Cross Country Ski Excuses Pt. 3: Advanced

You thought 2 years of Excuses blogs (Excuses 1 and Excuses 2) was the end? The thing about excuses… they are unlimited. So without further ado, here is Cross Country Skiing Excuses, part 3: Advanced skier lingo that will convince even the most experienced skiers of your hardship

I’ll list out the lingo, and then use it in a sentence so that you can get it right.

1. Mention of camber, flex, or grind

It’s a very small group of people in the world who truly understand the workings of ski camber, flex, and base qualities. You can’t go wrong blaming these, and they sound very advanced. 

“These skis are the wrong flex for me”

“These skis have an unusual camber”

“I was on the wrong grind”

2. Name dropping specific waxes

Another pretty niche skill - waxing. Hypothesizing that another wax would have been better is effective at asserting your knowledge and experience while providing a good excuse.

“It was a klister cover day but I was on hardwax”

“Swix V40 was definitely the call”

“I should have used a topcoat”

3. Blame it on the brand

It’s always a good option to blame the entire ski brand. Ski brands have slightly different types of skis, so you can’t go wrong, as long as you aren’t talking to someone on that brand who made it work.

“Today was totally Rossignol conditions, and I’m on [different brand]”

"I'd be better at classic if I were on Madshus"

4. Blame the conditions in vague technical terms

Similarly, the key here is to eliminate your audience’s ability to know if you’re making stuff up. 

“My skis were catching”

“The snow was grabby”

“The tracks had transformed by the time I went”

"The track wasn't skied-in for me"

5. Incorporating any of the following terms

   just throw them in, you can't miss

• gliding sidewall

• Skate X

• technique zone

• swing weight

• BOA

• NIS key

• homologation

6. Hail Mary

   if the first 5 strategies don’t work, squeeze the skis between your hands and publicly observe that they are bad skis

   
   

   "I knew it"

good luck out there and remember a bad race is never your fault

-Renae

always a beautiful day on skis