Goldstream Sports Newsletter
November Volume 1
Ski season is in full swing! Junior and senior nordic ski classes will be starting up shortly, and many people have been gearing up for the season. Maybe it is time for you to upgrade from your old hand-me-down skis, or let your old skis become your beater skis. Come on in and see the new skis in store, and boots too!
We have part 2 of Jeff Oatley's interview. Jeff is an incredible athlete, racing in short cycling races to the Iditarod Invitational and the Race Across America. We also have some great trail photos from the Colorado Trail Race.
Team Night at Goldstream Sports Monday Nov 3rd!
Goldstream Sports will have a Team Night sale on Monday November 3rd from 6pm to 9pm. If you are a member of any High School ski team, FXC, FAST, SCUM, Junior Nordics coaches or JERKS come on down to Goldstream sports and take advantage of our Team Night specials on Swix, Toko, Madshus and Salomon. Refreshments will be provided. Everything in-store will be 20% - 50% off for team members only.
New arrivals:
Bontrager Shoes, Pearl Izumi midlayers, Swix skipants
| Bontrager Women's mountain bike shoe |  |
| Bontrager momen's mountain bike shoe |  |
| Pear Izumi Go Thermal midlayer (women's) |   |
| Pear Izumi Go Thermal midlayer (men's) |  |
| Swix Universal Ski Pants - all sizes |  |
Sale Item - All Swix Gloves 20% off !
All Swix Speed, Cross and Membrane gloves - Mens and Womens- are all 20% off! We have all sizes from XS through XXL. Keep your hands warm and dry while skiing, and even winter biking!
Feature Item - Nordic ski belt
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Salomon Nordic Equipe Belt: This lightweight belt is very comfortable and easy to use with insulated po ckets and lots of space making this accessory ideal for Nordic workouts. |
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Toko Thermal Drink Belt: The Toko Thermal Insulated drink belt comes with additional pocket for carrying wax. Washable. |
Jeff Oatley Interview Part 2 - by Amanda Byrd
Part 2 of my interview with Jeff Oatley recorded on September 28 th. The first part of the interview was published in the previous issue of the Goldstream Sports newsletter. In part 1 of the interview, Jeff starts talking about racing in the 2008 Colorado Trail Race. Part 2 starts where we left off:
AB: In the Colorado Trail Race, I understand that you didn’t all start together, that you started at different times. How did that work?
JO: That is the part that I didn’t really get into. There was an actual start time for the race and I think 25 people started at noon on July 28 th, 2008. With these races, the rules you have signed on to are that anyone can do the race whenever they want - it is a self timed event. You just record your time, if you want to. You could go down and start this race midnight tonight if you wanted to and set a course record and call in after and say “I did it in 4 days, 6 hours and 23 minutes.” But, I don’t get that part. In my mind everyone should be going at the same time, it is a race. I wouldn’t have this option coming from Alaska, but someone from Colorado might have said “It is 100 degrees this week, I am going to put this off for a week and see if it cools down a bit.” I don’t think anyone did that, but it could happen if someone was dead-set on setting a course record.
AB: So, 25 people started together. You were all self-sufficient and so did you carry a backpack?
JO: People were packed in all different types of ways. I carried a backpack but the only thing in it was a 5-liter water bladder. You could buy food in the towns you went through. I had a frame pack and a gas-tank pack, if you will, on the top tube and a very large seat pack. I had too much stuff for this race, which is kind of ironic because on the Iditarod race I always have far less stuff than everyone else, except for Rocky. In this race I was in the top half of the riders with the most gear packed. I am going to guess that I had 8 pounds of gear and about 5 pounds of food with me almost all the time.
AB: That is a lot of weight.
JO: It was for a trail that kept going up and down all the time. I was too heavy.
AB: What gear did you take?
JO: I had a sleeping bag, a bivy sack, arm warmers, leg warmers... I should know this so I know not to take it again.., I think I had two jackets – really light weight. I don’t think I would take a sleeping bag again, but I wouldn’t necessarily go advising people to do that. I would just put all of my clothes on and sleep in a bivy sack. It was in the 30’s one night, but you would survive that by minimizing the amount of time that you slept. This trip turned more into a camping trip. I had a little trouble at the elevations, so I spent a lot more time on the ground than I would have liked to.
AB: Did your pace match any of the other riders? Did you team up with anyone?
