DangerBoy

@TallSkinnyGuy Thanks for the tip on how to make it easier for the Talons to release. For the last 12 years I have skied on Approach bindings and just thought you were not meant to be able to release from them. I didn't know that you actually were supposed to be able to release from them but they were so poorly designed that you almost couldn't. I was also shocked as hell one day when a 20 something year old who sometimes skis with us did a spectacular OTF and actually ejected from his Approaches - with his feet still attached to his legs!! I didn't think that was possible. ;) In the 12 years I was on the Approaches, I really never had need to release from the bindings and never came close to it although I do remember several years ago having an OTF where the heal of my rear foot came up maybe an inch or inch and a half and I had to struggle a bit in the water to get my heal back down so I could continue my run. I don't think I've done an OTF since then. In the few times I've felt like one might be coming on, I've either been able to recover and avoid it or I've bailed to save myself. I'm just free skiing at 31 - 33 mph so am never scrambling and pusing myself to get to a buoy. I turn when I'm ready not when I have to so that reduces the odds of taking a bad crash. I always ski hard and aggressively but I seldomly get out of control and have very few wipeouts. The majority of runs I take, I have no wipeouts at all. When I do wipeout, it's always pretty tame and there's no need for me to release. We'll see if this changes though as I transition from the Monza with Approach bindings to the V-Type with the Talons. I might be crashing a lot more in the beginning as I get used to the new equipment and get the fin and binding place,ent setup all dialed in to my liking.

@Glydon, I got them from Wave Pro. They have lots of their closeout bindings listed on SIA. I enquired about a set of Radar Profiles they put up for sale for $50/boot one day but I was too late. She mentioned that they had some other types of bindings that they were about to list so I asked about Connely Talons and HO vMaxs. Turned out they had a set of Talons in just the right size. Lucky for me, they had one right and one left and one was on a front plate and the other on a rear plate. I bought them before they had a chance to list them on SIA. :p I will PM you with an e-mail address.

There are two rules when your wife gives you a tow: 1. Your wife did a great job of driving. 2. If your wife did not do a great job of driving, see rule no. 1. ;)

UPS finally just dropped off my $100 pair of NOS all black Connelly Talons and I just finished unboxing them. They're awesome and I love them already!! The Medium (8-9) fits my size 9.5 feet perfectly. As a matter of fact, my big toes fall about 1/2" short of the end of the footpads so I suspect that even someone at size 10 or 10.5 can fit the medium shells. That's the beauty of open toed shells. I also love how you can make the portion of the boot around the ball of your foot narrower or wider, depending on what you need. The narrowest setting works great for my narrow feet. Perfect fit. :p The only minor hitch is that a seam on the tongue of the left boot presses on my protruding inside ankle bone so I have to put the tongue outside the shell on the that foot. Don't have that problem on the right side (back foot) so I can put the tongue on the inside on that foot. No big deal. For $100 shipped for the pair, I'm ecstatic and I think they'll be a nice upgrade from my Approaches which have served me well for 12 years. Rear mounting plates have exact same hole pattern as Radar and HO which is also nice.

Ahh, I get it now. You're actually bending the ski downwards a hair on one side of the finblock! Skis are so rigid I didn't think that was possible but I guess the amount of deflection doesn't have to be very much to have a relatively large effect. Okay, I'm with the program now. So you deflect the tail downward on the back foot (onside) side of the ski to get a shallower fin depth and less cross-section/slide resistance on the onside turn and more on the offside turn? Interesting. As an alternative to that, could you not just paint on a few extra layers of resin on one side of the fin to make the ski on that side of the fin 0.030" thicker? I'm just speaking theoretically here. I doubt anyone would actually want to do that but theoretically speaking, would that not also accomplish more or less the same thing?

@Ed_Johnson whether you envision moving one side of the ski tail relative to a fin that you imagine is fixed or tilt the fin relative to a ski that you imagine is fixed is the same thing. When all is said and done, if you look at the setup from the rear of the ski and the ski base is on the horizontal, the fin will not be perpendicular to the bottom of the ski it will be tilted or slanted slightly to one side, correct?

The diagrams on the Denali skis page aren't that clear to me. What are we trying to do here? Tilt the bottom of the fin slightly to towards the onside turn (i.e. tilt bottom to right for LFF/to left for RFF)? If that's the case, why couldn't you just put a strip of very thin shim metal under one edge of the fin block so the fin is still 90 degrees to the finblock but the finblock is slightly tilted relative to the ski? Wouldn't that accomplish the same thing?

I find this discussion fascinating and intriguing, especially the talk about differential fin depth settings. I've done some searching on this forum and the 'net in general and I haven't yet found anything that shows me how this differential find depth settings using thin washers is done and how I might use it to my advantage. Can somebody please be kind enough to point me to a video, thread and/or web page that will teach me all about this part of finlore? You can PM me if you prefer. This finlore stuff is kind of like wandlore in Harry Potter; all steeped in legend, alchemy and mystery... ;)

The ski chooses the skier. That much has always been clear to those of us who have studied finlore... If you are any baller at all you will be able to channel your magic through almost any instrument. The best results, however, must always come where there is the strongest affinity between skier and ski. These connections are complex. An initial attraction, and then a mutual quest for experience, the ski learning from the skier, the skier from the ski.

@scotchipman After thinking about it a bit, I now seem to recall one excercise I couldn't do with the injury was a dumbell bench press in a declining position (head lower than feet). I can't remember if the dumbells were parallel or perpindicular to my body. I remember that I could only raise the weight so far on my left side and then I'd have to rotate my left shoulder up off the bench and maybe make some other small adjustments to get the load off my supraspinatus and onto some other cuff muscle so I could push through the lift. No problems doing that lift without any adjustments after the Class IV laser therapy.

