Bryan Wickenhauser, local uber-athlete, Team Crested Butte member and FastWax rep kindly provides Alley Loop competitors with waxing advice for the race. All you have to do is ski fast! Based on the current forecast from flyingcracker.com, here are Bryan's suggestions:
It appears our pattern will remain active through the weekend, but without any big organized systems. The result will be a mixed bag of conditions with partly to mostly cloudy on Friday giving way to more snow for the weekend. Expect snow (ie. higher humidity) to continue through today but moisture is limited and the result will be just a couple inches at most. With this in mind here’s my wax call….
Expected Race Day Snow Temp at 10AM Start: 18 - 22F with higher humidity due to the newly fallen snow.
Expected Race Day Snow Temp at ~Noon to 1:30PM PM Finish: 23F - 26F
Structure: Universal (nothing too aggressive but not ultra fine either)
Flex: Medium – even with the few new inches of snow, the Nordic Center cat will be out grooming and packing it down on the firm & wide trails!
Wax: If you’re doing the 42k distance, durability is always an issue. Therefore (to clean the ski) start with a base prep (Purple Fast Wax), hot scrape, let ski cool and brush it out well with stiff Nylon brush! Apply two layers of Fast Wax HSF-20 Tan (a High Fluoro wax with temp range 12F - 28F), brushing between each layer after scraping. Finish the ski with a smooth/high polish (horse hair brush).
An lower-cost alternative is Fast Wax HS-LF-20 Blue (a Low Fluoro wax with the same temperature range 12F - 28F…just less Fluoro for the budget conscious skier).
Ski Fast!
Bryan Wickenhauser
We wish all competitors a good race. Have fun!