david_quail

If we can make it through the next few days of snow and freeze, we may have another couple weeks of skiing up here in Alberta .

@APB where in SK is that? My native province ... I love those northern lakes.

Oops ... I'm a dumb a#4 eh! Revised to 330. Thx for the catch.

I feel so dirty for even listing her ... I love her so much. But I've got a line on a deal for a 2015 SN 200 that I'd be foolish to turn down. 2003 SN196 in Alberta. Weep ... http://www.ski-it-again.com/php/skiitagain.php?endless=summer&topic=Search&category=Boat_3Event&postid=47418

My wife is a way better driver than I am!

Man, it's so tempting! Agreed, it's so beautiful there!

Headed out to Waskesiu SK for the first time since I was a kid next week. Love that place. Any skiers out that way? Wondering about throwing my stick in the Thule or not and hitching a ride as I've been slowly convinced it's not worth tugging our boat from Edmonton for a 3 day trip ...

Both feet in. I learned with double boots and have never tried with one in

Great boat. Consider z-box along with perfect pass while you're at it. I upgraded this year and absolutely love it. Well worth the ~$400

I was (am) a beginner and was struggling at 15 off 30mph and the driver shortened the line to 28 off so that “I’d actually work harder” even though I’d never experienced 22 let alone 28. OTF through gates —-

@jhughes thanks! So what exactly does mapping do then? Once it gets the gate hit it expects, it's able to manage rpms/speed with respect to the load the boat is receiving? Sorry for simple questions :|

Slightly on topic - I just upgraded to z-box. I've never mapped a course and am curious what doing so actually does to the pull. I know it times the run, but after mapping, is the boat also able to anticipate having to throttle up / down because it knows where in the course the skier is? Does it mean when free skiing, you have a lot more oscillation of speeds because it can't anticipate? ie. you lose a lot of the benefit of the z-box when free skiing? After the upgrade I did notice a HUGE difference in how quickly and seamlessly it would snap into speed. And auto calibration was indeed dead easy.

I can relate to the logic of not wanting to extend a ski set when you're skiing poorly (thus reinforcing bad habits). But the argument works both ways. I had an awesome set last week - making 5 of 6 passes and feeling great. But then I had to stop because my time was done. Would have loved to keep going to reinforce whatever I was doing. So maybe the key is to give yourself the option to keep skiing when things are going well, but to also cut bait if you need time to pause and reflect.

Is the reason people take time in between mostly to give others a turn? Again ... Maybe I'm delusional ... But there seems to be other sports where we're able to do 12 intervals in a row without taking a rest period to split everything up. (Trying to convince myself that I could get in 2 sets in 30 minutes. Would be so much more efficient wrt time, getting out of the water cold and having to jump back in, etc)

Usually I go out and just ski one set, but given the 30 minute drive there + 30 drive back + time to change etc, I'm thinking I figure out a way to ski more than once to make the commute more worth while How much time do people take in between their sets? More than 15 minutes? Am I crazy to think that a person could ski 12 passes in a row? ie. 2 sets. I realize that at my beginner level (22off, 30mph), it's probably not as tiring as shorter line ... but I've never felt like I couldn't ski any longer when I finish up. Obviously though ... the way I feel, and the way my body feels might not align and my skiing after 6 passes could go downhill fast :|

Radar 2015 senate graphite. Vector bindings, radar bag. Small nick on the tail of the ski as seen in picture. Fun scuffed just a tiny bit (hard to see in picture). Re: @aspski

@aspski I have a 2015 senate graphite (+bindings and bag if wanted) I could probably part with. It's a 67 and is pretty much mint. Edmonton. At this rate of thawing, you may be able to use it by July!!!

@adamhcaldwell I'm based out of Edmonton (they somehow convinced the worlds most renowned Reinforcement learning researchers - Rich Sutton - to move here to teach - so I'm trying to sponge up as much from him as I can). But the sounds of a rendez-vous for a weekend of skiing / AI brainstorming with @tap sounds amazing if it ever panned out! We still have 18 inches of ice on our lakes here! @dchristman @andjules - Awesome pointers to some sensors and work that has been done before! For my particular branch of research, I'm really interested in low level continuous sensorimotor streams of data. Until now, it's mostly been turtlebot mobile robots handing me pixel, load, temperature, acceleration, etc. data. But I think there are several reasons why streams of data generated during slalom would be of particular interest (beyond it justifying my time at the lake!). While there's a lot of correlated data, there's also a lot of noise - which makes the discovery of useful predictive features interesting. In addition - the data is episodic in nature since a slalom pass has a clear start and finish. That's different from mobile robot data - and enables a different type of research because of it. Anyways - that's my long winded and nerdy way of saying that I'm mostly interested in the pure science, rather than creating some useful application. That said, the discussion around a training tool is interesting. I can see value there (and as a former mobile developer am tempted to build such a thing). Bringing a product like that beyond a DIY kit though seems a rather daunting challenge given such a niche market.

