Here’s yet another wrinkle in my campaign to promote singletrack skiing. “Cross Country Skier” ran this piece this past winter. It has a similar message to much of my “ungroomed” writing, but it’s geared more toward skiers rather than trying to recruit mtbikers. Still, there’s a mt-bike tie-in. It’s all tied-in. The less specialized something is the more it relates to and uplifts other things, it seems. Anyway, it’s not a rehash. It’s a further development. Check it out… Heck, musicians play the same songs all the time, for different audiences, and they may well play them very differently depending on that audience. It’s cool when they do that — it’s cool when writers do, too! : ) OK, so it’s spring now. I might end up forward-dating this thing to next winter when that rolls around.
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The Mountain Bike of Skis
There’s a new influence on XC skiing. Indeed, a gorilla in the room.
Let’s look with new eyes at today’s touring package—midlength skis, cuffed touring boots, and NNN/BC binding—and see it for what it is: the mt-bike of skiing!
This gear has been around awhile. It’s considered a mid-level outfit, not very serious, but if you enjoy a twisty trail in the summer on your mt-bike, that same thrill awaits you on skis if you use such a kit.
If you get tired of toxic wax, flex, grinds—hours of fuss, worry, and benchwork—and the driving to grooming—then thanks to this mt-bike of skis, we have something special and new for you: It’s called skiing!
Let’s think of widely groomed trails as roads, and the skiers and ski-skaters who use them as roadies. That makes those who ski everywhere else the mt-bikers.
Why bother with narrower trails? …Because there are so many more of them! And they’re more challenging, scenic…and usually free! Ungroomed skiing is just plain bigger than groomed. It just hasn’t been given enough credit yet.
Thanks to this new ski gear, all that is ready to change.
Of course, offtrack skiing isn’t new. People have done it forever. Just like they rode bikes offroad before mt-biking was a “thing.”
But if you’re a ski enthusiast, it’s likely you don’t yet own the kind of gear I’m talking about. It has a “beginner” rep. You might have BC or Tele-gear, but allrounder skis? It’s surprisingly unlikely.
Now, road-riding was hurting before mt-biking arrived. It had an overly extreme, hardcore rep: road bikes were becoming monochromatic with a dwindling demographic of hammerheads addicted to them. But after mt-biking arrived and its fun, versatile lessons sank in, all types of biking made big comebacks. Could the same happen for skiing? …Yeah, I’m thinking Nordic is in a bit of a rut. And allrounder skis might be our new fun ticket.
Singletrack Skiing Arrives!
Last winter the kick-off event for our regional Nordic ski racing series was held on a couple inches of dirty snow on a quarter-mile loop on a golf course fairway. …Think about it.
Friends and I had announced another event for the same day, a “raid” on a local hiking-and-biking trail. Snow was scarce there, too. We glanced at the weather-web and saw that eight inches of lake-effect snow had fallen an hour’s drive the other way. Because our event had no overhead, we told our friends the news and, thanks to our “moveable feast” attitude, we zoomed toward the deep, fresh snow and another challenging hiking trail we knew about, and we had a great day of skiing.
We think our approach delivers a maximum ski experience. First, we go where there’s snow. And we go to the funnest, most beautiful trails. And they’re hardly ever groomed. And they’re usually close by. Then, thanks to our mt-bike of skis, we have just the right gear to make skiing these trails a breeze. And there you have the secret of our success!
Remember the old Bill Koch skiing feature-ette sponsored by Rossignol/Kodak? …Saturated colors, banjo music, and Bill tele’ing and jumping in the corn snow on his racing skis while the gang picnicked around maple-syrup trees. That’s our inspiration. (NENSA was selling it on DVD as a fundraiser.)
Sure, everyone had issues with last winter—especially anyone with big machinery overheads, but there was usually snow somewhere close enough. The key to the skiing was not to lock in on fixed venues, fixed due to the work required to hold roadie-style groomed events. My friends and I skied dozens of days while those addicted to grooming suffered.
We live near basically no grooming. I’d think this is the case for most skiers. Local skiers moan about their lack of skiing and how they can’t wait to get north for the weekend. (Of course, the driving doesn’t really thrill them, either.) I hear other local outdoor enthusiasts use the same complaint for why they don’t even try XC. …But nearby we do have great hiking and mt-biking trails. And all sorts of public land. And snow! So, now that we have the tools for it, the answer is obvious!
Once upon a time I lived in Breckenridge, Colorado; had a job grooming XC trails; skied XC, tele and snowboard 200 days a season. We don’t have that kind of snow in mid-Michigan: in some ways we have it better. We can ski anywhere, not just the valleys and slopes that are avalanche-safe. I live across the street from a park where I ski-in several miles of my own tasty singletrack, set on optimal lines. Bloom where you’re planted!
Change in the Air
So, let’s re-visualize the ungroomed snow world as the majestic ski venue it is.
Today’s integrated race gear certainly makes groomers fun, but the new touring gear has completely transformed the trails!
By adding just one set of trail skis you can double your ski fun!
We’re so lucky to be at such a highpoint for Nordic. It’s time to recognize it!
“Just a tour” is a misnomer. Touring can be high performance, just across more dimensions than speed. Handling skill, for instance, is critical. And there are all-day tours to be fit and prepped for, paced and fueled. Not so many all-day races. (Interestingly, as I aged into my 40’s I found I made up for my loss of top-end speed with an ability to go all day. Nice trade!)
The off-track world also is more likely to be mellow, picnicky or party-style. There’s no pressure to train or “keep up” when you’re in your own scene. Of course, you can always mix’n’match.
And, don’t forget, skating needs six feet of groomed width, while classic can go anywhere.
