Beginner questions and ski advice (Asnes Sondre)

[Musk Ox]

The Guide boots are *beautifully* made, extremely comfortable, and the wool inner is great for padding around cabins. Stiffer than my wife's Crispi Stetinds.

This is a very interesting comment for me- specifically in comparison to the Stetind...
Are you speaking of the sole flex or the ankle support when you say that the Guide BC is "stiffer" than the Stetind?

Good distinction.

There's nothing between them in the flex of the sole. The Lundhags have more ankle support than the Stetinds, but I wouldn't say either are the stiffest in the world in that way.

[Cantata]

Hello, thanks so much to all who responded. I didn't mean to neglect the thread but it's been a busy couple weeks for me and probably some of you as well! Anyway, I got the skis and they look great. I just got them mounted yesterday so I haven't had the chance to take them out yet, but from everyone's comments they sound like they will serve me well in the conditions I'll face.

The grip pattern actually looks like it will be functional. I attached a photo of the small section where it's least pronounced. My plan is to try them without filling it in first, and if I'm unsatisfied with the grip I'll tackle filling it in later. One thing I'm still unsure about is applying wax over the kick pattern. I know wax should still be applied to "waxless" skis and I have some swix polar I can use on the glide zones, but should I also apply it over the kick zone? If so, is there anything I should know about application technique for the kick zone? Or is wax only applied to the kick zone if you're filling it in, and otherwise just left bare? I read the wiki guide but it wasn't clear to me how much of it applies to waxless skis.

Looks like a great value starter package to me. A friend of mine uses these pre x-skin Sondres (but with waxable base) in quite varying terrain and seems to find no reason to change to a newer pair. With 12mm sidecut they obviously won't be the turniest skis available but to get you places as an offtrack XC ski they should do fine!
If the waxless pattern is useless just fill it with polar grip wax and use them as waxable skis
How are the lundhags boots?

They are really great! I've had feet problems in the past so a good boot fit is important to me and something I shopped around to find. The Lundhags are more forgiving of a wide forefoot than other ski boots I tried on, but it's not too loose in the heel either. I think the liner helps a lot with accommodating different foot shapes. They're very well made. They work well for skating, but I can't comment on how they perform on skis (yet!).

[bgregoire]

Wow. What a crazy Waxless pattern. Some would call it art others desperation. I still can’t believe asnes did that.

To start off, I’d not bother with grip wax on those, polar or otherwise. If you want to maintain the The glide you can look into liquid glide wax or apply hot wax to tip and tail only. If after much experimentation you’d like better overall grip, then you could try the polar Grip wax on tip and tail only, put personally I would not bother.

Filling the pattern up with ptex would be quite a job.

Enjoy the snow

[Cantata]

Ok sounds good, I was under the impression that wax would help prevent damage to the ski but if it will be fine without it I'm happy to keep it simple. I have some solid glide wax so I can use that if I need to. Always nice to hear that less work is required than I thought

Honestly I don't know anything about working with ptex, and I don't have any equipment for ski maintenance other than the leftovers from someone's high school XC team days, so I was hoping to avoid going down that route if I could.

[Rainbow83]

Wow. What a crazy Waxless pattern. Some would call it art others desperation. I still can’t believe asnes did that.

It almost makes me wonder if it was someone new at the factory who just accidentally messed up a batch of skis when there was a mix up or something. It is curious.

Cantata, do let us know how they work out for you when you're able to ski them, looks like they'll be alright waxless skis after all. Happy skiing.