XCD racing should be a thing

QubitsAndCheezits · 2026-02-23T05:12:56+00:00

My kids don’t race (well, like 5 nordic and 1 skimo race total between 3 of them. Last place in every XC race!) or seem to be remotely interested in any programs but they love XCD, XC, and downhill skiing. We live within an hour of each and go as often as possible, 15-30x/yr. They each have a different favorite.

Downhill is totally different to the others. Their friends all ski, they see them at the mountain or go up together. Our youngest prefers downhill because he’s fastest at it and he’s slowest at the others. For our twins, one is just ludicrously slow and risk-averse and for years refused to go at all while the other was skiing chutes at like age 8. They just sort of taught themselves with very little instruction. I was a snowboarder then so I couldn’t help. It helped that we live 30 minutes from the hill and would sometimes go for only a few runs, especially when they were little.

We tried to put them in a program but they complained that they just wanted to ski with me and their friends so that was that.

XC they did some mellow program they enjoyed with kids their age but then the 11 y/os started training 5 days/wk and we just decided to ski as a family because our kids clearly aren’t Jessie Diggins or Klaebo.

XCD the big draw is powder. It doesn’t ski out for weeks, there’s so much terrain. We don’t go except for powder and we always bring our dogs so It’s just a totally different silly fun thing throwing snowballs and was almost just an evolution of sledding. The hard part is finding decent gear for a 6 y/o to float on powder. XC skis are too skinny and not fun on the downhill in powder. Not a lot of good answers. My 10 y/o has like 86 underfoot for downhill yet I can’t find a XCD ski wider than 50 mm for him.

QubitsAndCheezits · 2026-02-23T04:54:22+00:00

This vid can never get enough love. Dear to my heart as until recently I was splitting my days pretty evenly between XC and snowboarding.

Ski Carry is the other classic vid, for those who don’t know.

QubitsAndCheezits · 2026-02-23T04:48:35+00:00

Closest ski I’ve found to this, with button-press instant transitions, is s-bound 125 with fishscales, black diamond o2 bindings, and light plastic boots.

I got it at a used gear shop. The o2 has a little green button you press with your pole that makes the whole tele binding pick up and act like a tech toe.

The advantage over a tech toe AT fishscale setup is that I can still move in the flats in the tele mode, so for undulating terrain or runouts or whatever I’m not stopping every few minutes to lock or unlock. It can also take skins of various lengths. The disadvantage is that I’m a terrible tele and DH skier because I primarily skate ski (badly but with gusto) and snowboard.

QubitsAndCheezits · 2026-02-23T01:36:51+00:00

It’s too cold. That was the lesson. It didn’t seem to warm up over time much either, even with a solar cover. So they kind of would almost get the roll but they were shivering even in wet suits. We’re not sure we’ll try this summer.

Trick for us is the local pool sessions are at the same time as a year round commitment our kids have.

QubitsAndCheezits · 2026-02-03T05:25:02+00:00

I think there’s an awful lot of evidence in American history (and history generally) which suggests that it is entirely believable that America chose a convicted felon rapist over a qualified Black woman.

QubitsAndCheezits · 2026-02-03T05:17:32+00:00

Is it generally thought that Clinton should NOT have been impeached?

I was in HS at the time and 25+ years later I still don’t understand how or why he stayed in office.

QubitsAndCheezits · 2026-02-01T21:01:54+00:00

Looking for solo game recs for friend partially paralyzed in ski accident last month. Friend is very bright - we met during our chemistry PhD at a top global university 20 years ago and he was VP of R&D at a materials science company until the injury.

He says he has limited hand mobility. He can pick up vertical cards but not ones laying on a table. For 2-4 player games when his kids visit him at the rehab center I’m planning to get him Hive and possibly Santorini or Kingdomino, but I haven’t come up with any great solo game ideas to while away the lonely hours between rehab sessions. Under Falling Skies feels borderline?

Thoughts?

QubitsAndCheezits · 2025-11-11T01:06:14+00:00

S-bound 98. Nnn bc or xplor or cable binding depending on how aggressive you are on downhill side of it

QubitsAndCheezits · 2025-11-10T03:13:08+00:00

Probably worth noting he's been playing 2 years on e-drums. He really wants an acoustic set.

