We’re one week into the World Cup season, folks. Not going to lie, it was tough to not be on the broadcast at all this weekend, especially with the voluminous prep work I’ve been stashing away the last couple weeks.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, here’s a glimpse:

• Lucas Chanavat feature
• Haley Brewster feature
• UVM coach Patrick Weaver Q/A
• A look at the German squad
• U.S. Ski team preview > this story has unique quotes that were originally intended for broadcast use, but since I was not going to be on FIS TV this period, we turned it into a written piece (after securing permission of course).
• Lucas Chanavat podcast
• Brewster podcast
• Hugo Lapalus podcast
• Jules Chappaz podcast
• Andrew Musgrave podcast
• James Clugnet podcast
• Joe Davies podcast
• Matt Whitcomb podcast
• Reflection show

Considering this isn’t my full-time job — I think I posted something like 46 bylines (that’s a lot….a lot.) for the Vail Daily in the month of November — I’m feeling satisfied with the content production here.

Also, we’ve added 10 paid subscribers in the last 27 days! Thank you for joining GripWax Nation people!

Moving forward, I plan to keep the Weekly Wax open and available to all, but most other content on this site will just be for supporters. Ironically, I was debating on shifting solely to podcasts for the foreseeable future. It’s a much more time-efficient medium for me and offers more bang for the fans’ buck, too (I mean, we cranked out five of the above podcasts in one morning…before 8:45 a.m….)

Then, people started subscribing here and I felt obligated to give them something special. Anyway, I’m being transparent just in case there is a sudden shift in the content creation plan.

Speaking of honesty, I was honestly set up for our first World Cup WhineLine on Sunday afternoon, but, Novi woke up early from her nap and I did not feel like taking the risk of going live — even if we were only going to be in front of like, 8 people — with her practicing alphabet flashcards in the background. Alas, I think having a live show where people — fans, Andy Newell, critics, etc. — could call in with a hot take is a great idea, and I haven’t given up on it yet….

Side note: Novi knows her entire alphabet and is inching closer to reading books. She also asked where Klaebo was on Sunday….but was most fascinated by the rabbit who took to the course in the men’s race.

We did post ‘World Cup winners and losers’ — more of a column/editorial — for each World Cup day last weekend. Not sure if I can sustain that, but, here’s my thought in doing it in the first place: most North American ski fans are watching these races; thus, the standard ‘gamer’ isn’t value added to the media space in my opinion (Particularly bad ‘gamers’ that feel as though they’re being written by the athletes’ parents or PR arms of the U.S. Ski Team…alas, I digress….and no, not everyone writes bad gamers….ok, that wasn’t very nice…where is my delete button….).

But seriously, where are the ski columnists? Nowhere. We do need true news stories and true columns — we don’t need stories that are a blend of both. At this site, I hope it’s clear when we venture into each style.

Now, for some stuff you actually care about:

Training has been a little rough here in Leadville lately. I mostly blame the city of Leadville and the groomers, or lack thereof. The Mineral Belt was rolled, finally, this afternoon. CMC hasn’t been groomed. Tennessee Pass got a pass, but I literally ran into an entire moose family there late last night (Bull, cow, calf..it was crazy…..Ajee scared them away).

Our city didn’t plow any streets after the 30-inch nuke we got over Thanksgiving, making running really unsafe. I could ski down the road, which I did, but that was also kind of unsafe, and after awhile, pretty boring, too.

So, hours are a little down, fitness is a little unknown, and morale is, well, I’m a dad. I did contribute to a fantastic Turkey day dinner and made a follow-up soup that was pretty good, too. But soup isn’t going to get me to the skiclassics, so….fail.

Plus, over the next two weeks, I’ll be covering 5 days of Alpine World Cup racing in Beaver Creek, plus a half-dozen training days. I don’t feel like I have tons of time to workout in the near future. My plan is to sleep out of the Avalanche in Vail, write, run, ski, eat, repeat….pray for me.

Another exciting piece of writing-related news: I’ve been grinding on the Ivan Babikov book! I’m hoping to make significant progress on that front this winter….Plodcast, baby.

What’s coming

• University of Alaska Fairbanks coach Eliska Albrigtsen joins the podcast to chat about Joe Davies, Kendall Kramer and Rosie Fordham, training philosophy, Johaug and more!
• EnjoyWinter’s Andy Gerlach hops on the Seder-Skier Podcast later this week to chat about the resurrection of the Factory Team. Need a refresher on the storied team’s history? Check out our three-part series….

The Subaru Factory Team

• We’ll be talking to a few members of the German ski team after Lillehammer! Hoping for Moch, Hennig and Carl…send us some questions you’d like us to ask!
• We sent out a message to the U.S. ski team wax technicians to chat about the ups and downs of the Ruka weekend. Hopefully, we’ll get some quotes, but a full-length podcast could be in the works, too!

