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Old February 26th 11, 01:14 AM posted to rec.skiing.nordic
Morris Keesan
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Posts: 8
Default Adjusting NIS bindings?

On Sun, 09 Jan 2011 20:37:23 -0500, Morris Keesan
wrote:

Answering my own question, after discussing the issue with a different
salesperson at the same store where I bought the skis (while I was in
buying a second pair of the same ski [except that the second pair is
waxless]): Adjustment of the NIS bindings is extremely unlikely to have
had anything to do with kick problems. The suggestion is that I might
want to move the bindings forward one click for very hard snow, in order
to put more weight on the tips for better turning, and back one click from
the neutral position for very soft snow, to get weight OFF the tips.
As an experiment, this morning while skiing on freshly-falling powder
which hadn't yet been groomed, I moved the bindings back one position
after about an hour, and honestly, I couldn't tell the difference: I might
have been getting marginally-better glide, but I couldn't be sure. Since
I don't care at all about tiny differences in speed, my conclusion is that
I shouldn't worry about the issue at all. In soft snow, I *expect* to go
slower, and in hard snow when it's difficult to control turns, my reaction
is to slow down, use a wider wedge and more edge.

gene wrote:
What concerns me most from your description is how you ended up with
these skis. If the store staff doesn't know about using NIS, that
suggests you got them from somewhere that doesn't specialize (e.g.,
REI). And if they don't know about NIS, then they probably don't know
how to fit skis properly to your weight, age, ability and needs. So
when I hear about your kick problems, it could be the day's conditions
were simply too warm for kick wax (vs. using klister), and/or the skis
are too stiff, i.e., not flexible enough, for you to get good purchase.
If the latter, I'd take them back. But first, get more info: visit a
real x-c ski shop(s) to get their opinion.


I chose the skis after skiing on several different pairs from a few
different manufacturers, at a demo day, and bought them a few weeks later
from a store that does specialize in XC (except in the summer, when they
sell bicycles). I chose the particular pair over a slightly-differently-
flexed (as measured by the store on their flex tester) same-sized pair,
after a fair amount of discussion. The issue with NIS adjustment was that
the salesperson who sold me the first (waxable) pair just wasn't good at
explaining. After talking with the second salesperson last month, I
realized that the first person had been trying to explain the same thing.

The kick problems last spring were simply a matter of having trouble
finding
the right wax; with blue hard wax at 20F, the skis are a dream. The day
in question was definitely not a klister day: the snow was newly-fallen,
with the temperature hovering around freezing and slightly above. My
problem was being a little too conservative, not wanting to wax too warm,
so I started out with some kind of violet, and (too) gradually moved up
through violets and into reds. On any other day like that, I would have
said the hell with it, and switched to waxless, but I was being stubbornly
persistent because I really wanted to use my new skis.
--
Morris Keesan --
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