JO: The first half day I was riding with a guy named Chris Plesko, from the Boulder/Broomfield area, then on the first night Pete Basinger (from Anchorage) caught up with us and we rode together for about a half day and then Chris left Pete and I, and we caught Jason Shelman who was a guy from Salida, CO. He was a really phenomenal rider on a retro single-speed wearing tennis shoes and baggy shorts, and carried all his gear in a bike messenger bag. He really had this retro thing going on, but he could ride. The three of us rode for a day and half or so, then Pete dropped out and I didn’t see anyone else for the rest of the trip.
AB: Were you lonely?
JO: Not at all. I enjoy riding with people, but I enjoying being alone too, doing everything at my own pace. It wasn’t like Pete and I were holding each other back or having to wait for each other a lot. But, I think there is a little added stress thinking you have to stay with somebody, or worse – thinking they have to wait for you. So, it is nice to be alone.
AB: I read an article about The Great Divide Race in Outside Magazine, they kind of commented that a single-speed is the way to go in case you have mechanicals.
JO: Single-speeders can find a lot of ways to justify not using derailleurs.
Heather Best: They also have really bad knees to show for it.
JO: I honestly think in the Colorado Trail Race, more so than the Great Divide Race, the single speed bike has more advantages – you can make one really light and as long as you have a gear to go uphill, and your knees will hold up to it. I think the weight saving may be worth it.
There were two people who tried to go fixed-gear, which is just stupid. Neither of them made it very far in the race. I am sure people will keep trying to do it. It is a bad idea to have a fixed-gear bike in any event that might end up pushing – that pedal is going to come around and hit you in the leg every time.
I don’t think there was 100 miles of walking in this race, but I would guess there was more than 50. It is a lot of walking. A lot of it was walking up a boulder-strewn trail with a 6% grade, it wasn’t a steep trail it was just so rough that you couldn’t ride it. You would top out and then ride down a boulder-strewn trail with a 6% grade at 4 miles an hour. It was just so rough you couldn’t ride it any faster in places. It is a hiking trail. There were sections of it that were the fastest, funnest, swoopiest trail that you could find, but there were sections of it that were pretty brutal
.
AB: Were there any sections that scared you?
JO: I don’t get scared anymore. (Jeff laughs). There were some hairy places – a guy fell 40 feet off the trail. He set of a personal locator device and was rescued. I have ridden stuff as bad as anything we saw there, before. After one pretty crazy descent I went way too fast on, I got to the bottom and had to repack some gear. Pete and Jason caught up and said “hey, you’ve got 300 more miles to go,” I was like yeah this is probably not the way to downhill in a race like this. I don’t get to do it very often, so I was kind of enjoying it going pretty hard.
AB: this was your first big race on a 29er right?
JO: Yeah. I am always skeptical of any new fad, and I thought the 29er thing might be all over blown, but now I am pretty convinced. There are huge advantages over technical stuff, it is just a really nice fast rolling set-up. I was pretty impressed. I haven’t ridden my 26er since I got my 29er, and I’ve had that bike since 1993 and it is the only bike I have raced until I got my 29er. I can’t see racing it again. I can’t see a course I would use it on again.
AB: Not even just cross-country for the speed?
JO: Maybe the 29er just feels faster. Maybe if you were riding a straight line or going straight up hill, but if you start putting in some turns or twists in there I think the 29er just out handles the 26. You just carry more speed through corners, or maybe it just feels that way. I don’t have a direct quantitative comparison of the two, but the 29er just feels faster. Definitely in more technical stuff there’s just no questions about it, you can just roll through stuff that would really jar you around on a 26er. Not that it doesn’t jar you around on a 29er, just that it jars you around while maintaining some speed.
It is especially faster and smoother uphill, like riding up in the Ester Dome Hill Climb.
AB: Yes, I know that race. I came dead-last and they forgot to time me.
(Everyone laughs together at me.)
JO: I did that on my 26er last year in the race and it was in a time of something like 33:02 and I was in OK shape. That was right before RAAM, I was in pretty good shape but had not done a lot of high intensity. This year I did it on my 29er, not in the race, but under a time-trial as hard as I could and I was a minute faster.
AB: How did you place in the Colorado Race?
JO: I placed forth. First through third were all pretty close together, there was a pretty big gap to fourth.
Heather Best: The bike messenger bag dude beat him.
AB: Did that give you a blow to your ego?
JO: Not at all. He was a freak and a phenomenal rider. I guess maybe I can see why you’d asked that question, but if you could see how this guy could ride you would understand. I can downhill pretty good, I can put good distance between a lot of people on a technical descent. He was riding a rigid single-speed and I could gap him only on the most technical stuff. He could stay with me. He is just a phenomenal rider. I didn’t know who he was, neither did Pete, and I think because he was riding so fast at the start, people wondered if he was going to make it the whole way. By the first day of riding with him, Pete and I both commented that he was incredible. I felt I had to be riding pretty well to be riding with him for that long. I have not ridden with too many people that could impress me like that.
