wax vs scales vs XSkin vs klister

[wooley12]

That sounds great adventure and wet. I'd be prepared to dry the skins in the sun when yo can and bring some extra wax and a cork.

[wooley12]

With the grain and then a few strokes warm iron is what I do.

Thanks. How long does it last?

I have a ~150-mile tour coming up in early April, mid-elevation Idaho, where daytime temps will likely be 35-55*f.

That sounds great adventure and wet. I'd be prepared to dry the skins in the sun when yo can and bring some extra wax and a cork.

[CwmRaider]

A few weeks ago I was out on a 14 km tour with a friend. About half distance outside of tracks and half on groomed XC tracks. Temperatures just barely below freezing. The groomed tracks were well compacted but not icy.

I was on Nansens with a 30mm mohair skin on and my friend was on Fischer BCX E99 Crown, the beige and gray ones from early 2010-2012 or so.

I had difficulty believing it: my glide was noticeably, but not hugely, better than hers, also on groomed hard track. On slack downhills I was gliding a bit faster than her. I do think that my grip was a bit on the low side in the steeper sections, but it was not consistently problematic enough for me to decide to switch them to the 45mm mohairs which I had in my pack.

So overall I am increasingly impressed with the X-skin system to cope with "warmer than Swix Blue" conditions as opposed to waxless. The main downside I find is on very hard and icy snow, the plastic attachment pushes the front of the ski off the snow and makes it much more squirrely.

Has anyone here tried the 70%/30% mohair/nylon mix? I wonder how much glide is given up.
https://www.asnes.com/produkt/x-skin-45mm-mix/

[riel]

So overall I am increasingly impressed with the X-skin system to cope with "warmer than Swix Blue" conditions as opposed to waxless. The main downside I find is on very hard and icy snow, the plastic attachment pushes the front of the ski off the snow and makes it much more squirrely.

That may be a Nansen-specific issue, with the soft, round flex of the Nansen ski wanting to keep the front of the ski flat when the snow is hard and icy.

Most of the other skis are double camber, which means when both skis are weighted the part of the ski where the X-skin attachment is will already be lifted out of the snow somewhat by the camber of the ski.

I wonder if might make sense for Asnes to recess the front of the X-skin attachment into the ski somewhat on the Nansen, and other single camber skis, like a giant square fishscale, to reduce X-skin drag on those skis.

On the other hand, that might make those skis more squirrely to turn when there's no X-skin attached, unless the sides of the recessed attachment point come down very gradually, maybe at an angle shallower than 20-30 degrees?

I wonder if I should use my pair of 200cm Sondre skis to experiment with that next year...

[wabene]

Madshus beat you to it. There only thing holding you back in this case that the skin is on the surface and not completely recessed.

[CwmRaider]

That may be a Nansen-specific issue, with the soft, round flex of the Nansen ski wanting to keep the front of the ski flat when the snow is hard and icy.

Most of the other skis are double camber, which means when both skis are weighted the part of the ski where the X-skin attachment is will already be lifted out of the snow somewhat by the camber of the ski.

I wonder if might make sense for Asnes to recess the front of the X-skin attachment into the ski somewhat on the Nansen, and other single camber skis, like a giant square fishscale, to reduce X-skin drag on those skis.

On the other hand, that might make those skis more squirrely to turn when there's no X-skin attached, unless the sides of the recessed attachment point come down very gradually, maybe at an angle shallower than 20-30 degrees?

I wonder if I should use my pair of 200cm Sondre skis to experiment with that next year...

It is the same with my Combat Nato, so it is not a Nansen specific thing. The flex of the Nansen is not *that* soft (not like the FT62); it is just single camber and round.
With the nordic rocker of the Ingstad and the other skis, I have difficulty imagining the ski surface being 3mm off the snow at the skinlock when the skiers weight is half on each ski (but to be fair I don't have a new model Ingstad so maybe I am completely wrong). The skinlock is kind of the forward boundary of the wax pocket, not in the center.
The Combat Nato has a slight dimple there as well, but it is only useful with old metal clip X-Skins, which then stick out slightly lower than the plastic variety. I managed to find some 35mm mohair X-skins with the metal clip, I have not been able to test them yet.
I think the base material is 2mm thick? it would require some pretty careful routing to carve out the square. But if you do, post the results