Telemark Talk / Telemark Tips Forum

Here is the article I wrote for Zoneski Magazine about the historic aspect of XCD. It is in french though... Some infos come from interviews I had with Steve Barnett,Craig Dostie & Nils Larsen... I really enjoyed doing it!
https://www.zoneski.com/reseau/le-xcd-sans-etre-excede/

Cool. But who will write the future?

MikeK wrote:Cool. But who will write the future?

It's going to be the people on the East coast, mid west and Europe. I don't see it happening up here. I see a lot of people with the gear but nobody practicing their turns.

lowangle al wrote: It's going to be the people on the East coast, mid west and Europe. I don't see it happening up here. I see a lot of people with the gear but nobody practicing their turns.

Strangely enough I get feeds for Catamount trails and such, and a lot of those folks have switched to AT/Tele gear for their tours. I've seen some videos and some of it is trail skiing, not many turns involved.

It will probably persevere with those who don't have the vert... like me.

For everyone else it's fat XC.

And you really do need to practice EVERY time you ski. And get the feel for every snow. It's not for everyone.

MikeK wrote:Cool. But who will write the future?

You... with that much posts to your credit (almost 4000).

4k is nothing... once I hit 10k, then I'll be going somewhere

MikeK wrote:trangely enough I get feeds for Catamount trails and such, and a lot of those folks have switched to AT/Tele gear for their tours. I've seen some videos and some of it is trail skiing, not many turns involved.

At least there are still telemark skiers back there. I don't differentiate between telemark and XCD, it's all Nordic downhill to me. A telemark skier is much more likely to transition to XCD than an AT skier IMO. The recent improvements in xcd gear will also help grow that segment of the market.

lowangle al wrote: At least there are still telemark skiers back there. I don't differentiate between telemark and XCD, it's all Nordic downhill to me. A telemark skier is much more likely to transition to XCD than an AT skier IMO. The recent improvements in xcd gear will also help grow that segment of the market.

Yeah, but I kind of don't get the point except that no-one can seem to turn a ski anymore without a 4 buckle boot, some springs attached to their heels and at least 30mm of sidecut.

I just think the telemarkers have different goals. They want to enjoy the downhill and are not as concerned about retaining that xc feel. There is a happy medium though and I think yours is the Objective T-4 combination.

No way - not plastic for me. The XC feel goes away right there. Excursions were not "XC" feeling enough for me, and they are very soft.