AB: Was it easy to train in Alaska for the Colorado Trail?
JO: You can actually get some good hill training here. The problem is getting the elevation. Here, the top of our hills is around 2500 feet, in my experience you don’t really start to feel the effects of elevation until around 7500 feet. At 10 miles from the start line we were at about 8500 feet.
You can’t prepare for the elevation here. I thought I went into the race in pretty good shape, but I just kept hitting walls with the elevation. There were times I was finding it hard to even walk up hills.
AB: What was your goal going into the race?
JO: I wanted to race as hard as I could and if I stayed at the front I would keep trying to race as hard as I could, and if I couldn’t stay at the front of the pack I would just enjoy the ride and get a little bit more rest and see things. At the end of the 3 rd or 4 th day there was a 20 hour gap between me and the front riders. I was not going to be able to make that up in the time to the finish. I think it ended up being about 16 hours from 3 rd place to me. Maybe 2 hours from 3 rd place to first place. I was struggling with the elevation, and I knew the last two days would be the toughest. We were hitting a few passes at above 12,000 feet. The guy who won it lives in Crested Butte (10,500 ft), and second place guy, Jason, is at 9,000 ft in Salida and the 3 rd place guy lives in Boulder but he has been training by hiking 14,000 ft peaks almost every weekend with is wife and camping at the trailheads for elevation. I rode up Ester Dome a few times.
AB: What were the highlights and lowlights?
JO: There weren’t really any lowlights for me. I guess the overall lowlight for me was there was a lot more walking than I was expecting there to be. I had a picture in my head of riding from Denver to Durango. Just all the walking, even though I said just 50 miles of walking, it seemed there were about 3 days where I walked almost all of the uphills and rode the downhills. It was only a lowlight because I wasn’t expecting there to be so much walking. If you are mentally prepared to do it, it is different.
Every day there were highlights, like Searle Pass and Kokomo Pass between Copper Mountain and Leadville, doing those in the morning right after sunrise was amazing. Then everything from Silverton to Durango – the wildflowers were in full bloom, they were bluebird days, really high passes – 12,500 feet with amazing views.
On the last night I bivied and I knew I was getting close to a plateau I wanted to get to, but my pace was just horrible. I could hear what sounded like rustling, but a way off in the valley, it sounded too noisy to be a bear so I just went to sleep. When I woke up and the sun came up I could see a herd of elk down there. That was pretty cool.
AB: How long did the race take?
JO: I finished in about 5 days, 23 hours.
AB: With mountain biking in the Olympics, would that be a goal?
JO: For who? (chuckle) That’s getting back to the difference between me and real racers. Those guys are fast! An old friend of mine from Boulder, via New Zealand, has gone to the Olympics three times. At one time he was one of the top ten riders in the world, it would be a joke to compare me to him. We don’t do the same thing. It would be like going over to the West Valley football field and finding somebody and saying “what do you think about playing in the Super Bowl?” It’s literally that level of difference. I have ridden with pro riders and I have raced on the road with pro riders…
Heather Best: Jeff will be 40 next year – he is a little past his Olympic prime…
JO: When I was 25, it was not a realistic objective either. It wasn’t like ‘Oh I am too old,’ you have to watch a pro peleton go up a hill like Summit and see how fast those guys ride up a hill like that. Although we are both riding two wheels we are not doing the same thing.
I just did and interview with another guy for Ruralite Magazine, he asked why I don’t do the Tour de France, and I said because I suck and everyone would laugh at me.
That’s the reality. Take the pharmaceuticals out of the equation and they are still phenomenal. There is a guy I used to race with in Colorado who was 14 when I was 28. He is a phenomenal rider. We all thought he would be an amazing rider when he grew up. He is on Garmin Chipotle, and got 2 nd in the Tour of Utah and the US National Championships this year. It will be interesting to see if he can get into the European scene. At 14 he weighed 100 pounds, he couldn’t come close to winning a sprint, he didn’t have the horsepower. If he could get a gap in the field in the middle of the race, he would ride away and we couldn’t chase him down. When you see something like that you see that it is a whole different level. In fact it is two different levels from where I am at now.
There are probably some pro riders who couldn’t jump into the Iditarod trail race and do well, in fact there are probably a lot of them. Fast people don’t usually do well in slogs.
Okay…I’m going to “rephrase” my answers to the next couple of questions. I’ll leave it up to you which version you use. But a couple of my answers sound really bad too me. I cringed when I read them…of course you have that (DAMN!!!) tape recorder and can prove I said these things.
