Åsnes Finnmark 54bc waxless

[Petetheswede]

I bought these skis to teach my 10months old hunting labrador to ski. Just tried them out.

Conditions:
Well below freezing, 10-15 inches of powder. Fire road with altitude changes but nothing real steep. Only a couple of k (dog got tired). No leash om dog. No wax available in the cabin today so i went totally unwaxed.

Impression of skis:
Beautiful, looks like gamme but with a dog print which is nice. Short patterned zone.

When i rode they felt like gammes which to me means surprisingly good float. Tips rise nicely through powder that buries me almost to the knees. Good speed and also reassuring control/turnability going down (in soft, dry snow). Also just to make the point, these definately float
better than nansen which also makes them better downhill in deep snow.

The only difference compared to my gammes is the waxless pattern. Without wax in dry snow the grip is bad, on the other hand the drag is zero. Im planning to polar wax these tip to tail and use kicker skins going up the steeps. If your planning on glide wax only its gonna be trouble.

Overall i believe these are perfect dog skis for the average skier with the average dog.

Float is enough. If your need more you bury the dog.

Turnability is enough, if terrain is more extreme dog is potentially in trouble.

You dont need steel if you take it easy and the snow is not total ice in which case i think dog paws will suffer anyway.

Nice to avoid sticky waxes when you also have to deal with dog.


Cheers
Petter

[Cannatonic]

nice review, thanks!! Finnmark is going to be my next Asnes purchase, I love the idea of a wider XC ski with the light weight of Finnmark w/ no edges. I've been happy with my older Breidablikks for that reason. in the 90's Kharu used to make several different waxless, edgeless skis with more width than regular XC skinny skis, no one is really making 210cm skis these days with those specs. And Asnes has adopted the old Kharu scale pattern which is great.

But I wish Asnes would extend the waxless pattern to be the same length as their kicker skins. It seems like not enough grip at the current length. The kicker skin is designed to match the wax pocket - so why is the fishscale section shorter?

[lilcliffy]

When i rode they felt like gammes which to me means surprisingly good float. Tips rise nicely through powder that buries me almost to the knees. Good speed and also reassuring control/turnability going down (in soft, dry snow). Also just to make the point, these definately float
better than nansen which also makes them better downhill in deep snow.

Thank you for writing about this ski Petter!
Your notes are very helpful in comparing the Nansen to the Gamme/Finnmark.

The Asnes pro has told me that the Gamme 54 was redesgined precisely because of how impressed they were with the flex and balance of the Finnmark- which is the original Gamme 54 without steel edges.
The current redesigned Gamme 54 BC was designed and tuned to capture the flex and balance of the Finnmark!
Gareth