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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West Yellowstone Wax Recommendation 11/25/11

Categories: Announcements, Event Reports, Wax Reports | Author: David Chamberlain | Posted: 11/25/2011 | Views: 1013
Cold Weather for the final race of the week

BNS Wax Recommendation

5/10k Classic West Yellowstone SuperTour 11/25/2011

The course is 1-2 laps of a 5km loop.  A dusting of new snow today during the men’s race resulted in a slight change of conditions and a forecast of cold temperatures tonight and tomorrow morning will likely change conditions further.

Weather

From NOAA:

Link to the latest weather from NOAA: http://tinyurl.com/km8mg2

Friday Night: Patchy freezing fog after 11pm. Partly cloudy, with a low around -2F. Wind chill values as low as -12F. West wind between 8 and 16 mph, with gusts as high as 22 mph.

Saturday: Patchy freezing fog before 11am. Partly sunny, with a high near 28F. Wind chill values as low as -2. West southwest wind around 8 mph.

Recommendation

We recommend the following:

Base Layer: Ski*Go LF Graphite, Iron and  brush

 Race Paraffin:  SkiGo HF Blue

Fluoro Powder: Ski*Go C105

Top Coat: TBD race morning.  BNS will be testing at the stadium and posting results.

Structure: medium structure, dulled (older) grinds seemed to be running faster than sharper, newer grinds.

CONCLUSIONARY NOTES – BNS will have a table set up and will be testing top coats, hand structure, and kick wax at the race venue. Come by to get our latest test results and recommendations.

Testing -

Ski*Go HF Blue has been running well in our tests all week and with the cold forecasted temperatures for the morning it will be a good call for a base layer.

Ski*Go C105 has also been running well in our tests all week and was our pick for a fluoro powder in this morning’s races with fantastic results.  C105 can run much colder than the other powders running well in our tests making it a clear choice for tomorrow morning.  We were extremely happy with our choice of C105 for this morning’s races.

Test Results:

Due to the radical change in forecast, we did not re-test after the race.  Our test results this morning mirrored test results from Thursday.  Below are the tests from yesterday morning although it should be noted that tomorrow’s temperatures will be colder.

Testing by Feel:

Paraffins: tested by feel at 10:30AM

  1. Swix HF8
  2. Holmenkol Speedbase Wet
  3. SkiGo HF Blue

Tested but not ranked:

  • Holmenkol Matrix Blue
  • Holmenkol Matrix Red
  • SkiGo HF Orange/Green 50/50
  • SkiGo Orange

Fluoro Powders:  tested by feel

  1. Ski*Go CM-10
  2. Ski*Go C105
  3. Swix FC8x
  4. Holmenkol Mid 08
  5. Holmenkol Cold
  6. Holmenkol Mid
  7. Holmenkol Wet 36
  8. Ski*Go C22

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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