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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American Birkebeiner Wax Recommendation

Categories: Announcements, Event Reports, Wax Reports | Author: David Chamberlain | Posted: 2/20/2012 | Views: 3026
Updated Fri, Feb 25

BNS Wax Recommendation

American Birkebeiner & Korteloppet
February 25, 2012

Event Information

The BNS Mobile Service Crew has been in Hayward, testing and skiing on the Birkie trail since the Pre-Birkie.  We will be updating this recommendation throughout the week.  Check back for the latest test results and recommendations. BNS will be at the Birkie Expo on Thursday and Friday with a wide selection of waxes, tools and gloves for sale as well as for ski drop-off for our race waxing service (see below).

Birkebeiner Website - http://www.birkie.com/

Weather

From NOAA.gov.  Click here for the latest weather forecast, and here for the hourly temperature graph.
Friday Afternoon: Scattered snow showers. Cloudy, with a high near 28. West wind around 15 mph, with gusts as high as 20 mph. Chance of precipitation is 40%.

Friday Night: A 30 percent chance of snow showers, mainly before midnight. Cloudy, with a low around 10. Northwest wind between 5 and 15 mph, with gusts as high as 15 mph.

Saturday: Partly sunny, with a high near 27. West wind around 5 mph becoming calm.

Recommendation

Ski Selection: Early waves: med to stiff flex cold ski, Later Waves: Medium flex Cold Ski.

Stone Grinds: Skating S1.3 (CV0), S1.2 (S1-0x), S0.2 (0.55), S2.2 (S2-1x), Classic: C1.2 (XTi2), C2.2 (Li2), C0.2 (ZR1XL).

Base Layer:  SkiGo LF Graphite

Race Paraffin: Holmenkol Matrix Blue or Ski*Go HF Blue

Fluoro Powder: Holmenkol Mid 08 or Solda HP05 or Ski*Go C105

Topcoat: Holmenkol Speedblock Cold

Structure: Holmenkol Structure Tool (one roller)  or Finite L04/AF10

Kick: Clean the kick zone, rough up kick zone with sandpaper, iron in a binder layer of Toko Green hard wax/binder.  We tested quite a lot of kick wax Friday at 10AM and found the following recommendations.  Conditions on race morning are supposed to be colder, with more new snow possible, so this may need to be adjusted on race morning!

  • Guru Green for those who are skiing early and have solid technique.
  • Rode Super Extra for those in later waves or who need a little extra kick.  It had great kick and was the fastest of everything we tried except Rode Super Extra has better kick and is still almost as fast as Guru Green.  SkiGo HF Blue was also quite good, although with the new snow coming, SkiGo HF Violet might be a better choice.

Discussion

Friday Morning Update:  We tested powders and topcoats this morning at 00.  Conditions were cold with light flurries.  Similiar results to yesterday with powders, results below.  Top three powders were close in our feel test.  For top coats Holmenkol Speedblock Cold was a clear winner and is a very good choice for speed out of the startline tomorrow. 

The conditions on Thursday were fantastic for racing and testing.  Our service team was at '00' by 5:45AM to take advantage of the colder temperatures for testing.  Snow temperature was 18F and the trail was freshly groomed from the evening before.  These were very good conditions for testing and are likely to be very similiar to race day conditions.  We tested powders and paraffins by feel and by speed trap.  Results below.

A good hard base layer is going to be important, as it always is here.  If you can sink in 1-2 layers of SkiGo LF Graphite, that will get your skis ready for Saturday's race wax.

The other interesting note from Thursday's test is that pure fluoro powders are much faster than the HF paraffins alone, so if you are waffling about whether or not to use fluoro powder, it will make a big difference.

We also anticipate that hand structure will be in play. Finite Finish L02, L04 and the Holmenkol Cross-Structure Tool with one roller are likely candidates.

Test Results

Friday morning, Feb 24 7AM

Powders

1.  Holmenkol Mid 08
2.  Solda HP05
3. Ski*Go C105
4. Gallium Dry
5. Holmenkol Mid
6. Swix FC7

Topcoats

1.  Holmenkol Speedblock Cold
2. Holmenkol Speedblock Mid
3. Swix FC7 Block
4. Ski*Go C110 Block
5. Ski*Go C22 Block

Thursday morning, Feb 23 6AM.

Snow Temp 18F.  Trail was well groomed.  Tested paraffins and powders by feel and speed trap.  This was a very good test, in conditions that will be similiar to race morning. 

Paraffin: (by feel and speed trap)

1. Holmenkol Matrix Blue
2. Ski*Go HF Blue
3. Ski*Go HF Violet
4. Ski*Go HF Orange?Green
5. Matrix Red

Powders: (by feel and speed trap)

1. Solda HP 05
2. Holmenkol Mid 08
3. Ski*Go C105
4. Ski*Go C44/7
5. Gallium Dry

Wednesday morning, Feb 22 9AM. 

Snow Temp -2C (28F).  New snow from last night.  The trail was not groomed.  This was not a great test - we will get better information Thursday morning, but it gives us some info to start. It is much warmer than the temps that are forecast for Friday and Saturday, and the snow was not groomed or set up.

Paraffin: (tested by feel and in speed trap)

Fluoro Powder: (tested by feel and in speed trap)

Sunday morning, Feb 19th.

Temp: 10F, high humidity 80%+, freshly tilled and groomed trail, a dusting of fresh snow fell two nights ago.  Testing done by feel. It has been getting into the 30's during the day but cold at night and staying cold well into the morning.  The top two were clearly better. 

Initial Paraffin Test
1. Holmenkol Matrix Blue
2. Swix HF 6
3. Start HF80
4. SkiGo HF Green
5. SkiGo HF Green/C380 mix
6. SkiGo HF Blue
7. Holmenkol Matrix Black/Blue
8. Holmenkol Matrix Green


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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