AB: They would probably cry from the cold.
JO: If you are talking about tough suffering going up a hill, they are going to be tough. But if you drop them off at Rainey Pass in winter, they are likely going to be crying like a baby.
AB: With a little tiny stuff sack sleeping bag….
JO: They’re just a huge gap from anyone around here. I don’t want to belittle any of the local talent , they are some very good riders here, but our top riders would need to do a lot of racing with a lot of pros to start approaching that level. It is just a whole different ballgame.
There are enough good racers in Anchorage to make the events competitive, but in Fairbanks it is a small handful of people. Not enough to have the dynamics you should have in a bike race. I am sure people like Tyson can appreciate that. He has raced internationally for skiing and I know that Fairbanks is very competitive in the skiing scene, one of the best places in the world.
AB: The cycling scene is pretty solid here, but it seems only recently that the younger people are getting into competitive cycling. In the past it seemed that the skiers would run or roller-ski during the summer months, now they are really getting into the riding which has boosted the local racing and made it very exciting.
JO: And it is great that Reese had the motivation to get a team together with David Norris and Wyatt, Logan and a bunch of the younger guys and Kate. It is good to see them out racing. Rocky and Gail will talk about how it used to be racing in Fairbanks where you would get 40 or 50 people out racing. I guess it goes in cycles. It is those damn video games.
I am really happy with the racing scene in Fairbanks. The scenes in Colorado and California are high pressure. If you want to become a professional cyclist, by all means go down and do it. I would hate for that to happen up here. I would probably want to quit racing again. I just do this for fun.
Heather Best: Outside, they make you pay about $100 to do a race and only the top 2 get really cheesy prizes. Around here, you don’t even have to pay to enter the race and you get bike part prizes at the end. It is a more wholesome scene.
AB: This was my first my first season racing here, and the camaraderie was amazing. Like the last leg of the Kluane race, it was raining and I was hurting, but every pullout I would see Heather and Kate and other people and would hear my name being called. It was such a great feeling to see so many people cheering for me and the other riders. It is friendly and everyone is helpful.
Heather Best: I haven’t really raced anywhere else much, and it seems people are just so happy to be out racing and riding.
JO: I’m not as negative about racing Outside as I might sound, but it is not something I want to be a part of anymore. There are a lot of people with the aspirations of becoming a top cyclist, and when you have that many people with those motivations it brings a lot of things to the event, I was one of them for a long time. I thought I was going to be better than I ended up being. It does take away a lot of the fun of the event because everyone is taking it so seriously.
I like racing in Alaska, and the Yukon Territory. I did the Kluane Chilkat and the 24 Hour race in Whitehorse - it was cold that night. From about midnight to 5 in the morning I think there were more people partying than riding. I felt like I was doing laps by myself.
AB: Jeff it has been really great to talk to you, and thank you so much for your time and your stories. And Heather, thank you for your input too.
JO: You’re welcome!
Photos of the Colorado Trail race: Boulder strewn hill section, fast smooth section through Tenessee Pass. (Photos courtesy of Jefe Branham, and Stephan Griebel - www.climbingdreams.net)
Salomon's Warm and Cold Ski Bases and Skis.
Salomon Warm and Cold Skis, both skate and classic, have bases and ski molds designed for the characteristics of warm and cold snow. Warm is designated as -8C (17F) and warmer. Cold is designated as -5C (23) and colder.
Bases:
All Salomon ski bases are made with Ultra high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE). Salomon's Equipe 10 Warm bases have more surface area to absorb more warm snow wax, than the cold base that are denser to reduce cold dry snow friction. Each base's exact properties are achieved by mixing various additives in various proportions to the UHMWPE. Two of the additives that Salomon specifies are Salomon's proprietary Zeolite, as well as Carbon Black. Zeolite is a mineral used in many industries both as a sieve and as a sponge. Zeolite has a very regular structure that allows it to act as a sieve to keep out dirt particles over a certain size, while its ultra porous structure allows it to act like a sponge actively absorbing wax. Zeolite also maintains its uniform structure under extreme heat, allowing bases with Zeolite to be less prone to seal (close) when exposed to heat from waxing. Salomon's warm bases have more Zeolite than the cold base. The warm bases also have more carbon black in them then cold bases. Carbon black (often wrongly called graphite) is used for its very high surface area to volume ratio.
The warm and cold bases also have specific structure for warm or cold snow crystals and moisture content. For extreme wet conditions you can press in a hand structure above the warm grind. In cold conditions below -12C we reduce the cold structure with a metal scraper.
