Long shot i guess, anyone know of anywhere that sells XC poles in Cheltenham or near by? i appear to have snapped one of my poles on my ski this evening. Not fully snapped but delaminating so i may get some more use before they snap in two, but not a lot more use.

walking poles from any outdoor shop as a temporary sort?

It doesn’t help but I have 150 pairs in the store at work (Loch Tay…)

matt, 150 pairs of walking or ski poles? if the later, what have you got, i have a set of walking poles i can improvise if needed, but i will need to get ski poles and they aren’t the easiest thing to find.

XC ski poles. Old skoool and about 60 pairs of ski’s and 100+ pairs of boots to match, all in mid 90’s styleeee. aiiiiii.

We barely use them now (with the lack of snow and all…) but not worth getting rid of. We did have a chat the other day about how many poles to ski’s (as many of the ski’s have delaminated, just chucked more out) and what to use poles for.

If you want some, I can sort you some out. BUT i am not in work until 5th January…..can let you know what we have – mainly allow, but some GRP as well.

matt.robinson AT abernethy.org.uk

Anyone want to sell me a set, out of interest?

What length are you after? I have more 145s than I need (near Malvern, so not a million miles away).

Anyone got an idea what a full set of gear would cost? Been looking on Ebay but not seen anything.

Would not want new. Do we get enough snow to justify it?

i think bindings new are c£30 for a set of Salomon SNS profil £50 for cheap boots, maybe £30-40 for poles. Skis are the expensive bit.

did find these?
rossignol. might be worth a punt, would have to get the right boots for the bindings though.

Aracer will have a look later what pole length is.

Do we get enough snow to justify it?

Depends where you live. Today was my 10th day skiing in Worcestershire this year, but I’d never skied here before in the 10 years I’ve owned ski kit. On that basis I’d say it’s not worth owning for skiing here.

mrmo – if you’re after shorter you can normally cut them down (145 is standardish length for classic for somebody ~5’9″ tall). I’m not sure if that’s the case with what I’ve got – though I have one set brand new I’ve never used, I don’t think they’ve even had the baskets put on.

North Northumberland. I reckon could have easily had getting on twenty days in 2010 so far. Might be worth it if the winters are going to be like this in the future.

Anything to look out for? Things to avoid?

Really depends what you want to do. Track kit (which is what mrmo was quoting for) isn’t really the best thing in rough terrain up in the hills – I’ve taken mine out on the local golf course and on flattish tracks in the Malverns and on the common. When I went for a trip along the top of the ridge I got the touring kit out – wider metal edged skis and heavier boots, which cope with tougher terrain and means you can just about make turns on the downs (I mean there were actually cornices on the Malvern ridge earlier this year!) Unfortunately that stuff is rather more expensive, and you’re far less likely to find anything s/h.

Anything to look out for? Things to avoid?

The snow, and too much lycra?

what i have is 140’s because that is what i could get, they were a tad short. 145’s should be fine.

What i have are track skis and whilst not ideal for a do anything solution i got the skis for a tenner so can’t complain. Most years there are 1 or 2 days where i could use them around cheltenham, tends to mean going up cleeve, using them as i did earlier on the old railway/cyclepath, which was alot more sensible, tends not to happen too often.

Matt,

Do you have sets to sell? Im not really looking for anything special, just for mucking around on when we get snow. Im in Edinburgh so if you had any I could pop up to get them.

Cheers

What length are you after? I have more 145s than I need (near Malvern, so not a million miles away).

I need the whole set of gear unfortunately.

I also need a new set of ski poles. I bought the skis, poles and boots when I was in Finland but since then they’ve set unused for about 10 years so when I last used them (in the Jan/Feb 2010 snow) the plastic handles on the poles must have deteriorated cos they both snapped.

To be fair the skis were rubbish in the Peaks – they’re designed for the flat groomed XC Ski Trails of northern Finland and they’re very long (probably about 185cm) and slim. They also don’t have a skin on the bottom so when I tried going uphill I just slid backwards and fell over. 😳

They also don’t have a skin on the bottom so when I tried going uphill I just slid backwards and fell over.

