Update from the XCD Knights

[MikeK]

Did I miss a cool teenage movie mentionning XCD? What's going on?!?

Well there was that one deleted scene in American Pie... but it's even less known than 'XCD'.

[lilcliffy]

I don't know why my points get left out? Haha.

Mike- I certainly don’t ignore your posts and comments!:)

"Preserving the sanctity of XC in XCD"

That says it all.

It certainly does- much more concisely than I can!

I know you Canadians seem to be rather spoiled and think skiing on powder is the only surface allowed off-piste. But the fact of the matter is there are schlubs like me who live farther south and have to deal with all sorts of off-piste snow... not just fluffy goodness. Frozen over crust, mashed potatoes, boilerplate, breakable crusts, heavy dense powders, dust over crust, etc, etc...

Well- I apologize! I certainly did not mean to give anyone that impression. Snow in the Northeast typically is dense and has a high moisture content- New Brunswick is no different! I am outside the coastal climate- so I do get predominantly continental weather- but I would never claim to ski in powder all the time! Last winter was an anomaly for my local skiing- I spent more miles on my powder skis than anything else! The snow you are describing is typical of coastal NB and NS. But even in Central NB, in a snowbelt- I am typically on only up to 16 inches or so of fresh snow over a very dense base- and am often on hard, refrozen snow.

For such reasons, I actually appreciate the shape in the current skis and metal edges.

Don't get me wrong here- parabolic sidecut offers incredible turning performance when appropriate!

Although I stated above that I thought Karhu may have gotten the profile of the Guide "wrong"- I wouldn't say the same for the S-Bounds. The S-Bounds have enough stiffness to take better advantage of their profile, and carve on a dense base. Due to their flex-pattern, I think the S-Bounds are much more versatile than the Madshus/Karhu XCDs.

I wasn't arguing against parabolic profile- I was just rehashing my "broken record" of wanting at least some XCD skis that don't have a parabolic shape. In a XCD context, if I want width- I want flotation and grip- therefore I need width underfoot.

On XC boots-bindings I don't even try to steer skis even as wide as the Eon/S-78- IME I need more boot-binding power to do so. Therefore I have found that sidecut doesn't mean much to me- when it comes to XCD-ing on XC tech. So- if I'm going to have to stride my way through turn transitions anyway- give me the width rather than the deep sidecut!

[MikeK]

I wasn't picking on you lilcliffy. It was Johnny who said XCD skiing was on 'powder'. I believe he told me earlier he was off to ski on grass That's about all I'd get if I went skiing today

I'm totally with you on the Guide and the 112 S Bounds. They could have made those skis better. The Guide has the right flex, wrong shape. The wider S Bounds just copy the S 98 (which is a good compromise ski IMO, not a powder ski, not a hardpack ski, but has enough float and shape to kind of do both). If Fischer was serious, they would have made the shape and the flex different for the 112. I think they were just following the trends... selling skis but scaling up their lesser models.

The S78 (and I assume S88) are different though. They are more touring focused skis. Straighter tracking, more cambered, better L/W ratios for touring.

Like I said to connyro, and I've learned this from reading a lot and studying some other ski cultures, but I don't believe the deep powder 'touring' ski exists on the market. The Vector is close. The Kom is closer but too short. Unfortunately a ski like that would be worthless for anything but deep fluff, so perhaps the skiers wouldn't buy them. And for recreational purposes a lot of those skiers want to descend in the powder... not check traps and hunt rabbits, which is what the deep powder tourer would come from.

I'm also not thinking the new S Bound 125 and BC125 from Rossi are going in the right direction. They still have a parabolic shape and possible not the right flexes for powder. They are getting too fat, and too wide for leather boots and neutral bindings. They won't do anything as well as the Vector or the Kom most likely. XCD seems to have a practical limit in width. The manufacturers can keep pushing them wider to catch the trend chasing skiers, but at that width I don't see why one wouldn't switch to an Alpine tech ski. Then once you get to that level of ski, which has so much capability for the down, why would you use a low stiffness leather boot? If you main goal is climbing and descending, why wouldn't you use the free pivot? To me that just extends beyond the scope of Nordic Touring. Our focus doesn't become balancing touring and turning, it becomes getting to turning as quickly and effectively as possible. It seems like a different game to me. A game that the Alpine worlds knows far better. It's just at the extreme light end of the Alpine tech. With a free pivot, the free heel becomes redundant. It's just a choice of preference as to what technique one wants to ski. AT forces you to make Alpine turns. Telemark give you more options, more tools in your kit, but maybe at the expense of forward stability in certain snow.

[lilcliffy]

I get your point but to me, the SBound 112/3-pin/Fischer boots is in the SAME class as Vectors/Lite plastic/3-pins, just at the lighter end of the spectrum. You know, once you break in and beat the shit out of a pair of excursions, they get real soft, similar to a big plasticy Fischer BCX875 boot which weighs similar to Excursions/t4s...

