I spent a summer in Sweden some years back. Around the large cities nicely paved roller ski loops parallel major roads. I saw skiers all summer on the loops. Also, the major roads have 8 foot wide breakdown lanes which are paved. I don't see this happening here until a nordic skier becomes DOT commissioner.

A group of us here in the Orono - Old Town - Bangor area are attempting to designate a ski trail from the Bangor city-owned recreational area at Essex Street Hill, through the City Forest, up the old railroad bed, through the Great Caribou Bog, and finishing in Old Town. It's an uphill battle but I think we have some momentum. Seemingly unrelated, I receive the Maine Snowmobilers Association newsletter, which is really a thick publication. Most of the newsletter is devoted to local clubs and their activities. It's time for us nordic skiers to have

some of the same opportunities they have. Unfortunately for us, the snowmobilers (and I'm
one of them) have taken the best trail routes. But I think many landowners would not mind a ski trail crossing their property that gets groomed a couple of times a week. The new landowner liability protection law is a boom to potential users of private property. My last point along this subject is that once we show the general public a groomed trail, interest will increase dramatically. We don't thrash around the woods walking slowly on skis - they are fast transportation and fun.

For those that missed the MNSC August event at the Siren homestead, make plans for next year. See the accompanying article by Karl Johnson. The Sunday ride was memorable as was the food, spirits, and camaraderie.

See you at the October 16th roller ski marathon. I know there were requests to move the date to Sunday but the fall NENSA meeting is on Sunday in Portland and a number of members will be attending.

Best Wishes,
Chris Dorian

The MNSC is a tax-exempt corporation. Our balance as of August 31st was $790.03. Our chief revenues are membership dues and our major expense is the Maine Nordic Gazette. If you need or desire more information, please consult the club's chief financial officer.

After clearing passport control at the Brighton border I knew life was going to be different. The road was suddenly full of large white geese and people leaning on 4- wheelers. While driving past they smiled, waved and muttered something about furriers. After passing more 4-wheelers we at last came to the Siren homestead where the gauntlet was to be thrown down the following morning.

Trouble soon appeared in the presence of some imported rabbits of tender ages to drive the old goats out too fast. Leave it to Raul to try
every trick to drive us under. After Dr. Rocks arrived a small group adjourned to the trails for the first test. Sensing trouble I took up station by the beer cooler to save my resources for the morning.

The group returned alive, but wary. We soon commenced burning wood to cook up dinner and sat down to a feast orchestrated by our gracious hostess Sue Siren. Salmon, steak, salads, homemade baked beans, pies, not to mention a macaroni and shrimp salad provided by the Mayor of Orono that was big enough to feed the entire town of Brighton. All enjoyed at the kerosene lit picnic table overlooking the horse pasture. After much eating, drinking and sandbagging we all retired with that question on our lips. Where is Bob?

Yes where was missing ironman fe-bb? Was he snooozing on some lonely road in the wilds of northern Maine, or had he wandered into the
neighbors yard in the stygian darkness and gotten a round of double00 buckshot as Raul was surmising. Questions to ponder as I fell asleep to the to the gentle rain on the tent.
Morning brought showers, and a breakfast that consisted of roughly 12 pancakes, 4 eggs, and a 1/2 pound of bacon per person. Not to mention the quart of coffee. This sufficed to keep the breakfast fans happy. Just as breakfast was winding down in rolls Bob. Alive and hungry, finishing up the remains we were all now at full power. Then straggling in tardy was Paul who because he missed the previous nights sandbagging quickly chimed in about cornflakes and milk and......

After standard confusion we arrived at the course (I mean trail). Someone said something about stretching, we took the obligatory photos and then the rabbits were off like a shot. Raul wanted to kill us quick, so first was a 600ft uphill in less than a mile, we all survived the climb then commenced a long meandering route spiced with occasional pond stops and climbs through Plum Creek timberlands. After much casual riding ( I wasn't pushing it I just didn't want to be second to the top). We had our first breakdown, lucky for us the traveling tool box was along to return for the repairs. By now the rabbits were hanging on and the old geezers were holding forth. After finding someone's glasses hanging on their seat we were off to the finishing stretch through the nasty part of the ride.

