Update from the XCD Knights

[MikeK]

Whoahoho!

Welcome Hans! We knew you would show up eventually (just like nils did ).

Man it's a great honor to be in your cyber-presence. I hope you will stick around and provide us insights from the council!

[MikeK]

I don't mean to extend anything Hans has said, but I really do think that he means even XC racers are XCD'ing when they are ripping down hills. They may not be using the same techniques we are off-piste, but some of those techniques still apply.

[connyro]

OK. I've been mis-self-identifying as an XCD skier all these years. I'll just have to adjust to being a backcountry skier then...unless there's some confusing knight rules governing that too. Carry on!

[MikeK]

You can be a BC XCD skier and a BC Tele skier too!

It's kind of like job titles... WTF is the difference between a product engineer and project engineer. I work with people who have those two titles and do, to me, what seems like the same work.

Sorry Hans, no disrespect!

[Woodserson]

I wise and published XC skier once said, "you must ski up, as well as down" and "to be out in nature is the most important thing." There is a difference between XCD gear (the noun), and XCD (the verb). Mayhaps I take a lift and practice my XCD technique, but am I actually XCDing without the required "you must ski up, as well as down?"

[The XCD Knights]

Thank you for accepting us in here. We have been watching this forum very closely for quite sometime now.

You are free to do whatever you want once in XCD mode. You're totally free. It's yours to decide.
XCD only requires having the right gear and the right way of using it.

-Houschäng

[lowangle al]

There is no xcd if you don't have the means to propel yourself like kickwax or scalaes. You can ride the lift but without any kicking and gliding there is no xc. I could see myself back east, w/o natural snow, wearing "light" xcd gear to the resort using kick wax and getting some k&G skiing. It's better for control too especially if you're learning.

Shanannagins I feel about the same as you, here are my thoughts on the recent posts:

It's got to be Nordic gear and you have to do tele turns( not exclusivly but typically)

It's ok to take your skis off on a spot that is above your skill level, we don't want anyone dyin on us.

You don't have wear the "light" gear all the time to be an xcd skier. The Board will have to establish a minimum.

It's unfortunate but you can kick and glide your way to the North Pole and you won't be an xcd skier as the rules are now if you are wearing plastic boots.

I think there should be "light" xcd and "heavy" xcd. It's all the same sport right down to technique, the only difference is that as the conditions get worse you need some additional skills to make your skis work. In the grand sceme of things we are all telemark skiers. How can we not be?

[MikeK]

That makes me a telemarker, even when covering ground on roadbeds and low angle terrain with fishscale skis and getting almost no turns in in a day?

Ultimately it isn't really all that important, but the distinction laid out by the knights is... archaic at least.

Why not? Plenty of people are doing that with AT gear. Should we call that XCD too?

Hey, there is nothing wrong with using plastic boots, but to do that to ski roadbeds and terrain where you don't even have to turn, seems kinda silly, unless you don't have any other gear, and you decided to buy stuff to focus on skiing dh, and you just want to get out somewhere else.

Seems to me if your focus was skiing that kind of terrain you'd use any multitude of modern gear that is designed for that, Excursions and T4s being really at the upper end and well into the DH category, so possibly a bit overkill for skiing that... but like I say, people still ski it with AT gear... and it's still not XCD.

[MikeK]

Also let's think about this another way. Modern Telemark has become a blend of old school Tele (which is closer to Modern XCD) and Alpine skiing.

If we look at any of the gear choices that are sometimes classified as XCD, we can see the stuff at the extreme DH end of the spectrum really, really resembles the Modern Tele gear. The skis are wider, rockered, constructed with different materials to make them perform better at speed or over crud. The boots are basically just scaled down version of larger buckle versions. Bindings are all over the place in tele, but one thing seems to remains constant, and that's fixing the heel to some kind of elastic device (or duckbutt in the case of NTN).

The theoretical XCD as proposed by the Knights keeps the skis closer to their Nordic roots. Keeps the boots closer to what you'd ski on track or with skate (skate boots have cuffs and straps). And keeps the heel completely free just like XC skiing.

They are truly very different. One is overweight or 'roided out XC. The other is anemic or anorexic Modern Tele. You could make your own categories and call them light XCD or heavy XCD, but doesn't the latter seem to make a lot more sense as light Tele? To me all the technology seems to be directly related to Modern Telemark as opposed to Modern Nordic.

[MikeK]

Telemark and Nordic used to be the same, but they have really drifted apart, as I was trying to explain. Modern Telemark is much closer to Alpine skiing.

I didn't say resistance to heel lift, I said a mechanism fixed to the heel. A difference. The XC options use the boot or the small rubber to provide that. There is no fixation to the heel.

BC Nordic gear is much more burly than skate or track gear. It has to be to handle the conditions.

Of course I've used plastic boots, for Alpine. I have hyper sensitive feet, and I've mentioned that before as a major reason for getting back into skiing leathers. I found I actually really enjoy it though. I like the freedom and I love how it feels to make a decent tele turn on that gear. It's goddamn hard, and no one would ever argue otherwise, but when you get it right it sooooo nice... and seen as how I'm not skiing aggressive, mountainous terrain, the actual majority of my time is spent kicking and gliding or make small turns through the trees on either short steeps or mellow grades.

My wife has a pair of plastic boots, and she likes them for the control, but she'll tell you she doesn't like them for covering terrain or being on flats. And she's as unbiased as any skier could be. Since she's been getting better at controlling her skis with leathers, she tends to prefer them. If she was going to a long, mostly downhill tour, I'm sure she'd still use her plastic boots.