Update from the XCD Knights

[MikeK]

I moved it for you.

[lowangle al]

Fishnaked, sorry for the thread drift, but I too was a naked fisherman but I gave it up in the 80s. Although there was no rule against it in the Pa. regulations handbook it just didn't feel legal and I was afraid that if I got caught and it made the paper I would sound like a pervert. How long have you been getting away with it?

[lowangle al]

I don't know why when I post sometimes it comes up in this thread.

[Woodserson]

Fishnaked, sorry for the thread drift, but I too was a naked fisherman but I gave it up in the 80s. Although there was no rule against it in the Pa. regulations handbook it just didn't feel legal and I was afraid that if I got caught and it made the paper I would sound like a pervert. How long have you been getting away with it?

Pics

[MikeK]

I don't know why when I post sometimes it comes up in this thread.

That's mysterious as the Knight's themselves.

[Manney]

This post, and the two or three that follow it, hits my brain like a lightening bolt. Not for what it said about XCD and tele. But where it saw the trend going, which is precisely where we are today:

There were a few mentions that the industry and skiers have focused on either skating, or downhill, and classic has been left behind, with the assumption that it is because of the deficiencies in the equipment and what it can do. I agree that this is the case, the focus IS on skating, or heavier downhill gear, but I posit that the reasons behind it are not from functionality but by culture and the economic market that culture creates.

Let's face it... especially in the US, people are not interested in pursuits that don't produce immediate results or don't procure certain labeled images in the mind's eye. Skiing 5 miles down a closed forest road to climb a 300' vert hill, then to ski down it, and then ski the 5 miles back out, is not going to sell merchandise. It's hard, it's slow, it's boring, it's takes presence of mind, and no one gets it. However, there are a few people out there, me included, who want to do just this. What we need is light touring gear with adequate flat-land travel capabilities, and then just enough power in the boot and shape to the ski to make for a pleasurable descent. It's more a meditative process, and hippies like me just don't have enough marketing power to create viable niches in industry, so we're cobbling together solutions from old gear or shopping in Europe.

I remember hanging with some alpine skiers who started getting into skate skiing for fitness and, to my eye, for the label of being a skate skier. Skate skiing has specialized gear, and tight bright clothes, and sells an image of cutting-edge fitness-- these skier looked with disdain on classic XC... absolute disdain. The stores have pushed this as well, often at my local track I see almost geriatric people attempting to skate and having a miserable time of it when they would have gotten great exercise on classic gear and been able to ski around the lakes. Why were they sold an image of a skate skier when it wasn't appropriate? It's like bicycles and the push to put recreational/commuter bikers on race-inspired equipment with their asses 18" above their hands, clip-in shoes, and all the rest. There are a small subset of people who want functional, comfortable bikes a la Danish/Dutch traditions, but they are a small marketing force in the US because it's not Joe Cool.

[Nick BC]

Well as long as we can still get gear to XCD ski who cares where the marketing is going. I suppose in the long run if the Telemark Pyrenees, Adventure Nordique, Finnish sites etc. give up on it then we're hooped on NA.

[Stephen]

As a complete waste of time, I'm reading through this thread from Page 1.

The thread started over seven years ago, and, to me, it seems to resonate with or echo some of what's been going on here, lately, in that the topic debates what is what regarding certain sub-domains of skiing.

On page 6, @connyro quotes a user, Shenanagains (who seems to have been purged from the forum):

So you've never actually used plastic telemark boots?

They are not remotely as rigid as alpine boots, and the moldable versions fit as well as any footwear. Try them, then you can go back to knocking them. Not very many people seem to go back.

Resistance to heel lift must be defined by the mechanism that applies it? OK, for the sake of discussion, though unless you're looking at your bindings it makes no difference how the resistance is generated. T2's work just fine in 3 pins. Now are we closer to XCD in your mind?

I had my first pair of Vectors set up with inserts, to use 3 pins or Switchbacks. Spent lots of time on both, and have ended up using the Switchbacks exclusively. The reason? Keeping machine screws tight with 3 pins' small bolt circle and metal to metal contact between countersinks and screwheads just didn't work. The screws back out in short order, loctite or vibra tite be damned. Performance was great though, and the light weight was noticeable. The Switchbacks are just fine, more versatile, on the flats or at 40˚.

Back to old style XC gear- Its traditional in that it hasn't advanced in decades. That's why it hasn't improved. No change means no change. It still isn't any better on hills than it was before it didn't change. All the energy spent on improvements seems to have gone to other disciplines. Telemark stole the thunder on one side, Skate on another.

And the forum. Sure, the place can run however. Its the wild West. But for an analogy, wouldn't it be odd if someone started a forum, astronomyblather.net, then got all up on anyone that brought up telescope use rather than binoculars? 'We only do binoculars here. Telescopes are too complicated. Piss off!'

Someone with the right sense of humor could maybe do that, as a gag, and see how long 'til it dies. I guess. Every now and then one of the lurkers would come in from orbit, comment a couple times about eyepieces and clock drives, false advertising, hypocrisy. Then go back to enjoying the view when the clouds clear. Once in a blue moon you'll hook a really wild one.

It could be fun for awhile, but year after year? Very strange.

I understand and agree with most of your points: well put! However, nobody is being told to "piss off". I think the Knights are simply attempting to cut through the BS XCD marketing ploy and actually defining the term while considering modern equipment. Based on the XCD Knights definition, I'm not permitted to consider myself an XCD skier. I don't care for floppy little dishrag XC boots for BC skiing.
Vectors/SB/Excursions (one of my favorite setups) is far outside the Knights' definition of XCD, and I would have to agree: it's BC telemark! I'm still hung up on the idea that XCD can be done on groomers and lifts at resorts, it just seems like a sideshow at that point, but then again, I'm not the sharpest ski on the rack. I also have a hard time understanding how the Alaska boots qualify as XCD: those things are NOT XC boots IMO.

Blasphemy from Banned heretics?

Am I a BC XCer; an XCDer; a Telemarker; a lame ass fraud, beyond my BB Date? It's all so confusing...

[Lhartley]

I don't really get the "sub domain" thing. I only linked this page for a year or so now and became completely obsessed with freewheel in the process, but I tried pretty well all the popular setups (cept skate, zzzz)and find everything useful. In Alberta here the zones are so diverse, you could pick a different setup every day and find somewhere to use it a make it work. Maybe the sub domains are territory specific? Idk, the terrain matters to me far more than the gear, use whatever the right tool for the job is. Peeps acting like it's a religion is strange

[Manney]

Man should seek to master his gear and his environment. If he can only do one because of the other, he is no longer a master. He’s a slave to circumstance.

We are all slaves to circumstance in some degree. The issue is our level of satisfaction with it and what we’re willing to do, or try, to escape it.