EnjoyWinter Factory Team Craftsbury Marathon Recap

Photo Credit Phillip Belena

Jacob Huseby, EnjoyWinter Racing Service 

A week in Vermont: 

After arriving in Boston Monday morning, I drove up to Woodstock, Vermont to put on a waxing clinic at the Woodstock Inn and Resort. Despite the seemingly endless delays that inevitably happen while flying, I was only about 30 minutes late, and the Woodstock community graciously stuck around for an evening of talkin’ shop learning all things from basic waxing, to high level work. I had a great time, thank you Nick at Woodstock!

Tuesday morning I trekked back down south to Putney to Caldwell Sport to meet Zach and discuss the new SRB tools among many things. After shooting a video covering the history of hand structures and a brief introduction to SRB, I made my way up to Burlington to hold a clinic at Skirack. At the clinic we mostly talked about the races at Craftsbury and preparing our skis for them. This included an application of klister and liquid glide wax. Making recommendations a few days in advance of a race is nearly impossible, my recommendation for klister was a warmer universal klister with special klister on top. While this probably would have been adequate, this definitely was not what we ended up racing on.

Wednesday was the closest thing I got to a day off this week, taking the time to visit with Justin Beckwith and ski his backyard trails in the morning, and jump in at the Sleepy Hollow Wednesday Night Worlds Race on a pair of borrowed zero skis. Then afterwards took part in the potluck they have after every wednesday night race.

Thursday was my first day in Craftsbury, much of the day was spent getting prepped for the following days, taking some time to test paraffin on the Peltonen glide fleet, then a brief A/B test with some klister to get an idea of what would work well for Annika’s warmup skis the following day….also because I like skiing on klister.

Friday was the first day of racing with the Supertour Sprints. Since Annika was racing the marathons Saturday and Sunday, the day was just for testing and catching up with folks I haven’t seen in a while. The winning structure was V501/V502, I like this structure quite a bit. It’s a steel medium. I was informed that V501 on its own was very good at Mt. Van Hoevenberg the previous weekend when it was closer to -20c. When combined, the screws cross and are a very versatile structure for conditions around freezing. The winning paraffin was Start RG Ultra Red mixed with our RG Race Moly, the top coating was the new 4225 powder made for old/artificial humid snow. After the day, I changed up the structures upon receiving a tip that V743 was performing very well that day as well and thus it was added to the test.

Saturday was the classic day for the marathons. I should mention that this weekend presented the opportunity to work with Zach Caldwell on the new SRB hand structures, so we would be sharing a wax cabin and collaborating on race service for grip/glide. Testing found the V743 and 4225 powder at the top of the stack again. The grip of the day was a mix of klisters consisting of two different universal klisters, a klister made for wet conditions, and another additive klister. Half of the podiums for the classic races came out of one wax cabin, and Annika Landis skied a decisive win over the field.

Sunday was the freestyle, also a Supertour. Annika would be jumping in a field with skiers who did not race the day before. Testing ran long this morning. We put a lot of material and structures on snow, there were a lot of interesting combinations in the mix. 4225 was competitive, but not the overall winner. We went with a fleeced application of a block combined with an alcohol-based liquid paraffin for topcoating. For structure, I believe we combined the V743 with a brass liner since the conditions were warmer, more humid. Annika skied to 6th place, scoring the overall win from the two days of marathons. On to the Boulder Mountain Tour.

Equipment Annika Skied on

Peltonen Supra X Skating, Infra X Classic

Spine Skate Ultimate, Concept Classic Boots

Rottefella Xcelerator Pro Classic and Skate

4Kaad Black Code X Poles

Borah Teamwear Race suit and warmups

Bliz Fusion Photochromic

KinetiXx Gloves, Quirin, Sol

Start Ski Wax, Glide waxes and Klisters

SRB Hand Structures, V501/502, V743