Rear Binding rotate or not

[JH]

What is best for you rotate or straight

[GMC]

I rotate out as much as my FMs will allow on the rear, straight on the front.  BUT I was fighting a mysterious "falling over"  problem at 2/4 (my onside) last year and recently outward cant of the rear boot has been mentioned as a root cause of that so I think it's time to start bringing it back in this year.  Still waiting for temps though - the water is now liquid...

[Horton]

I have cranked my rear binding for years. My front is straight.

[DW]

Rotate rear, straight front.

[RichardDoane]

Have you ever tried rotating your front foot ? RS-1's would allow it.

[Ed_Obermeier]

Used to rotate the rear binding (I'm LFF) but after a couple of years of trial and error I found I do better with the rear straight.

Ed

[eleeski]

It is a tuning issue. Most of my skis work best straight, straight. But before I ground on the edge I rotated the rear on the current test ski. I'll have to try moving it back to straight - I might have filed too much. But I can tune the onside/offside feel a bit with rear foot rotation.

I have tried both rotated and it was too imbalanced.

Tricks are best with the front foot straight (ankle bone over center) and the rear foot 45 and back about 3cm. But John doesn't care about that even though he is a great tricker. Of course his trick experience helps his slalom but that's another thread.

Eric

[skiep]

Both boots canted too little toes (like you stand) Look down while standing- What do you see? Via: Lucky Lowe

Keith

[Horton]

"But John doesn't care about that even though he is a great tricker."

Slander! That is not true and you can not prove it.

The idea that I ever rode a trick ski is a silly as the idea that the USA WaterSki is run by the Raelians.

By the power of his holiness Rael

[eleeski]

OK, John is a great tricker and he does care. What year was your Nationals medal in tricks? Who was running AWSA then? I apologize for any misunderstanding.

Eric

[ktm300]

I skied for 2.5 years with the rear boot rotated toward little toe because a coach told me to.  It clearly worked for him.  It worked ok for me too.  However, I started experimenting with boot placement and have settled on straight straight.  You will find that no matter the forum you will get precious little response on the issue of boot placement. 

Rossi said that if you are running the front straight, run the back straight.  We can naturally open our hips more onside than offside.  If you open just the rear boot, you are making it even easier to open your hips onside and conversely closing off your hips more offside.  Opposite of what most are seeking to do with the hips.  I found this to be dead on correct.

I think that opening both has some merit.  However, my rear boot is on an HO plate and it opens it up the amount provided by the holes in the plate.  I think too much.  When I opened both boots, it really did open up my hips on both sides and really affected my direction off the second wake (more on that below).  However, in my offside pull behind the boat, the pressure on my rear ankle was increased to the point that I was limping around for the week that I skied this way.  Hence, I went back straight, straight.

 A really interesting effect is the direction off the second wake.  With only the rear boot open, it is more difficult to maintain outbound direction off the second wake going from offside to onside.  Going onside to offside gives great direction off the second wake.  Both boots open really accentuates the drive from the second wake out.  If it did not hurt my ankle or if I had boots that provided for finer adjustment,  I would really give this more of a go. Open up the front boot and tell me that you don't explode outbound off the second wake going into onside.

I run a hardshell front and Wiley rear.  The rear is loose around the ankle, tight across the foot.  This allows the rear foot to move around as it wishes.  I tried for two weeks to ski with double hardshells and I just could not go left.  Something about the freedom of the rear foot to find the angle it likes is critical to my skiing.  There has been more than one Brit who skied pretty well with a rear kicker.  Maybe something to that. 

At the Pro Swerve at Trophy I was checking out Thomas Moore's setup.  In addition to rotation, the boots were moved toward the outside edges of the ski i.e. not centered.  I am really intrigued by what he is doing.  Most interesting technique on the water that I have personally witnessed.  I dig it.

Would be great if he would be willing to chime in here on the topic.  He clearly has it worked out. 

I was told but do not really know that Jamie closes his front boot a bit.  If true, I don't understand that one.

Wouldn't it be really cool if these guys would share all they know with us?  

Last thing.  If you think moving the fin 5/1000ths is a big deal, move one of your boots a little bit.   

[alex38]

My experience with this is for years I pivoted my rear binding. As i got better at skiing, I started to fall over on my offside turn. I approached the problem as logically as I possibly could...I was afraid of straightening the rear and comprimising my onside turn. And then a thought came to me...my onside turn and pull has become quite nasty (meaning good or effective). In fact, if I think about it, I can turn at almost any speed on that side, and I make up lost time like crazy across the wake. How much will I really be comprimising?

Not much, I straightened the rear and my off-side became smooth, fast, and sharp, giving me the best coordinates I've ever had out of 1, 3, 5, with multiple pb's in practice and at tournaments. The onside is still a nasty weapon.

-Al

[skidawg]

just because you medal in tricks at nats, doesn't mean u r a great tricker,  i have more trick medals at nats than slalom and i am a below average tricker.(way below). but jth is a great tricker!

[GMC]

KTM - Thanks for the post.  You addressed what I consider to be a couple of the primary issues with my skiing, from what I remember.  In the end, my rear boot canting was for comfort, not performance and by your/Rossi's logic I could address both of them by closing up the back boot.  I think we're going to kick off the season this week so before we even start I'm going to straighten out the back binding.

BTW, how's the back?  One of my major goals for this year is to keep my sciatic nerve happy.

[ktm300]

I stopped skiing at the end of Oct.  Sciatica started within 10 days.  Only really bothered me at night.  Had to get out of bed 2-3 times a night and walk around.  By end of March I was dog tired from lack of sleep.  Started skiing again.  Sciatica stopped.  I spent a ton of money seeing every kind of Dr. you can think of trying to cure the sciatica.  As it turns out, I just really need to ski year round.