V2

Today we looked at videos of skiers transitioning in and out of V2. To recap, here are the gears:

v1 -> climbing steep hills
v2 -> climbing shallow hills or flats if you are sprinting
v2 alternate -> flats, when your arm turnover cannot keep up with your feet!
free skate (no pole skate) - shallow down or transitioning to the up, following a down when you still have lots of speed
tuck - downhills

The v2 should be the dominant gear at some place like twin brook or the fields at Community Park.

In the videos, we didn't focus on v2 technique but on when v2 was used. And we looked at the transitions in and out of v2. Notice that on the climbs the skiers switch between v1 and v2 as the hill gets less steep (v2) or more steep (v1). At the top, everyone switches to v2 as the hill flattens, even if its just 3 strokes before tucking on the next downhill. And notice on flat terrain, some skiers are in a rapid-turnover v2 or they have switched to the slower turnover v2 alternate. Except at the end of a race, when everyone is v2ing with an insanely rapid turnover.

Ole Einar Bjoerndalen: great transition from V2 to V1 to V2 to V2A to free skate

Girls J1/J2 qualifying for Junior Olympics (J2 is 14-15 age group, J1 is 16-17). Notice tuck->V2->V1->V2->tuck transition at 4:55. Even better is the tuck->free skate->v2 transition at 5:25

Boys J2 Junior Olympics team relay. Nice transitions from v2A to v2 to v2A to V2 from 1:50 to 2:30. Really strong v2A to v2 to v1 at 3:30 to 3:48. Then a nice transition to v2 at 5:00

2007 girls skate at Junior Olympics featuring Elizabeth Guiney who now skis with FHS alum Andrew Clemence at UNH. The video has Lots of V2/V1 transitions - great!
@2:00 transition from V1 to V2 to V2A to free-skate
@2:40 transition from V2A to V2

last 3 minutes of 50K Liberec: Great transition from V1 to V2 to free skate up and over hills. Doesn't this video get you stoked to go ski fast?

And finally the beastly pass by Petter Northug but first watch him draft at 1:10. Northug is free-skating while the guy pulling him is V2 alternate-ing. The beastly pass is at 1:32 and is started by a high-turnover v2 that transitions to a stunningly high-turnover v1 then back to a high-turnover v2. Bam!