It's Like Cat Food

Nordic skiers are a finicky bunch. Laying out wax for them is like throwing down canned food for the cats. They're never grateful.

We got all these requests for Start Green glide wax. Start Green. Start Green. It's legendary. Get it!

The Start rep didn't want to sell us just a truckload of the legendary Green glide wax. And we naively figured if the Green had such a following, skiers like the other colors, too.

Five years later, we're still trying to get rid of the other items from the Start line, some of them perfectly nice kick and glide waxes. They just don't have a fan club.

Start and Rex both have grip tape, a miracle product that replaces conventional kick wax. Rex's is particularly popular, because the dispenser spits out a double strip, to do the whole kick zone in one pass. Do people ask for anything else in the Rex line? Heck no. Fortunately, the Rex rep doesn't mind feeding us just the tape...for now.

A skier asked today whether we did anything with the Rode line. I said we didn't. I tried to soften it with a little humorous apology for our boring Swix line, but the skier was already storming out, snapping over his shoulder, "Rode Multi-grade Purple! The only kick wax you'll ever need!"

Indeed. Then why does Rode offer a fat catalog full of all these other kick products no one will need?

I'm sure every one of these legendary products is just excellent. I promise I'll try them once I've used up all the leftover cat food on our wax rack. Someone's got to ski it.