Contact   Imprint   Advertising   Guidelines

Waxing for Freeride/Racing

Forum for snow- and landkiters
User avatar
dirtybeach
Rare Poster
Posts: 39
Joined: Wed Apr 12, 2017 4:45 pm
Gear: Naish Tomo WMFG
Brand Affiliation: None
Has thanked: 5 times
Been thanked: 4 times

Waxing for Freeride/Racing

Postby dirtybeach » Tue Feb 04, 2020 4:49 pm

As you know, snowkiting is very abrasive due to prolonged riding distances, and aggressive snow crystals (frozen lakes).

Yesterday I tested a new (new to North American market) wax called Nanox. I used the training wax model in the very hard snow version.

I have experience in with swix, toko, holmenkol, maplus, dominator, race service, kuu, and a few other minor brands. I am a race service technician by trade.

Before session
AC757E5F-A183-4E04-A4E0-9EF2ECBCA242.jpeg
After session
2241CF2A-624D-4E98-9846-D147C9339889.jpeg
Session was on frozen lake, air temp 0cel, old transformed snow type. Duaration was non stop for 2 hours approx 50km. At about 5-10 into session, it was like someone flipped a switch and my board speed increased 25-40%. I felt the speed drop off at about 1.5 hrs. In my past experience, I have found that other waxes last about 30min, and specialty base hardeners might get you about an hour of good glide. I initially applied Nanox to a dry base - as per recommendations.

The takeaways- Nanox is an all temp, non fluoro wax, with a very fast and easy application. (See video) With repeated wax cycles, I expect the durability to increase.

Cheers,

These users thanked the author dirtybeach for the post:
edt (Thu Feb 06, 2020 6:38 pm)
Rating: 3.03%

tomtom
Very Frequent Poster
Posts: 1693
Joined: Sun Nov 03, 2002 1:00 am
Has thanked: 23 times
Been thanked: 218 times

Re: Waxing for Freeride/Racing

Postby tomtom » Tue Feb 04, 2020 5:02 pm

Cool, thanks for tip. Im still struggling with various "30 min" waxes. I was about try liquid wax from swix to in session "relube"
These users thanked the author tomtom for the post:
dirtybeach (Tue Feb 04, 2020 5:18 pm)
Rating: 3.03%

User avatar
dirtybeach
Rare Poster
Posts: 39
Joined: Wed Apr 12, 2017 4:45 pm
Gear: Naish Tomo WMFG
Brand Affiliation: None
Has thanked: 5 times
Been thanked: 4 times

Re: Waxing for Freeride/Racing

Postby dirtybeach » Tue Feb 04, 2020 5:28 pm

IME, liquid waxes are the least durable. But it can be useful - for example if you are racing, it could give you that competitive edge at the start line.

With the new EU ban on fluoro waxes, (fis has followed suit), the big companies are scrambling to develope non-fluoro race waxes. Some of them are perusing nanotechnology. Nanox has been in business for 15 years, I’d say their product hasn’t been popular due to distribution (or lack of). It only became readily available in Canada about 4-5 years ago.

If you are looking for a race layer - I’d suggest nanox cfx2 on top of a Nanox train layer.

Personally I think this stuff is a game changer, try it out, just make sure you follow the application methods outlined in the video.

tomtom
Very Frequent Poster
Posts: 1693
Joined: Sun Nov 03, 2002 1:00 am
Has thanked: 23 times
Been thanked: 218 times

Re: Waxing for Freeride/Racing

Postby tomtom » Tue Feb 04, 2020 6:12 pm

No racing, I just like it light - no fighting with board :) Good glide is super important for me. EU distrubution is OK, I will give it try. I also like they recommendation of just wearing old wax :).
Question for you as race service technician - How much is important to get it stone grind vs stock + usage marks. I mean like surface is 50% and wax 50%.

Many thanks!

User avatar
dirtybeach
Rare Poster
Posts: 39
Joined: Wed Apr 12, 2017 4:45 pm
Gear: Naish Tomo WMFG
Brand Affiliation: None
Has thanked: 5 times
Been thanked: 4 times

Re: Waxing for Freeride/Racing

Postby dirtybeach » Tue Feb 04, 2020 6:47 pm

A stone grind is important at the elite level (racing). For the riding we do, I would say not not necessary. You definitely want to apply it on a dry base. Nanox doesn’t work to its potential on a contaminated base (old wax, dirt). Hope that helps.

tomtom
Very Frequent Poster
Posts: 1693
Joined: Sun Nov 03, 2002 1:00 am
Has thanked: 23 times
Been thanked: 218 times

Re: Waxing for Freeride/Racing

Postby tomtom » Tue Feb 04, 2020 6:51 pm

It helps! I just wear it to dry :)

User avatar
dirtybeach
Rare Poster
Posts: 39
Joined: Wed Apr 12, 2017 4:45 pm
Gear: Naish Tomo WMFG
Brand Affiliation: None
Has thanked: 5 times
Been thanked: 4 times

Re: Waxing for Freeride/Racing

Postby dirtybeach » Wed Feb 05, 2020 6:54 pm

tomtom wrote:
Tue Feb 04, 2020 6:51 pm
It helps! I just wear it to dry :)
Nice thanks.