Upon reaching the big mud puddle I observed Bob christening his new ultra cool bike by splashing through at full speed, trying to get other people wet while warhooping. The pace picks up as we blast through some junk and a large stream. At the back of the pack one takes a wrong turn. After a considerable distance we notice. We wait then a posse returns several miles or more before finding our quarry back on the right track. By now the return party has fallen behind and runs into the cars of finishers coming back to mount a search. After one more massive uphill it looks like an easy coast to the cars. Then I remember 5 hours, fe-Bob is just starting to get loose, sure enough here he comes cranking a gear to big for most mortals. I respond and pull ahead, he goes higher still and streaks by. I go to the biggest one I possess and burst some blood vessels. I pull even but think I lost because I suggested we stop before we hit the highway at 40. Bob complains about how short the ride was. The young studs are staggering, and the rest of us are thirsting after some malt beverage in a serious way. We finish up by once again stuffing our faces, and killing off some of those 1/2 gallon bottles of beer. After coffee and dessert Raul mutters something about bigger hills, the studs mutter about nothing like that before, and the rest of us act like we aren't even tired. After sleeping for 2 days and several massages I am not tired.

"What doesn't kill us makes us stronger" Paul Corrigan: 8-22-99

KJ

The annual Sugarloaf Masters Thanksgiving Training Camp has been canceled for 1999. How about some group skis at Sugarloaf on Thanksgiving weekend??? Special day rates for current Maine Masters with groups departing at 10:00 and 1:30 on Friday, Saturday and Sunday
morning? These would be longish, easy skis... Call for conditions: 237-6830.

Sunday, December 5, 1999: MNSC training day with Dick Taylor (Dick is still tentative, but we will have a back up). Sugarloaf/USA Outdoor Center. A follow up to the summer roller ski clinic that Dick did for us. Check in from 8:00 am to 8:45 am. Clinic starts at 9:00. Cost: $20.00 includes trail pass.

Sunday, December 5, 1999: MNSC Women's On Snow Clinic with Sue Long. Sugarloaf/USA Outdoor Center. Great women's event with Maine's "fastest woman skier", former member USST, current nordic coach and instructor. For recreational skiers and racers. Check in from 8:00 am to 8:45 am. Clinic starts at 9:00. Cost $20.00 includes trail pass.

Sunday, December 5, 1999: BKYSL "Secrets of Racing" Clinic with coaching staff. Sugarloaf/ USA Outdoor Center. On Snow clinic for 6 - 14 year olds. (Parents can go to adult clinics!) Check in from 8:00 am to 8:45 am. Clinic starts at 9:00. Cost $20.00 includes trail pass.

It looks like the NENSA and Maine race calendars have finally been finalized. We will post these on the club's website shortly and will
include the master calendar in the next newsletter.

The men's results show the top-ten skiers for 1999. Maine Nordic Ski Club members appear in bold. It is interesting to see the story behind these results, as this year's points show the dominance of Norway beginning to erode while the other Scandinavian countries are making very strong comebacks. The Cinderella country has to be Austria, placing two skiers in the top 6 and becoming the only Alpine country in the top-ten. Hard to imagine that Austria once had a program on par with USA in results!

1 DAEHLIE BJORN NOR
2 MYLLYLA MIKA FIN
3 BOTVINOV MICHAIL AUT
4 ELOFSSON PER SWE
5 BJERVIG ESPEN NOR
6 STADLOBER ALOIS AUT
7 BERGSTROEM ANDERS SWE
8 ISOMETSA JARI FIN
9 PROKUROROV ALEXEJ RUS
10 FREDRIKSSON MATHIAS SWE

The women's results show the power and depth of the former iron curtain countries. No surprise that Russia dominated the women's relays last season!

1 MARTINSEN BENTE NOR
2 LAZUTINA LARISSA RUS
3 BELMONDO STEFANIA ITA
4 GAVRILJUK NINA RUS
5 NEUMANNOVA KATERINA CZE
6 NAGEJKINA SWETLANA RUS
7 DANILOVA OLGA RUS
8 SMIGUN KRISTINA EST
9 REZTSOVA ANFISA RUS
10 ORDINA ANTONINA SWE

1. Review spring meeting minutes.
2. Finalize by-laws.
3. Elections?
4. Thanksgiving training camp.
5. Uniform orders.
6. Discussion of pros and cons of training weekends this summer.
7. Bank account statement.
8. Membership report.
9. Other business.
10. Adjourn for early lunch and then preparation for afternoon rollerski.

After having heard great things about the Canadian Rockies for awhile now ­ our family ventured to the area for 2 weeks this past August. Allison (J5), Rachel (Lollipop), Ruth (M3) and I (M2) flew into Calgary and rented a VW camper van in which we slept, ate and traveled throughout 4 different Provincial parks. We visited Kananaskis, Banff, Jasper and Yoho parks. Ruth and I got in some great trail runs ­ all of which included the active use of bear bells. Grizzly and black bear alerts were posted in most of the areas we visited. Ruth did spot a black bear on an evening run in Yoho park. There were lots of easily accessible 4 to 5 mile family hikes which provided great above timberline-exposures, views of glaciers, turquoise blue glacial lakes, rivers and glacial valleys.

