Not cleaning off your kick wax after each ski session? You should be. [Photo] Cody Downard If you were a 19th-century pioneer traveling across the American West, you knew how to take care of your gear. Tear a boot sole or jam a rifle barrel on the open plains and it was up to you to make the repair. In some cases, your family and livelihood may have even depended on it. Fixing your important possessions often meant relying on minimal resources, which made general care and maintenance that much more important.  We no longer need skis to traverse the land and hunt for our own survival, but ..read more

Matt Quann launched Ornot, his San Francisco–based company, in 2013 to give cyclists an alternative to becoming rolling billboards. The company typically trades in tasteful, darker-colored bike kits designed to weather trends (remember how flashy cycling clothing looked when Lance Armstrong was winning the Tour de France?) and the Bay Area’s notoriously changeable climate. Recently, however, Quann deviated from the typical palette and went all in on a collection of cycling gear inspired by the distinctive Salomon 811 combi boots from 1992. Salomon’s memorable 811 Combi boot from the early 1990 ..read more

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Steve Fuller (@flyingpoint) Photographer Steve Fuller posted an image from Outside Watch’s livestream during Saturday’s World Cup races. Popcorn in hand, many of us sat down last Saturday to watch the Stifel Loppet Cup (a.k.a. the Minneapolis World Cup) on Outside Watch—the livestream service offered a free broadcast of the first domestic World Cup in 23 years. Within minutes, the questions were flying (and perhaps the popcorn). “Is skiing always on Outside now? I can’t get it to work,” texted one friend. Then came an email from a disappointed ..read more

Gus Schumacher en route to victory in the men’s 10km. [Photo] John Lazenby/Alamy Live News The sun continued to shine at the Stifel Loppet Cup in Minneapolis on Sunday as American Gus Schumacher made history, skiing to victory in the 10km freestyle individual start at Theodore Wirth Park. He is the first American man to win a World Cup distance race in more than 40 years. Schumacher outlasted several highly ranked contenders to win in a time of 20:52.7. “I’ve only spent about 15 seconds in the leader’s chair during my racing career,” he laughed afterward. “To see my time keep holding up, I rea ..read more

Race fans showed up in droves for the first day of Loppet Cup competition. [Photo] Hansi Johnson As the first day of the Stifel Loppet Cup dawned, with women’s and men’s sprints on the horizon, several questions hung in the air:  Will the Swedish women continue their utter dominance of the discipline?  Will Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo of Norway similarly lay waste to the men’s field and notch his 101st career victory? And, of course, how will this American team fare in its first-ever World Cup competition at home? Morning temperatures hovered at about 16 degrees F for the 10 a ..read more

Racers train at the Loppet Cup venue in Minneapolis [Photo] Hansi Johnson A bald eagle soared against a bluebird sky, while six inches of fresh snow coated the Minneapolis landscape. This Friday afternoon at the Stifel Loppet Cup venue, the day before racing kicks off, was a fortuitous way to start a weekend of World Cup racing.  Despite a dearth of snow throughout the Midwest, the Loppet (pronounced Low–pet) Foundation, presenter of the first World Cup cross country ski races in the U.S. in 23 years, had been making snow for weeks. “We were ready to go with the course and snow we had,” s ..read more

Skiers compete in the 2013 City of Lakes Loppet in Minneapolis, site of a World Cup this winter. [Photo] Bruce Adelsman/skinnyski.com Jessie Diggins has always wanted to race a World Cup on home snow. This coming February, on trails that she raced as a junior near her hometown in Minnesota, the three-time Olympic medalist’s dream will come true. Minneapolis’s Theodore Wirth Park will host men’s and women’s freestyle sprints (Feb. 17), followed by 10-kilometer free individual start races the next day (Feb. 18) on a hilly 3.3-kilometer loop—a unique setting for a World Cup race within a city’s l ..read more

 Ironman Kona qualifier Wendy Mehaffey finds her icy bliss. [Photo] Mike Lorenz Dip in your toes and they sting. Then submerge your legs, and your ankles start to ache. Slide your torso into the icy water, and it takes your breath away. This was how the first day of my ice bath practice went. After two minutes in the 105-gallon specialized barrel that I keep outside, filled with 46-degree Fahrenheit water sourced from my rural Vermont well and cooled further by 40 pounds of ice, the experience became more tolerable—albeit far from enjoyable. Ever since my time as a high school cross count ..read more

Kikkan Randall. [Photo] Stirl and Rae Media Haus The last time the world saw Kikkan Randall, she was screaming for joy with Jessie Diggins after their remarkable team sprint Olympic win at PyeongChang in 2018. From that career-defining moment, Randall’s life took a serious turn, and over the past six years, she has gone from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows. This winter, Kikkan, a film that documents her journeys—the road to Olympic gold, becoming a mother, a battle with breast cancer and the abrupt end of her marriage—debuts, with a U.S. premiere  February 3 at t ..read more

The U.S. team at the start of the Tour de Ski in Toblach, Italy. [Photo] U.S. Ski and Snowboard For the U.S. Ski Team, the 2024 Tour de Ski—the notoriously grueling seven-stage, multi-day race in Italy and Switzerland—was a tour of firsts. It was the first time that a U.S. skier made the podium almost every day, the first time four separate skiers earned top-three finishes (including a man) and the first time an American won the famed Alpe Cermis hill climb. But it was the second time that Jessie Diggins won the Tour de Ski. En route to the win, the 32-year-old Olympic champion finished in the ..read more