Yeah- I get where you are coming from here...I have no experience with the Fischer BCX8.

If it as powerful as Fischer claims it is- then- according to the premise we started with in this thread- it is probably a "Telemark" boot rather than a "XCD" boot?

Which brings up another point- there are a number of leather "Telemark" boots that I have tried over the years that may not be plastic- but they are certainly powerful enough to compromise XC skiing. So- again- accepting the initial premise- it doesn't matter what the tech is made of- it is a performance issue- not a materials issue.

And I agree- the Excursion is as close to a XC boot as any plastic boot I have ever tried. Enough so that I prefer the T4. If I'm going to give up some XC striding flexibility, for some more downhill power- I prefer the T4 because I find it is another step up in power.

[Johnny]

(And- where in the world is "Jakku"? Is that real place, a secret code name, or were did you have to make a trip to the Star Wars universe?)

It's got to be kept secret... Or else Ron and Dostie would go there and throw T4s and Vectors at them...!

In my foggy little mind, what the Knights are actually trying to describe should be called DXC (downhill XC).

Wow! I like that... I like that A LOT! DXC!

No other meeting is scheduled until the end of May, but I sure will bring this to the Council. It will never be approved, but who knows, it might be a start to something new.

That would be a great way to separate the sports:
DXC= Downhill cross-country (like we do)
XCD= Everything else: Telemark, Alpine skiing, snowboarding, snoeshoeing, hiking, golfing, karting etc...

[MikeK]

That would be a great way to separate the sports:
DXC= Downhill cross-country (like we do)
XCD= Everything else: Telemark, Alpine skiing, snowboarding, snoeshoeing, hiking, golfing, karting etc...

Hahahahahahaha..... (still laughing)....

I think this will simplify life immensely. Every Monday when I talk to my co-workers about how awesome our weekends were, we can just say we did the most awesome XCD! Of course I might say I went DXC and confuse everyone...

[Johnny]

My new shirt:

[connyro]

Remember this thread that sorta started talking about this stuff? It's from last March: http://www.telemarktalk.com/viewtopic.p ... xcd+setups

[MikeK]

It's all fun...

I just really can't figure out how an Excursion/T4 is not a Telemark boot though. It looks exactly like the modern Tele boots, just less buckles. I mean they could make a NTN version, but that won't happen.

I can't figure out cables and free pivots are XC bindings, at least in the modern context. I do consider the old 10th Mtn type bindings XCD (not sure where the Knights are on that one).

The skis... I don't know... They have aspects of both XC and Alpine. If you have to ski them with a plastic boot to control them, then they seem like they'd be Tele or AT skis though.

Maybe we should break all the rules and go to a new system:

Nordic Touring and Nordic Downhill?

Nordic Touring would be what the Knights call XCD. Leather boots, 3 pin or NNN-BC bindings, cambered skis with Nordic rocker.

Nordic Downhill would be plastic boots, phat skis, NTN, TTS, all that other stuff.

[MikeK]

"Nordic Downhill would be plastic boots, phat skis, NTN, TTS, all that other stuff."

That already has a name too. Its called Telemark. Its the primary subject of discussion over at Dostie's site, and viewed with suspicion and disdain here on telemarktalk. Very strange.

Hahaha - you just said it yourself. Plastic boots are Telemark! 75mm is still tele too. It's just not the new fad. That doesn't make it XCD.

There's no disdain for Tele. You apparently can't read very well. I can go back and count the 1000x where Telemark is praised in this thread. The owner of this forum, whom I know, is a very avid Telemark skier. He's also an XCD skier.

Thing is, how many goddamn forums do we need talking about Outlaws and Meidjo? Seems like the other ones have that covered. This forum covers all things, whatever you want to talk about. It's just those other skiers seem to get more out of the info at BC Talk and the more Nordie nerds like us seem to get more out of here.

I'm actually one of the few guys here that doesn't ski Telemark gear. I'm planning on changing that with a nice pair of Excursions and old Atomic TM22s (I said that too, apparently you missed it).

If I were ever to get into resort skiing again I'd just buy some NTN bindings and modern skis and boots. I'm not a Luddite, I like the new gear, I just don't see the point in skiing mellow hills and BC tours with it.

You seem to be the one with the disdain. You say that isn't XCD. It's just XC. OK, start your own forum and when you get some members, they can decide what to call it. Seems a lot of people here consider BC Nordic Touring to be XCD. Pinnah considered that as well. We don't follow Pinnahs 'religion'. We aren't starting our own 'religion'. We are just relishing in the fact that you can still get Nordic gear that will ski up and down hills on ungroomed snow and can cover lots of miles like a good touring ski should.

If you want to ski big mountains with it, go for it. No one cares what terrain you ski. If you don't have the skill to ski the big mountain terrain with the Nordic Touring gear, then don't. Ski it with Tele gear. Skit it with AT. There's no shame, lots of people would including myself.