You know, Bill Koch has often complained that even World Cup ski race courses are too easy in terms of ski handling. Our gang knows what he’s talking about and has the remedy.
Most groomer skiers do mt-biking in the summer. It’s just that they neglect those same trails come winter. Be careful, though: quite a few roadies fall hard for mt-biking after acquiring a taste for rough stuff!
You can also ditch the trails and just ski anywhere. Ski-in your own tracks along two-tracks, down farm lanes, across wind-sheltered fields and around golf courses. Waterways become welcoming expanses of snowy lake ice or ribbons of river-turned-trail. Let’s not forget springtime crust.
Wecome to the Nordic paradigm shift!
A Local Skiing Campaign
A group of us recently revived a regular mt-bike ride that had turned into a hammerfest, driving away everyone including the hammers. The new ride was no-drop at a “chattable” pace. Après-ride was a potluck and guitars. It caught on. When snow flew we kept the party going – on skis. We started hosting outings on nearby ungroomed trails. Here’s our line-up:
*We host a “raid” ski race on our beloved 17-mile technical “Poto” mtbike/hiking trail, summertime home-base for many of us.
*We sponsor a tour at a skier-tracked trail-system with the best ski terrain and biggest hills in the downstate region. Local “serious” skiers keep ignoring it, but dozens of other outdoor buffs show up.
*When the snow is right, we jump at the chance for an epic all-day ski on the downstate Waterloo/Pinckney trail, a gorgeously hilly 36-miler.
*Our annual last-hurrah is the Jordan River Jam in March: 19 miles over multiple ridges along a watershed. The guidebook says this pathway along Michigan’s first wild’n’scenic river is “not suitable for skiing” due to the “no bail-out” descents. We show ’em what skills are for.
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This kind of skiing is catching on for the same reasons that “gravel grinder” bike riding is. When I go to a dirt road event I’m tickled by the variety of bikes, and biker types, that I see, and the party atmosphere. It’s the same at our singletrack ski events!
Such skiing might always be small—fine. Some big things come in small packages. Decentralized sociable outdoor fun: Nordic Culture 2.0?
Free-Heel Fever
Skiing is unique among speed sports in that it has only four moving parts. A skier is a big mammal leaping from all fours. So let’s use our full range of motion rather than just the repetitiveness of track skiing. Singletrack requires more nimbleness, faster reflexes. It surely helps your groomed skiing.
A groomer-addict might worry that they’re not agile enough, that they don’t know how to do telemark turns, but today’s gear makes it easy to learn.
Culture?
The new trends in “go local” and “small footprint” fun are adding to our momentum. More people being out on nearby ungroomed trails can only mean more sustainability for our sport.
As for access, everyone seems happy to share with off-track skiers. After all, they’re only putting marks on snow. Ski-tourers get lumped in with harmless sledders and walkers.
U.S. Nordic skiing has its roots in 60’s-70’s counterculture, like most outdoor aerobics. In the 80’s the high-tech hit. The novelty of skating and optimized grooming pushed most trails out of the action. Partly this was because the right gear wasn’t available. It might also be that the expense and fragility of race equipment fit better with smooth, wide groomers. Technical offtrack skiing then was akin to “under-biking”: fun, but not for many.
And in these tough economic times, the thrifty roots of Nordic skiing are more relevant. Why pretend otherwise? A vast majority of package sales are thrifty nowaxers. It’s just that now this low-cost gear is really good.
Skilz
Mainstream techniques just don’t mean as much to trail skiers. What do they like instead? Moves like the Skidaddle, the Potto Shuffle, the Touring Stride and Gliding Herringbone! (This is fun: skiing hasn’t had so much innovation in a long time, but more on this in another article, eh?) We might as well include trail skiers in our views on technique, because they’re here to stay and they’ll be developing new moves anyway.
The Gear
The singletrack ski gear revolution happened with little fanfare. Racing still gets the buzz, even though it hasn’t changed much lately and has so many limitations.
Mt-biking inspires our new skiing, but alpine skiing influences our skis. Shorter, wider, shaped skis show Nordic the way to float and maneuverability. Materials and manufacturing technology are doing their part by making our skis lighter in every duty-range and strategically controlling torsional stiffness and flex.
For more terrain you usually use stouter skis and expect less striding. But rules are made to be broken. Some of my friends stride for miles with fat tele skis. While telemark guru Paul Parker says his favorite BC set-up is a minimalist midlength touring rig, saying it delivers more than his old tele rig did.
Nowax comes on big off-track. When a trail starts bucking up and down enough having a frictionless base is irrelevant. Maybe it’s also because of the increasing snow variability around here, but that’s fine: we adapt, not retreat.
Trail poles are usually aluminum, but I suggest carbon, unless you’re klutzy. Mid-level carbon is nearly as light as race poles but half the price and much tougher. Off-track, arms can use all the help they can get. (Avoid mini-baskets.)
Trail skiers wear is different clothes. You don’t need lycra. Wool rocks. And for a couple hours of boonie skiing, jeans are fine. (It’s fun to rediscover “grab’n’go” skiing.)
You’ll fall more often. So, when off-piste and around trees, you might want a helmet and some padding. Protection hasn’t been fully developed yet, but it makes sense as we get bolder with light gear in big terrain (after all, we don’t have brakes).
DIY Trails
Sometimes neither groomers nor trails offer the best lines. So make your own! Where moving deadfall and a little brush trimming is legal I can create a half mile of singletrack per hour. When it snows it’s ready for action. Come spring, no trace remains.
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So, slap on the allrounder boards and hit a twisty, narrow, wild thing of a trail. You haven’t used ALL your body like that in XC skiing in awhile, have you? You might even do things you’ve never done before.
Welcome to the world of singletrack. It’s always been there, but now it’s all yours.
