Learn ski care & maintenance tips in this free beginner skiing lesson on video.
Dave Smith has been skiing for more than 21 years. He lives in Wood Village, Ore., and has been working at Hillcrest Ski and Sports as a salesman and buyer for more than five years. He was an instructor with the Mt. Hood Meadows ski school. Despite working full time at Hillcrest, Smith manages to get 30 to 40 days on the snow each season.
Hi! This Is Dave Smith with Hillcrest Ski and Sports in Gresham, Oregon on behalf of Expert Village. In this tutorial we will cover beginning skiing. In this clip, we'll cover how to maintain your skis. The most common maintenance that your skis will need is waxing. You p-tex base can dry out over time and it needs wax to stay slick on the snow. Waxing can be done at any shop. In fact, that's probably the easiest thing to have done as a beginner. You can wax yourself, but you'll need to be careful and get instructions on how to do that first. There are a couple of ways that you can easily tell if your skis need wax. First of all, if they're very slow and sticky on the mountain that's a good sign that you need wax. Also, if you look towards your metal edges and notice that the base is dry and rough, maybe getting a little bit white, that's a good sign that you need wax. Another thing that needs maintenance is your bindings. When your bindings are mounded, they should have been twist tested initially. However, as the years go by, you might want to make sure to have them twist tested to make sure they're releasing properly. This will assure that they're come off on a bad fall and stay on when they need to. Another part of your skis that need maintenance are your metal edges. Your skis will function when your edges are relatively sharp. Good way to tell if your skis are sharp is to run your fingernail across them. An edge that is tuned correctly should take off shavings of your fingernail. Finally, you should be careful to store your skis in an area that's dry and moderate temperatures, not extremes. If there's too moisture in the air, your steel edges could oxidize or rust. This will make them less grippy and you might need to have them tuned before you ski again.
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