Ode to Wood Skis

 

What can I say? I LOVE my wood skis!! In fact I have 5 pairs. 3 that I ski on, 1 in front of my house for decoration and a final pair in my living room! The latter are real beauties. They were owned by a really old guy from Finland (as are the skis) and they have multiple vertical laminates and a beautiful finish. They are a true work of art. When he passed away his kids gave them to me exclaiming, "he'd want you to have them because we can see you really appreciate them!"

When I started ski racing in 1977 on my high school team, we got to squeak one season in on wood skis before the fiberglass revolution took over. At the time I didn't have nearly the appreciation for this privilege. The pair the school loaned to me were a true work of art. They were a wood racing ski and the handiwork on them was amazing. I wish I owned them now.

Skiers today no longer have the opportunity to pine tar a wood ski. The aroma still brings incredible warm feelings to me. With wood skis you kick wax them tip to tail or heel to tip. We never bothered with glide wax. Sure they were a lot slower, but man you never slipped on your kick! An interesting observation is that if you look at the temperature recommendations on kick wax tins I'm convinced that they are still written for wood skis and not the cambered fiberglass wonders everyone skis on today.

On slower days, or really cold days when you have no glide anyway, I like to get out my wood skis for a spin. I find that they are really good for technique development. Everything really slows down. You can concentrate on technique without the fear of slipping. You can rehearse good technical body movements without making technical errors to compensate for the potential slippage. Plus, the ability to let your mind go and not have to totally focus on having everything correct in your technique in order to avoid the inevitable slipped kick is really freeing.

Another advantage to wood skis is that for my marriage it's a great equalizer. In the picture my wife and I took a leasurely (leasurely for me) ski stroll on a Sunday to a scenic spot at the Canmore Nordic Centre for a picnic. She had her racing gear and we kind of ended up at the same speed. 

I sometimes wonder what happened to my high school racing wood skis. They took a hit mid season as we were lined up preparing to do an interval start race. My good friend and team captain Dave Sheehan, was jumping up and down to stay warm and unfortunately jumped onto my tip breaking it. My coach, Tom Beaver, eventually put them back together with a block of wood glued on top. Aesthetically they didn't look as good, but they were still just as fast. They helped me earn my first high school athletic "letter" (for our letterman's jacket). They were also the skis that launched my love of cross country ski racing. 43 years later I'm still going at it....thank you wood skis!!