[Chief Joseph]

Finally took my maiden voyage on X-country skis down my ice covered driveway with a bit of a slope. I arrived at the bottom a bit faster than I wanted and promptly fell over. Was a bit of a challenge getting back up, lol. Supposed to get a bit of snow tomorrow so probably try again. I have some Alpinina touring approach Skis with the old school 3 pin bindings. Before I left for Idaho I met up with Waterman and he gave me some old Merrill boots that fit me and the bindings perfectly. Thanks Bob! So for 20 bucks total I am ready to go (hopefully).

[rossb]

I have a pair of Altai Hoks. Make me an offer They are a niche product. They are good for carrying, but not great for skiing. Thus they work well for in the spring, when you don't want to carry a longer pair of skis up the mountain. But they you have to deal with boots. There are various bindings that work with regular boots (in the same way that snowshoe bindings work with regular boots) but I haven't had much luck with them. I can ski, but not kick and glide. I ended up putting NNN BC bindings on them, and they basically just collect dust. It doesn't help that no one else is interested in doing the same thing (they just carry snowshoes in the spring). Oh, one advantage is that they fit in the trunk really well. So if you are going with your buddies and they are carrying snowshoes, you can easily bring along the skis.

[rossb]

@Cylcopath -- I would look into fixing the skis you have. I've never heard of a binding fail that way. Very weird. There are other skis like that if you want to get new ones. I have a pair of Fischer Inbound Crown (68-58-64) but they don't make them anymore. I prefer skis without metal edges. I feel like metal edges add unnecessary weight (for this type of boot/binding). But some of these are worth considering, as the weight penalty may not be that large. Some have partial metal edges as well. Meanwhile, ski makers are now moving away from fish scales to built-in skins. You can find these on "racing skis" (although I think most races are still done with kick wax). But it is basically the same ski (expensive, very fast, skinny and straight) with built-in skins. This started a couple years ago. But this hasn't replaced fish scales, especially in this sort of range, which tend to be significantly cheaper than the racing skis. I find the websites for the ski makers to be annoying. I just wish they listed each ski with the specs (sidecut, weight, metal edges, etc.) but often you have to click around to find it. I can't find the sidecut of most Fischer skis, for example, but at least other sites have it. Anyway, here are some I ran across. They all have fish scales and lack metal edges unless it says otherwise. From Fischer: Adventure 62 Crown Xtralite (62/52/60) Spider 62 Crown Xtralite -- (62/52/60) with metal edges. Rossignol: Evo XT 55 Positrack/Tour SI (55/48/52) Evo OT 60 Positrack (60/50/55) -- Partial metal edge Evo XC 65 R-Skin (65/53/60) -- Has built in skins instead fish scales. These are kinda tempting -- I hope they keep making them. These companies have more models worth considering, and of course there are other ski manufacturers.

[Cyclopath]

[rossb]

Let me know what you think. Those look like great skis.

[Cyclopath]