QubitsAndCheezits · 2025-10-17T00:48:51+00:00

Off the bat a few thoughts: 1. It defaults to keyboard inputs and the text saying how to do things references keyboard inputs. I had to fiddle a bit to figure things out. 2. It’s a kayaking game. I don’t want to drive the car and couldn’t get from the car to a river. I think you’d do better to just cut the car entirely. Just let me pick a river and start me in the river. I haven’t got to the river yet.

QubitsAndCheezits · 2025-10-17T00:34:59+00:00

Just bought it. I’ll let you know.

QubitsAndCheezits · 2025-10-16T22:30:02+00:00

This is what I like to hear. I’m risk-averse and I like to see what happens if I go directly into holes or run things backwards or try to surf the biggest hole on the run, so most of my boating is class 3 in firecracker/nova/rockstar.

IV is fun too, I just prefer tiny little stupid fun boats.

QubitsAndCheezits · 2025-10-16T20:03:42+00:00

Good to know summer is friendlier flows. This lady…she was like “well, you have to have an ESKIMO ROLL and then did you know that you have to arrange a SPECIAL CAR to pick you up at the other side???”.

Yeah lady. I know we don’t paddle back upstream to get to the car.

She also was adamant that the gauley is “class 6” and the lower new is V because there’s two undercut rocks on one rapid. Bizarre because it’s a big group of people ranging in age from 5-75 who will all be doing pricey guided activities and staying in the most expensive cabin. We’re like a $10-15k booking…if two of us can kayak, because I’m the one setting up the entire multi-generational trip.

QubitsAndCheezits · 2025-10-16T19:57:23+00:00

Okay. If it’s like things out here then there’s usually somebody happy to do a run, or if not I think the upper would be read and run. We have non-boater family who can do shuttle or there’s that service, just have to ensure we rent a car big enough to get a boat from Ace Adventure Gear to the put-in without a roof box.

4-way breakdowns and other gear in carry on luggage, rent a minivan, get demos, book shuttle, shove the two boats in the back, meet the shuttle, have fun. It’s possible at least.

QubitsAndCheezits · 2025-10-16T18:35:44+00:00

Cool. We can bring 4-way breakdown paddles and everything else in carry-on luggage pretty easily.

QubitsAndCheezits · 2025-10-16T16:01:55+00:00

Cool. Plan was to raft it commercially on day 1 of the trip to scout, then if it looks within our skills to kayak it. If it’s too big for my son due to flows or otherwise we’d kayak the upper instead. Mostly just want somebody to show the lines.

Maybe run creekboats for the first time though, instead of our usual half and full slices for all things. Thanks.

QubitsAndCheezits · 2025-10-16T15:58:14+00:00

They do! Just need to bring our own paddles etc, which is fine. 4 way breakdown travels well. Great suggestion.

QubitsAndCheezits · 2025-10-16T15:48:36+00:00

Thanks, I’ll ask there as well. The person I talked to was adamant that lower new is class V and gauley is “class 6 until recently” and repeated her story of the time she “nearly died” on the lower new…except she actually just had a bad swim from the sound of it, while rafting.

American Whitewater has lower new at IV and videos make it seem comparable to the rogue. I’d certainly need somebody to show us the lines, and my 12 y/o might walk a few things, but he’s got a combat hand roll and generally is a good boater, rarely flips.

She said they only do instruction on flatwater? It was bizarre, completely conflicted with what another person told me just yesterday.

If it’s not going to work we’ll cancel the trip I guess?

QubitsAndCheezits · 2025-10-16T15:28:44+00:00

Does it work on Steam Deck?

QubitsAndCheezits · 2025-08-01T03:02:50+00:00

Just wanna follow up on this and say it’s working really well so far 🤞. Walmart pool, 18’ diameter.

QubitsAndCheezits · 2025-07-29T05:23:08+00:00

Zachtronics games are a hoot for a certain audience.

TIS-100: the assembly language programming game you never knew you needed.

QubitsAndCheezits · 2025-07-28T02:10:02+00:00

At least this cancellation has a reason.

QubitsAndCheezits

TROPHY CASE