My 2 cents on the OP’s question:
My theory on why beginners perfer skate is due to ease, it is easy to apply force to the snow with skate technique and create propulsion. In classic if you technique is poor you can not really push with out slipping. I have found now with experience I can real drive my hips and glie leg creating good glide during DS technique. This gets the heart pumping! if my kick wax is off i focus more on the push of the stance leg. Technique is huge. If you can not create a good “bond” with the snoand ski you can not push very hard. In skate this is not a problem
Just skating this winter but will add classic next year with my little one on the backpack. I learned skate back in the 80’s when I was 10-11 and got decent at it and destroyed the local competition as they only had 1 race for the kids then. I was beating kids 2 and 3 years older, and they did not like it.
Plenty of people start skiing with classic and never get beyond the shuffling phase, so it’s not like classic skiing first guarantees proper weight shift. What is important for both techniques is to have good coaching and/or an understanding of weight shift and body position, and to focus initially on these two things more than poling or other details.
I learned to ski by skating, since it was all that was used in races when I was on my school’s ski team. Classic is certainly harder for me to go any given speed - so I’d argue it’s harder physically. Also, to classic fast/well is probably subtler than skating, but to skate easy/slow (which I can do) is probably subtler than to classic ski easy. I can skate easy on almost any groomed terrain - it just take good technique, which not everyone has.
It is certainly possible to skate pretty fast with bad technique, while that’s much harder with classic.
I can’t comment on the value of any particular technique over the other for triathlon, but the analogy of classic being more like running and skating more like cycling sounds about right. Both are great.
PS - people have skated on skis probably as long as skis have existed and have used brief amounts of skating in racing for decades (such as in turns and unconsiously when herringboning - much the same way alpine skiers skate too). There are images of early skating in Einar Svensson’s book Ski Skating with Champions. When we say skating in “new,” it means that skating as a principal means of propulsion is new - only since the 1980s.
Off to go skate for the first time. Will report results, or lack of.
Update: Managed to pick it up reasonably quickly, more quickly than I thought I would. Out for about 90mins, pretty good workout. Something is going to be hurting tomorrow, I’m not sure what, but something will be.
I’m jealous for anyone that got to spend a day in the snow!
I have done clasic since my first pair of skiis in 1978 (I was 7). A few years ago,I took a one day lesson on skate skiing and loved it but for me the two aren’t the same sport. My routes when I lived in Idaho was a combination of ungroomed trials on a golf course and mountain trails. The more I skiied before the next snow the more “groomed” the trail was. I love the freedom in winter from the skiis and the workout in deep snow is amazing.
Skate skiing for me is amazing and fun but it is really civilized. Not for exploring and more like road biking where clasic for me is like mountain biking. The legs kill and while I could move along easily, it did take me some time to work out proper pole timing.
As far as triathlon, I think the best is clasic skiing first tracks in 1-2 feet of snow. Even better if you fall occasionally in really deep snow which simulates swiming and the start of races.
I am interested in starting to try XC skiing. Never been at all. Only have been alpine / Downhill skiing. Couple questions if you don’t mind. Can you use classic skis for skate skiing as well. I am sure there are two different kinds, but are they kind of interchangable? As far as the bindings are concerned, are they compatible with most xc ski boots? Sorry don’t know much about the sport, but it seems like it be a good diversion, and since the snow here won’t probably melt for another 2 months.
Thanks,
Chris
My routes when I lived in Idaho was a combination of ungroomed trials on a golf course and mountain trails. The more I skied before the next snow the more “groomed” the trail was. I love the freedom in winter from the skiis and the workout in deep snow is amazing.
Skate skiing for me is amazing and fun but it is really civilized. Not for exploring and more like road biking where classic for me is like mountain biking. The legs kill and while I could move along easily, it did take me some time to work out proper pole timing.
This is the thing, for most people for skating, they need a groomed trail( not always I’ll get to that in second). Whereas, for classic, you don’t need a groomed trail. Certainly a groomed classic track is better, but if you have wider touring boards you can ski anywhere and as you mentioned you can wear-in your own tracks. I used to live right beside a golf course and there was a few of us in the neighborhood who would get out a ski this lap around the outer permiter of the course on classic set-ups, and ski in an OK track. It was not perfect, but for that level of skiing that I could do, almost from my front door, it was amazing.
As I said, for most people skating needs to be done at a facility that has groomed trails. Now there are certain situations where you may find you can skate away from groomed trails. On frozen lakes, often the wind blows a lot of the deeper snow off the lake and a thin layer of snow is left with a bit of a crust on top. You can skate on this. We do this up at our cottage in Muskoka. Also in the spring on a deeper settled snow-pack, you can crust ski skating on the top of the snow. Again, I have done this in the woods at our cottage.
