As with most things in life, to maximize your experience - it’s worth finding the right size. When it comes to cross-country skiing, it’s especially important. Being on a ski that’s the right size will make or break your time outside. If you find yourself on a ski that is too big, you’ll almost certainly have a hard time finding the grip required to kick yourself forward. The same applies to a ski that is too small. You’ll be dragging the mechanical grip, or wax, along for the entirety of your ski making you feel more tired sooner.

So how do we find ourselves on the right ski size? We get to ask the sometimes awkward question “How much do you weigh?”. To the unassuming new skier, this might catch you off guard - and that is totally normal. But skis are measured in weight ranges so it's important we know this number. As with neon ski suits and leopard print headbands, the days of basing your new skis off your height are in the past.

If you are reading this blog post, odds are you’re probably on the hunt for new skis, or maybe you’ve just stumbled on a pair in the garage and you are unsure if they fit. Without going down the rabbit hole of finding wax pockets with folded pieces of paper. The best thing you can do for yourself is put on all the clothes you think you'll wear on a day out skiing, find your bathroom scale and remember the number it spits out.

***Note, these numbers are a rough idea. These numbers change ski to ski, brand to brand. This is to be taken as a rough idea.

Poles

Poles are more useful than you might think. They are the jelly to the peanut butter that is the ski. Without them, it’s possible to move on the snow - it’ll just be a lot harder. But did you know that these too come in different sizes based on what activity you are doing? To be blunt, your downhill ski poles aren't going to cut it, leave those at home.

For classic skiing we want our poles to fit somewhere around our armpit. For skate skiing, we want longer. We want our skate skiing poles to be somewhere around the bottom of our chin to the bottom of our nose.