I've been trying to hit the rollerskis twice per week. Election day, I went over to a culdesac near work. It is a 0.77 mile loop with a small hill in it. Schools were closed. The streets were packed with kids of all ages. Kids are mesmerized by rollerskis, especially when you go flying by in a fast V2. There must have been a dozen kids around the loop that talked to me or commented most times I went by during my 15 laps. I found it to be as good of a motivator as hecklers around a CX course. Two young kids, probably around kindergarten age, wanted to know my name, what those things were, why I was doing it, why I kept doing it. It was a conversation where they screamed out a question and I answered it each lap. Pretty funny. A couple older kids thought I was on scooter bases.
Closer to home, I have another 0.95 mile loop I do with a more serious hill in it. This climb has a peak grade of 7% and gains nearly 100ft. It too is at the end of a culdesac, so traffic is light. The descent is spread out so speed reducers are not required. I do go over 20 mph though, and there are four driveways and one side street on this section. For those not familiar with rollerskis, they have no brakes. I can control my speed somewhat by snow-plowing, but this would never work in time if a car suddenly pulls out in front of you.This is the first season I've been able to V2 on rollerskis. I'm actually comfortable V2'ing now. V2 is the skate technique where you double pole with each leg push, like pole right-push, pole left-push, pole right-push, etc. It requires very good balance and timing. My core and upper body have never felt stronger on skis. I think I retained more from last winter's skiing than in winters past. Core work is not part of my routine during any part of the season. Most of my workouts this fall have exclusively been V2 technique training. That is twice as much poling than the V1 or V2a techniques I've used in the past. It will be very interesting to see how this translates to snow this winter. I do plan to dabble in more races, perhaps even trying the Lake Placid Loppet again. Those scars (my first ski race was there) have finally healed.
It is time to transition to interval workouts on rollerskis. Most of my work has been focused on technique improvement without a lot of climbing, averaging around 10-12mph (easy to moderate). I'd like to get out to Wachusett for some sustained climbing drills. They don't allow rollerskis on the summit road when the park is open, but it is gated now. Mile Hill Rd to the entrance can be trafficy though. 1000ft climbs makes for nice threshold intervals. Hiking back down kind of sucks though. I would not trust the speed reducers on my Jenex rollerskis. The 5" diameter pneumatic tires would burst into flames before I reached the bottom.
Hoping for a repeat of last winter - copious snow in the mountains, bare singletrack on the Cape. Life doesn't get any better than that.
11 comments:
No core work? Wow. It'd be scary to think how strong you'd be on the bike and skis. I can send you a routine you can do at your house if you're interested. (I'm a cert. PT through NASM) What is the steepest gradient you'd expect to see on a x-ski course?
I know, I take a lot of crap for no core work. So far, I've remained injury free, but I do struggle from time to time with tight hamstrings. I read with interest a while back about Alex Jospe's core routine. The deal is, I don't know how I'd find the time. It would have to come out of other training time.
You could expect peak grades of >20% on a ski course, maybe 8-10% grades for extended distances. One of my favorite skate ski climbs is Tripoli Rd at Waterville Valley. It's 6% avg for 2 miles with embedded bits much steeper.
sub 1 mile loops? Ouchy...thats like skiing around Weston Ski Track all the time. Go find a a decently paved back road somewhere (Those Aero's will take nearly anything, until you bust a tire and they become useless) and go for a nice long ski. Or throw in some straight up double poling for specific strength improvement. Two workouts are a long slow version, and then you can also do a bunch of hill repeats (30s-1min) to build up a lot of good core strength.
Doing 10-15 laps around any circuit gets monotonous. I certainly avoid this like the plague on the bike. If I need to get in a set of 20-30 minute intervals, I ride a single loop that has a set of 20-30 minutes climbs. I've rollerskied the CSU loop that starts in Hopkinton before. I think that went 40k. Need the speed reducers for that, and I've had too many failures with the Aero's to trust them on long loops anymore. Long bouts of double poling ends up thrashing my back (probably no surprise, no core work throughout the year). What it really boils down to is this. To make a bigger commitment to skiing, I'll have give up a little performance on the bike me thinks. Some day I may make that trade.