Hi folks, I'm an avid albeit fairly beginner slalom skier and I'm doing my PHD in Reinforcement Learning (a branch of artificial intelligence). I've mostly used streams of sensorimotr data coming from a mobile robot for my experiments. But for the summer, I thought it might be fun to study data generated while skiing. Fun and it would allow me to say that I'm working on my PHD while water skiing!!! Yay less guilt skiing mid day during the week!!! Do any of you have thoughts / experience collecting such data (I'm thinking line load, accelerometer, visual pixel data, etc). This would involve spending money on robotshop (another passion of mine) in an effort to instrument some combination of the ski, handle, pylon, myself. I seem to remember other threads which talked about monitoring speed, acceleration, load etc. I have lots of ideas but wondering what I may learn from others who have done so before ...

@Justin We should totally connect! It's a short hop over the highway to get to each others lake. There's a few of us out there that get out early in the morning every weekend and several weeks of the summer. Any time the wind blows from the west, or north, we're good to go! Would always welcome another skier! As an aside, we'll often see Steven Neveu out there ripping it up - and he's been kind enough to give a few of us hacks a few tips here and there.

Congrats on getting a new boat! That's awesome. What'd you get? If you're ever up near Edmonton, look me up. Shalom Park is obviously amazing - the site of nationals. But there's a bunch of us that ski 45 minutes west at Seba Beach. 3 courses decently maintained there.

@OSUwaterskier Some good ideas there. The crossfit open is all about feeling like you're part of a local and global community, and then competing within it. So as you say - a leaderboard including scores, videos etc, is one way to help this out. With the Crossfit Open, they accomplish this in some ways including: - They livestream the announcement of the weekly workout (Each of the 5 weeks (or is it 6?) is always a surprise) and have two of the worlds best athletes compete head to head. Lights, cameras, live audience, leaderboard etc. They have lots of $ to throw at this :| - They have a global leaderboard. You can query how you compare against people your age, people in your country, in your state, etc. You can see video of those who have submitted video proof rather than a qualified judge - Most crossfit gyms make a big deal of the workout and have everyone do it in an evening (or morning or whatever). At our gym they host "friday night lights" ... so instead of the usual trainer + 5 other people, the gym is full of 30 people doing the workout in heats, all the trainers, family and friends show up, lights, DJ, food, etc. Many of these ideas translate to Slalom with a few tweaks. But the overall idea of bringing Slalom enthusiasts (everyone from Nate Smith to someone struggling to run 30mph, 15 off) from around the world to compete together using technology and local clubs, is a mighty fine one.

@cragginshred What a weird comment to make. But I'll nibble. "Crossfitters" for the most part, are just average folks, looking to stay in shape and get functionally stronger while making a few friends in the gym. They're not looking to make pin up models of themselves - if they were, they'd stop eating and or hire a trainer. From my experience (I can't believe I'm commenting on this), crossfitters look like any average bloke walking down the street. Some eat too much. Some eat too little. But they're all usually strong as f#$ck. I wouldn't normally take this conversation to a place outside of slalom, but critiquing a group of people trying to stay in shape for their appearance seems misplaced .... so I feel the need. That aside, I like the idea of a Crossfit open style competition. There are challenges ... one of which not mentioned ... is getting average everyday skiers (like myself) to participate. The Open appeals to average crossfiters for a number of reasons: - It's usually done as a big group with everyone encouraging eachother on - in a party type atmosphere. - The workout is a big surprise. You have no idea what you're going to get - You know you're not going to be anywhere close to the pros, but it's always interesting to see where you stack up. Depending on the workout, this can vary a lot. None of this really applies to a Slalom Open. I guess clubs could do it as a party type atmosphere. But there's no element of surprise, and I already know exactly where I stack up against the pros (and it's not pretty). Anyways - even just for the sake of having clubs get together and compete internally and share the results - it's definitely a really good idea.

Not exactly sure how to answer. I consider myself lucky, having the best of both worlds. I am a member of a private ski club - private lake, their own boat, a driver, well maintained and pristine course. And I have a boat and cabin on a public lake that has 3 courses. The lake gets busy, the courses need to be maintained and aren't always perfectly straight, and wind doesn't always cooperate. But we're usually able to get out for an hour or 2 in the morning. I'd say 3 out of 4 days we try.

@6balls where in Canada do you live that March skiing is possible? I realize Edmonton is pretty much right up there with the North Pole, but we have a foot of ice guaranteed that time of year. We may get lucky and be able to ski the last week of April. But March would be a miracle.