I would suggest to do at least 2 wax cycles (I only did 1).

I’m in process of doing 3 wax cycles, hoping I can achieve 4hrs of good glide, before having to wax again.

If you end up trying Nanox, report back here and try to include snow type and air temperatures if you can.

Cheers 🍻

Edit - inadvertently added emoticon

tomtom
Very Frequent Poster
Posts: 1693
Joined: Sun Nov 03, 2002 1:00 am
Has thanked: 23 times
Been thanked: 218 times

Re: Waxing for Freeride/Racing

Postby tomtom » Wed Feb 05, 2020 7:36 pm

Ok I will let you know. Only problem is I must wait for snow, there was warm wind storm /almost 100mph gusts/ which melt all snow till 1800 m...
These users thanked the author tomtom for the post:
dirtybeach (Wed Feb 05, 2020 9:14 pm)
Rating: 3.03%

Matteo V
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 0

Re: Waxing for Freeride/Racing

Postby Matteo V » Thu Feb 06, 2020 2:35 pm

I, too, have been through lots of brands of waxes. Eventually I came across Hertel " super hot sauce". I found that given it's soft properties, I could rub it in with a wine cork at very low temperatures. This means I can wax right in the parking lot at the mountain each morning when I get up. This wax is also extremely fast at warmer temperatures, and comprable to every other cold wax at lower temperatures. I actually have not found a better warm wax that is hydrocarbon.

While I have thousands of dollars of tuning and waxing equipment, I use a very cheap kit for most of my needs now.

For a quick rub on of "Hertel", I use a block of Wax, colored on very well, and then rub it in quickly with a composite wine cork. I do impregnate the wine cork with wax before I put it into service. To wax impregnate, I just use my spoon cooker (spoon with a lighter under it), and heat up some wax fairly hot and set the tip of the cork in it. I then allow the wax to cool with the cork sitting in the wax so the wax is sucked up into the pores. I only do this once as once impregnated, the cork will always have wax in it as you will be rubbing over the top of wax colored on the board anyway.

I have not found any other wax that works with this, nor have I found any wax that is actually all temperature like Hertel is.

For a hot wax on my base, I use the same wax. One way to get around buying a waxing iron, though they are relatively cheap, is to use a heat gun. These can be had for as cheap as 8.99 at Harbor Freight. A $40 750 watt inverter can power a heat gun on low only. But that is enough to get the job done. That same inverter should power in 800 watt waxing iron too. And by using a heat gun with colored on wax, you use much less wax. Just make sure that you treat the heat gun like an iron where you don't want the wax to stay liquid on your base for very long. You will notice how much less wax you use as scraping is almost unnecessary. But when you do scrape you're not losing so much wax.

With the heat gun method, sometimes I will stainless steel brush a really ugly worn down structureless base, or brass brush a still visibly structured base. But with all of this, you have to realize that you're just snowkiting, and having a perfect base with no core shots, isn't absolutely necessary like it is on the hill.

While the above methods are absolutely fine for maintenance of a kite snowboard, if you have a really nice board that you want to use on the hill, I would use a more traditional wax iron and all of the accompanying Edge tuning equipment. To me though, you just don't need is nice of an edge and base for snowkiting. But you do want a nice edge and base on the hill.


Hertel wax has only one Achilles heel that I don't really care about because of how easy it is to reapply on edge burn at the end of a session or before a session in the parking lot. This issue is that the wax is a bit soft and rubs off fairly quickly in abrasive situations. However snotemp seems to not affect it, as cold or warm soft snow does not rip this wax off any quicker than any other hard based wax I've ever used. But it does have a tendency to get rubbed off quicker in icy conditions, or when playing on parking lot piles which have an obvious content of gravel and dirt mixed in.

User avatar
dirtybeach
Rare Poster
Posts: 39
Joined: Wed Apr 12, 2017 4:45 pm
Gear: Naish Tomo WMFG
Brand Affiliation: None
Has thanked: 5 times
Been thanked: 4 times

Re: Waxing for Freeride/Racing

Postby dirtybeach » Wed Feb 12, 2020 12:42 am

I did 2.5 wax cycles (half the dry board from first cycle).
Put just over 4 hours of riding in fresh snow 6-12”, and have little wear on the heel edge. I’m pretty happy with Nanox so far, but I would recommend at least 2 wax cycles when using it for the first time.
6773DB41-8904-4953-862C-EFC282EF8719.jpeg
40B7B72D-9221-43C3-885D-15D03F2D3439.jpeg


Return to “Snow / Land”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Steve in Gypsum and 131 guests