Last week was my birthday. And as a gift, quite unexpectedly, I desired cross-country skiing (I saw such a friend and wanted). However, it turned out that in this matter, from “desire” to “receive” is no closer than from here to Paris. If alpine skiing is now sold in almost every grocery store, then it is extremely difficult to get (in Kyiv) cross-country skiing. During the week, my wife and I diligently combed the Internet and sports shops in the city.
Buying skis
As a result of the search were bought:
- cross-country skiing Tisa Step Sport – 630 hryvnia at Metro in Troyeschina
- Fisher XC Sport boots – 609 hryvnia in Extreme-style on Glybochitska
- Fisher mounts (NNN systems) – 300 UAH in the same Extreme style
- plastic sticks STC (Moscow) – 126 hryvnia in Protoka on Rusanovka
As far as I understand, cross-country skis and related junk are brought into the city once a year, quickly sold out in the pre-New Year’s hustle and after that it is very difficult to find anything cross-country. Correction – it’s hard to find a man – there are much more women’s sizes of skis and boots in stores.
Installing fasteners
I knew for sure that the store on Rusanovka provides a unique service for installing ski bindings. But even more precisely, I knew that I would not go anywhere – and so I wound up one and a half hundred around the city, collecting this miracle kit. Therefore, the mounts were installed at home. And I must say, this process was also not easy.An attempt to mark the ski, using the mount itself instead of a template, showed a terrible inaccuracy of this method. Then I had to strain the search department and find a paper template on the Internet. Everything went faster with him and in the end (after an hour and a half) the fasteners were in place. However, the idea that skiing is a great art and that mere mortals have been denied access to them has managed to settle in my head.
Practice is the criterion of truth (or measure of success).
Finding this saying (about the criterion of truth) was as difficult as everything described in this article. Going to practical tests, I was going to a real expedition. It was almost -20 outside, so I took a thermos of hot tea, a pack of biscuits, spare gloves, a down jacket, a wind mask, short shoe covers, GPS, a mobile phone, and some money in case of an emergency evacuation on public transport.Moving on skis was not as easy as it seemed to me based on distant memories. They really rushed along the smooth knurled track. But as soon as the ascent or descent began, problems arose. On the slopes, the speed of movement is still catastrophically low. And on the descents, on the contrary, it is too high. Going down even from 5% of the slides, I accelerate a lot and, what is the saddest thing, I practically cannot control the process. I can’t slow down with a “plow” or turn in a narrow gutter of a ski path. The only way to avoid colliding with an approaching tree is to fall on your side.
In one of the descents, I did not have time to fall on my side and flew forward, on my hands. The wrist, twisted with a stick with a lanyard, still hurts. Thank God it’s not broken. By the way, I didn’t like the lanyards on the sticks I bought – I have to make an effort to keep the handle in the right position, but it shouldn’t be like that. My boots rubbed bloody calluses on my little fingers. The elastic bands of the bindings make the lifted ski “nod”. In short, there are a million difficulties.But despite all this, I’m happy as an elephant. For two days in a row I go skiing into the forest and spend 3-4 hours there, running 10-15 kilometers. Even by amateur standards, this is very small, but I’m satisfied. For now I have the opportunity to move – something that I miss so much in the city. I also have crepatura in my legs. This is generally a success – after the mountains, no run could cause it in my lower limbs.Tomorrow I’m back on the track!P.S. My guiding star in the mysterious world of cross-country skiing was an article by Mikhail Afanasenkov ” skiing for fun”.