They should’ve had grippy wax on the middle section of the bottom…

I have got some wax for them. Somewhere…

…actually I’ve realised that I was lying – I think I’ve had a couple of days on the track skis on the golf course* before this year, and one evening telemarking down the common on my touring kit. Still not that great for 10 years. Now up to 12 days this year though 🙂

*golf courses are a really good place to take track skis – just ski yourself some grooves and have a bimble around. With the shorter grass you need a lot less snow than most places.

no idea about the place but, found this,
packages

gives an idea of the cost involved to buy new, only buy crown skis for the uk would be my advice,

Much as I hate to recommend somewhere else (Iain who runs that site is a top bloke – if you’re seriously interested in XC skiing and live in the London area he’s a superb rollerski coach, and has introduced a lot of people), the kit he’s selling there is fairly high end. You can get rather cheaper kit at http://www.crosscountryskis.co.uk – especially if you go for their 2nd hand bargains. Also http://www.braemarmountainsports.com for those who live up north.

I do have far too many skis, but not selling any as I’ve actually used 6 out of the 7 pairs in the last year! I agree with the recommendation for crown skis for the UK – whilst I much prefer waxable, and have actually used them in the UK this year (perfect blue extra conditions at the moment), normally they’re too much hassle as the snow’s too warm or icy.

rollerskiing is something i keep on meaning to try,

The Salomon 9 series stuff in those packages is close to Salomons top of the range though… i.e. they have 5,6,7,8,9,10 in most of their ranges, 10 being best or most expensive. Admittedly in the bad snow winter a couple of years ago, we got Salomon 5 series skis, 6 or 7 series boots, basic profil bindings and some cheapo poles for 2 of us in the sales for about €150 euros all in (all new but on sale, boots 20 euros, skis about the same etc). I’d liken the 5 series stuff to something like a specialized Hardrock bike – the current models are damned good value for money, and will do pretty much all the stuff that 90% of people would want, but obviously nicer/lighter/’faster’/shinier options are available, but compared to the same spec level of 15 years ago they’re basically brilliant!

Have since bought some better poles as they were heavy and the baskets not replaceable once one snapped off, but that’s fine for the kind of tracked skiing I do at the moment (couple of times recreationally a week plus lots of ski-commuting, there is a lovely 1hr route to work that on a fresh snow morning, I can get door to door from the garage to work without stepping out of the skis!). Might retire these skis as a beater set for commuting and look into some non-wax, scaled, ‘crosstrack’ type set (yep niches abound in Xc skiing too!) i.e. something that fits in tracks but is good for a bit of backcountry too…

Typical. I sold mine after years of snow free winters, and now 2 1/2 in a row.
I had Fischer Europa 99 xc ski’s with metal edges.
Blizzard poles
Salomon boots.
Could have been getting in some great ski’ing around here.

having a chuckle here at Aracer: Just been out on the golf course and come to a grinding halt with Red Special wax on my skis (from a couple of weeks back when it was warmer), then had to apply the Blue Extra ontop…like trying to smear butter ontop of jam; did get it to work, though! Plastic Telemark boots, cable binding and Swix Mountain poles (just about unbreakable!) Over equiped for terrain? Moi??

>The Salomon 9 series stuff in those packages is close to Salomons top of the range though

More like the SLX level if using familiar analogy… Very good kit but the actually difference there is greater than SLX vs XTR (the S-Lab stuff is really racer-only). That said, many have switched to NNN bindings as the choice for boots is much wider for that binding.
Fit is everything in boots and skis and all brands make good stuff, try to fit them before buying if possible.

What skis for hard packed roads?

What skis for hard packed roads?

Skate skis – as featured at 0:03 in:
[video]http://vimeo.com/9562845[/video]
Have just been out on those roads with those skis, and the roads have better hard packed snow, so it’s really fast (though unfortunately we now have grit bins on the estate, so in places the snow is horrible and dirty – the cheek of thinking those roads are for driving on).