix Red	0.034	0.55%
7	Holmenkol Matrix Blue	0.034	0.55%
8	LF Graphite/Matrix Blue	0.036	0.59%

Powder

Speed trap results below. Holmenkol Mid 08 was a clear winner in the speed trap, and won the early feeling results. It is a really good bet for a first pair of skis. The major questions start when we look at a warming scenario and a second pair of skis (that's the one that's got to go either 30 or 75KM, after the 15K ski swap). At the end of the trap test Amy and Nathan felt that the C22 and C44 were quite good. Amy really liked the feeling of FC8x at the end of the day, while Nathan found that ski bogging down a bit under foot when he was climbing. Given the speed trap results and the feeling of the skis, we're comfortable with either the C22 or the FC8x. Mid08 wasn't slowing down in the speed trap either, and had good feeling all day. So the C22 or FC8x call is in part anticipating warmer conditions.

1	Holmenkol Mid 08	6.05	0.00%
2	Holmenkol Mid	0.02	0.35%
3	Swix FC8x	0.03	0.48%
4	SkiGo C22	0.03	0.57%
5	Holmenkol Wet	0.05	0.79%
6	Holmenkol Wet 36	0.08	1.24%
7	SkiGo C44	0.09	1.42%
8	Holmenkol Mid Silver	0.09	1.47%

Structure and Optimizers

Check in with Nathan and Amy at the race start tomorrow for recommendations on structure and optimizers. My bet is C22 block corked really well and the holmenkol cross structure tool (both rollers) is a very safe bet. The big question is whether any of the liquids can make a contribution, as the durability of that treatment is pretty enticing for this event.

12:30PM Teaser Update

I just spoke with Nathan who has been testing paraffins and powders for the Coureur de Bois this morning. There is a lot of new snow, and temps are warming relatively quickly. Testing is tough because of the rapid rate of change, and the fact that the snow feels different every three meters.

For paraffins, ranking skis by feel, Amy and Nathan agree that the Ski*Go HF Yellow/Violet mix feels the best. Swix HF8 is second in their assessment. We'll get a full ranking of all eight paraffins from them shortly.

Powders are tricky because the stuff that's winning in the speed trap feels really bad skiing, and vice/versa. Amy liked the feeling of FC8x while Nathan didn't like it. Both liked C22 and C44 by the end of the testing. Early on Mid08 was good, and might be a really solid bet for a first pair of skis prior to the ski exchange at 15K.

Check back around 1:30 or 2:00 for another update and a more solid set of recommendations.

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