As a kid I joined a little giant slalom race at my home hill. I spent the morning by preparing for the race. I was eager to win the race, but I felt like my skis just don’t slide well. There was an Atomic test event going on and I decided to give a try. I took bran new skis and went testing. I noticed that the skis did slide much faster than my own skis that were actually pretty much destroyed in the backcountries. I was supposed to bring the test skis back in one hour, but I “borrowed” them for half an hour more because I wanted to ski the race with those test skis. Finally I brought the skis back and the dude asked me “so, how did you like these guns”? I replied “yeah, pretty good. I won the race. Thanks”.

In that day I realized the meaning of maintenance of skis. Keep your skis in god condition and you can take the best out of your skiing. If you want maximum sliding from your skis, wax them regularly. How to wax your skis? Here are few tips.

Basic waxing is pretty easy and it doesn’t take much time. Waxing decreases the friction between the ski and snow, and therefore provides better sliding. Before talking about waxing, let’s find out what is needed when waxing your skis.

- time 15-30 minutes
- place to mount your skis
- ironing iron
- base wax
- cold weather wax (-10 centigrade degrees or colder)
- warmer weather wax (-10 - 0 centigrade degrees)
- acrylic scraper
- abrasive paper
- nylon brush
- copper or steel brush

If you are not a racer, basic knowledge of waxing is enough. If you are a racer, you need to develop your waxing skills much further. Anyhow, in this post we discuss about the basics of waxing, which is enough for most of the skiers.

Start by waxing your skis with a hard base wax in order to create a water resisting hard base. For this purpose you can use the cold weather wax from known wax makers, such as Swix, Betamix and Start. The cold weather wax is scraped warm to the ski, after which the extra wax is brushed away. Start brushing with the copper or steel brush, and brush only from tip towards tail, not in the opposite direction! Finally by using the nylon brush you brush the ski slippery. You can test how slippery the ski is by letting the brush move on the ski. If it moves easily, brushing is done well. If it gets stuck, there is still some wax to be brushed away.

Many people are satisfied already in this phase, but if you wish to have your ski even more slippery, continue waxing with the wax designed for the current weather. After you have spread the wax on the ski, wait until it becomes cooler and harder. After that scrape the extra wax away, just like said above.

In order to get the best out of your skiing, wax your skis regularly. Personally I recommend waxing your skis at least once a week if you ski every weekend.