Ruka Reactions

In lieu of a show this week (it might happen, but don’t hold your breath), I think I’d better put down a few more thoughts on the three-day World Cup opener. Here’s a few takeaways:

• Did the World Cup women just wake the sleeping giant? Originally, I felt Therese Johaug’s underwhelming performances across the distance events last weekend was an indication that she might not be the same skier she was (I mean, she had a kid, she’s two years older — I might be right), now I’m starting to wonder if the second and fourth-place were more due to weather and course dynamics. Johaugh’s ‘excuse’ about losing to Frida Karlsson by about 46 seconds in the 10k individual start classic was her early bib number. The Norwegian was a good sport about it — she said she wouldn’t have beaten the Swede anyway — but she also suspected that later starters had faster tracks. In the freestyle mass start on Sunday, Johaug suggested the downhills which immediately followed the uphill climbs prevented her from pulling away. This sentiment was backed up by another aerobic monster, Sophia Laukli, who felt the downhills were much more impactful than the uphills throughout the race. Here’s my conclusion: if Johaug is right, then what Ruka represents is a wake up call that isn’t actually a wake up call. In other words, Johaug IS fit, but wasn’t able to show it. Since she wasn’t able to show it, she’s currently extra motivated. Or mad. Or mad motivated…like Kobe Bryant after a bad game. Evidence? She is reportedly intending to race up through the TDS, which was not necessarily a part of the original plan….
• Rollercoaster for the U.S. – From the ho-hum day 1, disappointingly dismal day 2 and electrifying day 3, this opener was quite an emotional rollercoaster for U.S. Ski Team fans. I sense that many went from thinking, “See! This is why we need tune-up races/to get on snow early/etc.” to “See! this is why we need to hire more foreign wax techs” to “See! Don’t ever count Diggins out!” I think everyone needs to just pump the brakes. Let’s see what happens through Period 1 and the TDS and then offer our critiques.
• Laukli – I think her bold move into third during the 20k was not played up nearly enough on the broadcast. That was 1) essential for Diggins in getting the win and 2) just awesome to see. Period. It was the Steve Prefontaine moment of the race. For a moment, I thought Laukli was going to be on the podium. Her move was perfectly timed on a tough course….unfortunately, I think her assessment — that the downhills were the deciding factor — doomed her chances of a top-5 finish. Still, this was another good performance for Laukli. After less than satisfactory Beito showings and a disappointing 10k on Friday, I was starting to wonder.
• McMullen – I’m not surprised by his performance. What are the chances he is the best skier on the men’s team by the end of the year?

Letters, we get your letters

Ryan,

in case you need some fun statistics when calling some future races:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DDC7hIRublh/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

And as I was listening to the commentators this weekend, one of the common phrases that every commentator makes every time is: “the cameras hide the steepness of this hill”. So I started thinking about ways that you could make this more intuitive for us watching at home. What about identifying similar hills in US (and maybe Canadian 🙂 nordic ski ares: “the murderbakken in Falun is similar to YYY in Sun Valley, but 3 times as long”.

Just a thought, and hopefully I will hear you soon 🙂

Just in case you are not aware of this blog: https://www.daehl-e.com/

Hopefully this will provide you with some interesting points when commenting on races.

-Karl

Karl – This is a brilliant idea! Unfortunately, I’m probably not as well-versed on all the best courses as I should be. That being said, maybe I can convince FIS to pay for me to travel the country and ski on the best courses this winter….broadcast prep, baby. Also, I was not aware of the blog — I’ll have to check it out. He might be a good guy to have on the pod!

-SederSkier

I find this excuse of only 10-12 hours on snow laughable. I know FS and other media outlets wont ask the question because they value access over facts. why didn’t they get on snow earlier as other teams did.

“I think that becomes one of the biggest things. At this point I’ve had maybe 10-12 hours of Classic skiing on snow. Ruka especially is a course that is super technically demanding … that’s the thing that’s hardest to get used to because it’s so different than roller skiing. You have to do pretty specific motions in order to close down your skis and kick.”

-Anonymous

All good points….I will say, I think having Ruka be an annual rust buster might not be that big of a deal long term. Plus, as we saw this weekend, the weather/course seems to cause pretty random results across the board. One day after Diggins said the above quote, she pulled out a win. Obviously it was freestyle, but I think I saw her in an Instagram clip prior to that (some Salomon ad, I think) where she joked that she’d forgotten how to descend on skis. Anyway, it seems like there isn’t really a one-size fits all formula to hitting it out of the park in Ruka – and maybe that’s ok.

Final thoughts

Good luck to the citizen’s racers opening up their season this week! Send us a race report or quote from your experience.

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