Ho xMax

[oldjeep]

Father inlaw is a 28-32 off skier and picked up a new front boot last week and hates it. He is coming off a rubber boot. The Ho seems to make him wheelie like crazy and looks to me to have a pretty heavy forward lean built into it compared to my vectors. Going to try to get him to try out my vector front before swapping back to his old boot. Does this seem normal for the ho, or just a normal issue from switching binding types?

[JayG80]

I could not ski on the 2017 XMax binding. The cuff was higher and stiffer than same model from previous years. I bought several pair of 2016s that have the grey hexagonal design in the side panel inserts. See https://www.waterskis.com/HO-Skis-xMAX-Binding-p/ho_xmax_binding.htm

[oldjeep]

Interesting you mention the cuff, it left a hard line on the back of his leg. And the liner seemed higher and harder than my boot.

[JayG80]

Cuff was painful, it is stiff, dug in and about an inch taller than before. How does the height compare to your Vectors?

 

Performance was great on return.

[oldjeep]

It seemed taller to me in the back, and the vector dips down in the center. He'll have no issue returning it, got it locally from midwest mastercraft (waterskis.com) and they have a 30 day no questions return

[Chef23]

Get him a Wiley binding and let him get back to having fun. I made a switch from Wiley to a Radar Strada with no problem a bunch of years ago. Sometimes a binding switch can be even harder than a ski switch. I made a temporary jump to a hardshell a few years ago and it took me 2 sets before I could run a pass and maybe 5 before I could ski to my average again.

 

If he finds the new binding really comfortable he could free ski a couple of sets then see if he cans ski it in the course. If it isn't really comfortable I would make a switch.

[OldboyII]

When I tried xMax I could get up 10 times in a row.

Felt weird. Then I discovered that axis of the cuff was not vertical therefore ski simply slipped out from me.

It was like this:

After some corrections I managed to make it vertical and all went very good:

Good binding, although I did not order DIY set )))

Could not imagine before that such a little angle is such a big game changer.