Equipe 9, 8 and JR racing skis use a universal base mixture and universal grind.
Ski Molds:
Not only are Salomon Warm and Cold bases different but so are the warm and cold ski molds.
Skate skis:
Equipe 10 Warm skate ski have glide zones specifically molded to reduce warm/wet snow suction. This is achieved by making he front glide zone shift rearward as the load is increased, essentially lifting the ski tip off of the wet snow to break suction.
Equipe 10 Cold skate skis have glide zones specifically designed to reduce cold/dry snow friction.
This is achieved by having constant contact glide zones where pressure increases as load is increased to assist in rolling and melting the cold snow crystals. With constant glide zone (and edge) contact the cold ski a more forgiving (stable) ski than the warm ski.
Classic skis:
Cold ski is the hardwax ski. With a heel toe camber (kick zone) that floats close to the snow during glide it is designed for easy kick and full kick zone contact when waxed with multiple thin layers of hard wax as applied in cold conditions.
Warm ski is for klister conditions. It's heel toe camber rides higher off the snow (than the cold camber) to keep the thicker klister or soft hardwaxes (necessary for wet and ice snow) to remain off the snow during glide phase.
Try a pair of Salomon skis today and Enjoy Winter!
Tyson's Tech Tips - Kick Waxing.
Hello again! The last time I wrote I ended up writing about stone grinding and skipped the classic kick waxing due to not having the snow to properly classic ski in tracks. We now have world-class classic tracks at Birch Hill that just want to be used.
When out for a classic ski you rely upon the kick and glide properties of the ski and wax to help propel you forward. Depending on the type of kick wax you use, you may feel very different results when out for a ski. Some of those differences you will feel include having slow skis that just seem to not glide well, and it seems that walking is easier than trying to get glide. The other end of the spectrum is the day when your skis just do not get any kick at all and you just slip and slide all over the place, working very hard to go anywhere. In some cases you will start your ski with lots of kick and then by the time you are done you feel it is all gone.
I will start with how the wax works on the ski and how it interacts with the snow that it is in contact with. The range of kick waxes for different temperature ranges is really a range of how hard and sticky the wax is. When the wax is on the ski and being pushed into the snow, the crystals in the snow are able to embed themselves into the wax, which enables you to kick off the snow. An ideal classic ski, which is fit properly to you, is able to glide with all the kick wax off the snow. At the moment when you shift your weight onto the front of your foot from the heal, the camber in the ski collapses and the kick zone with the wax on it is able to do its job, and you can move on with your ski. If you have skis that are too stiff then when you try to press the wax into the snow you cannot push it far enough and it is just not so much fun. On the other side, if your skis are too soft they probably will not be very fast because the wax is just constantly rubbing on the surface of the snow. For many skiers it is fine to have soft skis and it is the way that many touring skis are designed so that they have a bit more stability. If you are a racer, you may have a selection skis with varying flexes that you can use with different waxes.
Ski preparation is easy and can make a big difference in some conditions. First off you need to know where your kick zone is on your ski. To do this you can come into the shop and have us look at the ski and help you find the area where your wax should be. Or, you can put lots of wax on your skis and ski on them for a while, then look at your ski to see where the wax has worn off. The edges of what is left on the base would be roughly where you kick zone would be.
The kick zone should be cleaned with wax remover. With a clean base you can take 180-grit sand paper to roughen up the kick zone on your ski. The roughening of the base will allow the wax to stick better and be more durable. It is good to clean your old kick wax off your skis periodically because it will allow the new wax being applied to be put on evenly and work better.
Fortunately in Fairbanks, and most of Alaska, finding the right kick wax is very easy. On every container of wax it will give you a temperature range for the snow that it is made to work best in. Once you have picked a wax that looks like the right temperature, you should look at how abrasive the snow is. If the snow is freshly fallen and soft on the trails, then you can just go ahead and start applying the wax of the day to the ski. If the trails look very hard and in some cases are starting to get icy, the wax gets easily taken off by the snow and ice and a binder layer of wax is needed. Almost every wax maker has a binder wax which is just a super durable wax that can be put on your ski to increase the overall durability of the waxes that get put over the top.
When you start applying wax to the kick zone, you want to use thin layers and use a cork to rub the wax into the base and smooth it out. With most waxes you will want to do 3 to 6 thin layers with corking in between layers to keep everything smooth and clean. The base wax, if needed, will go down first and the wax of the day over the top. A general rule when waxing: is the more layers, the more kick you will get.
If you have more questions please come into the store or give us a call and ask about our wax recommendation for the day, we will be glad to tell you and give you any advice you may need.
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