We stopped at the Canmore ski center ­ site of the 1988 Olympic Nordic events. The center is spectacular and overlooks the Three Sisters Mountains. Ruth and Allison did a mountain bike on the trails and reported many big hills (although none like trail 50!). Interestingly, a 5km-roller ski loop was built on the trails but is so steep - and corners so sharp - that no one really uses it. The Canadian Nordic ski team arrived at Canmore the day we were there after having been on the Haig glacier (2,700 m) in Peter Lougheed provincial park (1.5 hours south of Canmore) for 10 days. I was told that the team spends about 10 days every month ­ throughout the summer/fall ­ on the glacier. This could be the new MNSC summer training center! The Canmore ski center will fly your equipment up to the glacier for $100 (no large coolers Chris), you run up to the cabin (11 miles) and you pay $50/night. The cabin has hot water, a kitchen, wax room and is located about 0.5 mile off the glacier. Kevin Brochman was bringing a group of Minnesota juniors up to the glacier in mid-august.

Snowfall in the area is amazing ­ last January 4th Lake Louise had a base of 148 inches. At our first campsite at Spray Lake in Kananaskis park it had snowed 2 inches on August 2nd. All the altitude training came in handy hiking up Tumbledown Mountain with the Moody-Roberts and Atwood families soon after we returned.

After more thought and discussion about these issues, some of which were raised at the recent NENSA "gaining more ground" session, we broke for lunch in whatever shade we could find. After lunch, we did some running drills designed to help us squeeze a little more speed out of each stride. Many techniques used in track sprinting can be adopted to classic skiing, such as "toeing off" on each stride to utilize the enormous leverage of the calf muscle, and "knee up" to increase the distance covered per stride. Is classic skiing like sprinting down the track? I hope we don't need new ski boots for this too. Some of these techniques clearly translate into greater speed for relatively little extra effort per stride, but several of us agreed that maintaining this speedy form over a race requires healthy reservoirs of strength and endurance. But then, that seems to have been the point. Speed makes you strong.

We then moved onto the groomed black powder for a series of rollerski drills designed to transfer these techniques to skiing. Wax conditions were optimal for kick, so Dick had us practice toe-off, launching the body forward to the next pole plant and carrying the hip through. We also worked on powerful DP motions, extending the forward reach to take advantage of the natural retraction of shoulder muscles to gain extra "free" push. Combine this with good forward body position and you should go faster. You can also get pretty darn hot. About this time my brain overheated, so my recollection of events is questionable. We finished the day with a much-needed plunge in a nearby swimming hole, only to find that it coincided with yet another local race: a flotilla of several hundred rubber ducks. I suspect a few fortunes were wagered on the outcome, but nobody seemed locked into a wild-eyed frenzy of competition. For myself, watching several ducks barreling into tree branches brought back fond memories of a few nordic races. Remember, speed only helps when it's in the direction of travel AND along the track.

By Karl Johnson

Exciting new developments in waxing have led to a new system based on dfkdsfdher-%4#@. This promises to simplify the application and testing procedures, in addition to decreasing the frictional component of the subsurface water layer as it is going through transitional stress, prior to fractal consolidation at the end of the straition belt. The speed is better than any previous compounds used and has been endorsed by many world cup technicians, including Omar Blustersoon and Yuri Yakitup. Needless to say this is eyes only and any further dispersal of this or follow up information will be dealt with severely by" the committee". Further information will follow after testing parameters have been properly qualified.

There has been a lot of talk among skiers concerning a film clip of Bill Koch in Maui skiing on the sand. This is nothing new for us coastal dwellers and has been practiced for years. My discovery came after a Christmas Day snow storm where I went to catch the sunset at Popham Beach and get in some rare skiing. Although there was a foot of snow in Bath where I live, the snow was sparse 15 minutes south of me at Popham Beach. We still skied and discovered great glide and kick on the bear sand between the patches of snow. START GREEN was the wax of choice and was a deviance from my normal selection of purple.

I hope to go back there and continue to ski on a low tide as the beach is several miles long. The recent hurricanes have drawn me to Popham quite a bit lately to surf in my kayak and I am always surprised to see hardly anyone there. Not even the single-white-females who enjoy quiet nights, dining out, and, you guessed it, walks on the beach. They always say that in their personal ads but you wonder which beach they use. Anyway, if you feel like you would look like a dork skiing on the beach, fear not, as you will only be seen by a few elderly people carrying metal detectors. More importantly, it is a blast!

jm

jmathieu@gwi.net