Cross-Country Ski Line-up

During the near freezing/mostly wet snow conditions in Vancouver’s Olympic nordic events, many athletes turned to waxless Zero Skis: nordic ski bases that grip through a technique of vigorous base rubbing until the hairs, which lie in the base material, stand up.

“While approaches vary slightly among brands, zero skis replace grip, or kick wax, with a small section of special base material. To a large extent, the secret of zero skis is using an old technology in a new way,” writes Ian Austen of The New York Times.

“During skiing, the early plastic bases tended to develop small, fuzzy particles of plastic on their surface. When that happened, the skis were, in skiers’ vernacular, hairy, and thus slower when gliding. The problem was solved in the 1980s by mixing graphite into the base plastic.”

photo credit: nerdegutt