You should try the CSU loop in Littleton, I've never needed speed reducers on that one. Then again, I didn't need them going down the Gilead, ME side of Evans notch yesterday either. There's a reason people (other than everyone in CSU, for some reason) don't really use Aero's very often. Too heavy...too prone to failure...too expensive...
So which rollerkis do you use? Besides the Aero 125's, I have Pursuits with 100mm solid tires. I haven't used the Aero's in over a year despite just putting a fresh set of tires on. Friends that use the Aero 150's have no issues with tires. Just the 125's were crap. I love the Pursuits. Very light, very easy to maintain a high tempo. The deal is, the Pursuits are temperamental on messy rail trails. The 125's handle pine cones and tree debris no problem.
I've biked Evans several times. Not sure I would take my Pursuits down the upper part of the Gilead side. Be a great climb though.
I use Ski Skett Sharks, or recently, ProSki S5e's. So very similar to the Pursuits.
How do the Pursuit wheels wear? I'm interested in buying some, as the wheels on my Sharks are pretty close to done (hence the proskis). The descent was not bad at all on 100mm skis, as long as you were careful. The people who skied it were totally fine, I "snowplowed" a little bit in spots, but those skis roll over bumps better than you would expect. Pine cones and wet leaves can be an issue though. Not a big fan of rail trails, all that crap and no hills.
Best I can tell, I have about 640 miles (1025km) on my Pursuits. I have earlier model with polyurethane (PU) wheels up front and rubber in back (custom). The PU wheels are fast and are not wearing much. Maybe 25% down? The rubber wheels in back are slow and are maybe 50% to replacement. After a hard ski, the front wheels are cool, the rear wheels are hot. I think my Pursuits are just a bit too fast set up they way they are. Rubber front and rear might be too slow. What's notable, is I can't get half this many km's on V2 Aero wheels before I have my first tire failure. The tires delaminate internally and shred the tube.
The Pursuits are now offered with three, not two, wheel speeds. None of the three choices are PU anymore. They are all rubber, fast, medium and slow. A slow/slow combination is recommended only for the most advanced skiers. I have new set of PU/rubber wheels on hand for when it's time to replace them. I think I'll get to snow before having to replace the rear wheels this season. Replacements on the Pursuits are cheap and quick compared to the Aero's.
Doug, I was interested in purchasing a pair of Skikes. Do you now of any pros/cons about this type of roller ski? Any help you could provide would be appreciated.
This is first I heard of Skikes. Just by going on their website, they seem to be well built. I bet they are heavy. I would probably prefer to use my real boot and binding system however. Not sure how street shoe approach would feel.
My biggest consern is the tires. I have had nothing but grief with my pneumatic V2 Aero rollerskis by Jenex. These have 125mm pneumatic tires. I can't find what size the Skikes are. I can't even get a season out of new set of tires, and a set of four tubes and tires is expensive. Very cumbersome to replace too. I've twice had to fix flats on a long workout. This means I have to carry spare tube, tire, tools and pump. Really weighs you down. Friends with the 150mm tire version have had much better success. Those have such low rolling resistance compared to snow though. The last two seasons I've skied exclusively on my Pursuit rollerskis with solid 100mm tires. I'm still on original set of tires. No worries about flats. They are very light. Only downside is I have no viable breaking option other than to snowplow (which you can surprisingly do on modest grades). Hope this helps.
Hi Doug, I ended up buying the pursuits back in early February. It took me about a month to get use to them. It was really comical at first. My wife got a few good chuckles. Now I feel real comfortable on them. I used to love cross country skiing but with three kids and limited resources it’s no longer affordable. Now I can “cross country ski” right in my Johnston, RI neighborhood. It’s a dream come true, all because of your blog. Thank you so much.
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