V2 is called 1-skate in Canada - it’s one double poling motion with each skating motion.
Also - the Gatineau Loppet is great. I did it a few times (50K freestyle race) earlier this decade, when it was called the Keskinada. Would really like to go this year but can’t make it. You know they have a shorter version in classic and freestyle each day - about 28K I think. In just under two weeks from now.
Some photos from the start in 2004
" get CRUSHED by a lot of older women who aren’t very fit when we’re skating."
I’ve finished behind 70-year-old women at skate races… fairly sure I could outrun them though 
Usually will skate until I can’t physically go any more, then classic until dark…
If its any consolation my skating skillz are far superior to classic. maybe it’s because all of our races in high school were skating so I rarely did classic. Now I try to mix it up when i go out, but I feel like a deadbeat when I start doing classic. I just started using klisters…so maybe that will help in old/icy snow. I find classic to be more of a touring/steady state thing to do. It seems like whenever I’m skating I naturally want to try and go fast.
Maybe part of my problem with classic is that I always skate first, so I’m pretty tired when I put the classic ski’s on.
To the original poster: I wouldn’t put much stock in people’s running/cycling ability in comparison to their skiing ability. There was a runner from kenya (philip boit) who has been in 2 or 3 olympics for xc skiing. He was a looooong way behind. I’m not sure exactly how fast he was at running, but I’m assuming he was pretty good.
Years ago we were skiing (classic) up in New Hampshire, a mother and daughter (probably age 6) passed us like we were standing still, what graceful form I will never forget. Wondering if that kid is now on the olympic training team…
V2 or “one-skate” as they call it in Canada is a double pole for every leg push. It’s the one time that skaters go quite a bit faster than classic skiers. At the Olympic and World Cup level, skate skiers will ski more than 40% of the course in V2 and use V1 or two skate for steep hills only. In classic racing these days, the elite guys spend most of their time double poling in the tracks and only diagonal up hills.
I ski at Highlands Nordic south of Collingwood and Mono Nordic in Orangeville. I ski Hardwood a few times a year and will do the Fischer Loppett.
For the OP and others:
Like you, I got the classic skis out of the garage for the first time in probably 10-15 years. I missed the whole skate phenomenon. But, back when I was a regular classic guy, I got sick of waxing and went waxless for the last set I purchased. I was good at keeping a good wax edge and picking the right wax for the temps; just got sick of doing it (and it seems like the last ski of the year always required the goopy red wax that allowed a summer’s worth of leaves to stay attached until the next season).
For today’s equipment standards, are there wax and no-wax skate skis?
This might be the duh? question of the day, sort of like do I need brake pads on a bike…
Even “waxless” classic skis still require glide wax - they just use fishscales in place of kick wax. With skate skis you wax the whole ski with glide wax. If you don’t really care about maximal glide and optimal speed, pick a temp that’s “pretty close” for where you ski and call it done.
Assuming the skis are tuned similarly and on a similar course I will do a 10k about 5 min faster skate then classic. Which I think is close to that 25% diff previously mentioned. Basically I’ll do a 10k in around 24-26 minutes and 30 or so for classic. But that is also in CO where most all of our races are close to 10,000 feet.
A competent skier will always be significantly faster skating than classic that’s where the technique came from. It was much faster to skate turns and marathon skate slight inclines and it just kind of started from there. Plus, it’s easier to prep your skis and there’s not as much finesse to skating as there is to classic technique.
I think if you have the climate to nordic ski you should learn both techniques, just to mix it up a bit. And, again due to CO elevation, I like to classic when I don’t want to go very hard. It’s easier to go easy on classic skis, particularly when climbing.
Jimmy
Good info. Thanks everybody for all the info and comments. Keep it coming if you have anymore! I feel like I’m being pulled forward through 25 years of skiing development 
I really should classic ski more…but between biking, running, skate skiing and speedskating in the winter, seems like there is hardly any time to classic (note that swimming gets dropped too). I’m probably 30% faster skate skiing.
If anyone is coming up for the Gatineau Loppet, drop me a note in advance!
Dude that’s fast. Is that a hilly course or pretty gentle/rolling? For a hilly course, that’s elite level. Of course it also depends on the snow conditions, there are days it takes me 28 min to skate 10 km and others it’s more like 32.