What is the best way to maintain your skis and snowboard?

Your skis and snowboard are important. They are the foundation of your winter sports equipment and not cheap to buy. So they should be well maintained. Besides, with regular maintenance, you can enjoy your equipment longer. As winter sports specialists, we get a lot of questions about ski and snowboard maintenance every year. What can you do yourself? What is better to let a specialist do? In this blog, we answer all your questions about ski and snowboard maintenance.

Table of contents

• The benefits of ski and snowboard maintenance
• Maintenance you can do yourself
• Transport and storage

The benefits of ski and snowboard maintenance

To preserve your equipment, your enjoyment and your safety, it is important to maintain your skis or snowboard regularly or have them serviced by a specialist. After every use of your skis or snowboard, the gliding ability decreases and the steel edges become more and more blunt. After a week of winter sports, only 40% of the original sharpness of your steel edges is left on average. The purpose of the steel edges is to ensure grip and good steering in the snow. Not entirely unimportant, then.

While skiing and snowboarding, the wax ensures gliding power and the base of your skis or snowboard will dry out faster than you think. Regularly re-waxing your equipment is therefore a must. In our blog which wax for my ski or snowboard we will discuss this in more detail.

Besides sharpening and waxing, an inspection of your ski bindings is also a must. The bindings are constantly under tension during skiing, which reduces their strength. We recommend checking your bindings annually (or having them checked) for damage and function.

Getting maintenance done by a specialist

At Twinseasons, we advise every winter sports enthusiast to have a thorough maintenance check (clean grinding, flat grinding, structural grinding, edge grinding/tuning and waxing) of their skis or snowboard after every week of skiing.

We also recommend waxing your skis or snowboard every approx. 3 days during your winter holiday.

Maintenance you can do yourself

Waxing your skis or snowboard can be done by a specialist, but it is also a fun job for some to do themselves. It does require good preparation and you need to go through the steps carefully for optimal results. You will need:

• Base cleaner
• Wax scraper
• Wax
• Iron
• Fine brush

Before you start, put something down under your workstation to protect your floor. Start by cleaning your belay. Use the belay cleaner to remove the old wax layer and make sure the belay is clean. After the belay is dry, apply the wax by melting the block of wax against the iron and dripping it onto the middle of your snowboard or skis. Then iron the wax into the belay using the wax scraper provided. Be careful not to stay in one place for too long. Otherwise there is a risk of burning in. Then let the wax cool down and use a plastic scraper to remove the excess wax that sticks out of the belay. Only the pores remain filled this way. Finally, go over it with the brush!

If you do this waxing after your winter holiday, you can leave the excess wax on and only take it off when you go skiing or snowboarding again.

Transport and storage

To transport your skis or snowboard, their are special ski bags or snowboard bags.. These protect your equipment from scratches. Also make sure the zip is slightly open, so that any heat and/or moisture can escape. It is also important to dry your skis or snowboard well after use. This prevents rust and keeps the edges sharp for longer.

Do not store your skis and snowboards near a heater or other heat source for long periods of time, this could cause the coating to dry out and cracks start developing.

If, after reading this blog, you still have questions or want to know even more about a particular topic, do not hesitate to contact us. Our expert staff will be happy to help. Of course, you can also come to us for all professional maintenance of your skis or snowboard.