Snowmobile trails can also be used for skating, but I say this with extreme caution - use these trails only if you know the snowmobile traffic will be light and that you will be safe.
I am interested in starting to try XC skiing. Never been at all. Only have been alpine / Downhill skiing. Couple questions if you don’t mind. Can you use classic skis for skate skiing as well. I am sure there are two different kinds, but are they kind of interchangable? As far as the bindings are concerned, are they compatible with most xc ski boots? Sorry don’t know much about the sport, but it seems like it be a good diversion, and since the snow here won’t probably melt for another 2 months.
Thanks,
Chris
Skate and classic are two different kinds of equipment and are not really interchangeable. You can do a bit of skating with classic equipment, especially if it is steep but really it is designed for more of the “shuffle” movement. Bindings are different also so you really need two complete sets including poles if you do both. There are three main types of XC (clasic, skate, and backcountry) The width of the ski and binding increase. Within this group there are wax and waxless options.
If you are interested in the sport, I’d suggest going to a nordic center and renting each option with a class. I enjoy both but for me, they are different experiences. I enjoy skiing and snowboarding, road and mountain biking so maybe I lack commitment or just enjoy being outside. Many universities also rent through their rec center and most are open to the public.
I just tried skate skiing for the first time today too. I was a varsity skier in the mid-80s when I was at university, and it was only classic skiing back then. As others have said, I would do the skating motion around corners and a bit leading into uphills so I did have a bit of a feel for it, but I had never actually rented skate equipment and spent an entire session using it.
Here is what I just emailed to my coach: I would say it was good, although my glutes were burning within the first 5 minutes. I’m good on the flats and the downhills are no different than on my skis, maybe a little easier since the skis are shorter. I can herringbone up the biggest hills the same as on my own skis, again, a bit easier to manouevre b/c the skate skis are shorter. My challenge is on the slight uphills where I am trying to keep my skating momentum and would normally diagonal stride with just shorter strides. I’m switching to walking a LOT sooner.
It definitely uses the upper body more/differently but is also using parts of the lower body differently. For sure no squats or leg press required tonight!!! I feel like it used my back/lats more than classic. My HR was still very high, quite similar to classic skiing so I know I got a good workout (I am BAGGED tonight after only 1hr10 min of skiing). That is all the time I had to ski but that would be all I would have done via skating anyway. If I had had more time I would have switched to my classic skis, which I had in the car.
I would have to spend a LOT of time to get smoother at it, but I don’t have a problem with that…. That’s how I learned classic after all!
Having experienced the skating now, I think I will buy a set of skating gear and do as others have said on the other skiing thread - take both sets and spend some time on each during my 3 hr Sunday ski, or if the conditions call for it, choose one or the other.
BTW, today in SW Ontario it was -6C and glorious sunshine!!!
Get an AT setup.
Skis:
East Coast: Black Diamond Guru
West Coast: Kilowatt
Fritschi Diamir Eagle bindings
Scarpa T1 boots (or the T4 if you really want to Tele)
AT lets you free the heel, tour & climb…but also allows an alpine setup for the lift area…it sure ain’t skate skiing but it’s kind of the best of both worlds.
Tele turns will probably be the closest thing that skiing has to using cycling specific muscle groups too…
Half a binding…half a brain.
JC
skate by all means
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My challenge is on the slight uphills where I am trying to keep my skating momentum and would normally diagonal stride with just shorter strides.
It’s similar to classic or running up a hill in that whatever technique you are using to go up the hill - typically The Offset skate technique when you are starting out - you increase the turnover, and in the case of skating the glide portion gets shorter and shorter as the hill steepens and you keep increasing the turnover.
Once you nail the three sub techniques of, the Offset, the V1 and the V2, it’s a question of matching each one up with the terrain, and then fine tuning that with the turnover you are using. When you get fit and you really have the technique down, with skating, it starts to become a game of carrying the momentum that you have built up. It’s extraordinary how fast the top skiers can skate. Even on demanding World Cup courses they are skating 50K in 2 hrs or a bit less!!
I thought offset = V1, 1 skate = V2, and 2 skate = V2 alternate.
So the 3 techniques would be V1, V2, and V2 alternate or offset, 1 skate, and 2 skate depending on the lingo/area you live.
Dave
You forgot the V-Gina…where you plant the pole between the skis.
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Thanks Steve. So instead of diagonal stride, double pole & kick-double pole, it’s 3 different things to transition between. Got it.
(I need to go to google & youtube now, methinks!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ts7UYQXxts&feature=related
gotta feel for the one guy there
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I think Classic is more related to triathlon muscles but Skate is better to do on the off-season to relieve main muscles used for biking and running.
Dave,
I agree that there seems to be some regional variation in what people call things - and then I might even have it wrong! 