It's great things worked out so well with uShip. As I said above, my experience with uShip was great too although I had to take a bit more of a leap of faith. The guy I went with had been out of the business for a couple years and was just returning to it. As such, he only had a few positive reviews to go on. He seemed very eager to get his review numbers up and get his business going so I gave him a chance to proove himself and he did. He did a great job and I gave him another very positive review. By now, if he's kept it up, he's probably got hundreds of good reviews but it's always the first few that are hardest for the haulers to get.

@chris55 If you separated your shoulder you have no doubt at least strained all sorts of ligaments and tendons if not torn some things as well. Some of those injuries will probably benefit from regular sorts of physiotherapies as the injured tissues will have a decent blood supply. As I understand it, laser therapy works differently by stimulating production of certain things that are needed for healing the injury in the mitochondria of the cells right in the injured tissue. Those things then don't need to be delivered there via the bloodstream. This is why it works on injuries like supraspinatus tears so much better than other therapies like ultrasound do. With that in mind, there shouldn't be a downside to using a Class IV laser on your shoulder. It should be complimentary to the other physio treatments you're getting and help all of your injuries to heal faster, especially the injuries to tissues with poor blood supply which probably aren't getting much benefit from those therapies that are trying to facilitate healing by increasing bloodflow to the injured tissues. If you can't find a physiotherapist in Geneva that has a Class IV laser maybe you could try bribing a veterinarian who has one to zap you a few times on your shoulder? Your ability to waterski is at stake here so desperate times call for desperate measures! ;)

@scotchipman I was weightlifting at the time and there were a number of specific lifts I couldn't perform although I cannot remember which ones exactly. What I can tell you is I would start the motion with the dumbell and when I got to the point where supraspinatus muscles became engaged I could go no further on the left side unless I shifted my body slightly in some way so as to disengage the Supraspinatus and engage a different muscle on that side. That would allow me to complete the lift although obiously, the form was not correct on the left side and the supraspinatus had been bypassed. I remember one particular shoulder warm up excercise was painful before getting the laser therapy. I would start with my upper arms straight out sideways following an imaginary line going through both shoulders. My forearms would be bent straight upwards at right angles. Sort of a muscle man pose if you will. The warm up motion was then to simply rotate the forearms forward 90 degrees until they were pointing straight forward and then rotate them back until they were straight up again all the while keeping the forearms in the same position. Doing that would cause quite a bit of discomfort in my left shoulder. After the short bit of therapy was done I could do that motion without any pain or discomfort (still can) and could do all of the lifts I was having trouble with before without having to do anything to avoid engaging the supraspinatus. Everything was normal again on the left side and I was free of pain. Luckily, I've avoided sustaining any rotator cuff injuries ever since.

They make you wear special glasses to protect your eyes when the laser is on. I never had any sensation of skin or tissue burning nor any other unwanted/undesirable effects. I could feel the power of the thing working deep in my shoulder tissue as he hovered the laser head about an inch above my shoulder. It was a pretty weird sensation. I think he had completed special training to be allowed to use it on people. There's no question those machines are powerful but used correctly, they're quite safe and VERY effective for some types of injuries. A couple years ago I went back to see him for a tendon injury I had in my back foot ankle and he used the Class IV there too. Again, excellent results. The injury healed up very quickly and I was able to resume water skiing again right afterwards.

Those reading this thread may be interested to a related/complimentary thread I just started. (/forum#/discussion/20415/something-that-may-be-of-interest-for-those-with-rotator-cuff-injuries) I was going to post that information here but then I thought maybe it would be better to post it in its own thread and keep this one to discussion about the shoulder sphere itself. It looks like it's a well thought out machine and a good way to isolate and work those rotator cuff muscles that give us old guys so much grief.

I thought I'd put this out here in case it might help someone with nagging rotator cuff issues like I once did. I had fantastic results with a particular form of therapy so I just wanted to share my story and make people aware this therapy option is out there in case it might help them. I can't guarantee it will work for everyone but it sure did for me. In 2012 - 2013 I had torn supraspinatus rotator cuff muscle in my left shoulder. This was verified by ultra-sound. You could see the tear very clearly in the image the ultra-sound tech handed me in the report she told me to take to my Physio. As most of you know, the injury I had and rotator cuff injuries in general are very common in people over 40 and I'm guessing very common in slalom water skiers. A torn Supraspinatus is a very tough injury to fix owing to the minimal blood supply that muscle gets and most standard physio treatment methods don't seem to have much effect on it at all. This is because most of those methods are trying to facilitate healing by increasing bloodflow to the site but the bloodflow is so restricted to that muscle, trying to get more blood to go there seems to deliver minimal, if any, results. I personally know and have heard of people who have spent thousands going to repeated physio sessions for months or even years for rotator cuff injuries and have had very unsatisfying results. I sought out a therapist here in Calgary who had the only Class IV laser therapy machine in the whole city at the time. Every other physio place that did laser therapy had Class IIIB laser machines. I'm not sure how prevalent Class IV lasers are at Physio clinics elsewhere but here where I live they're still quite rare. At this time, I think maybe 3 out of 50 or more physio clinics in Calgary have got a Class IV. The reason why is the cost difference; Class IIIB machines cost much less than Class IVs. A lot of Veterinary clinics use Class IV lasers though. The reason I wanted laser therapy is because it facilitates healing a different way that does not rely upon stimulating more bloodflow to the site. You can find lots of info on the 'net that will explain how laser therapy attempts to facilitate healing vs say something like ultrasound, massage or heat therapy. The problem is that Class IIIB lasers max out at just 1 watt of power but most of the heads they use on them cut that down to about half a watt. A Class IV laser is 10 watts so delivers about 20 times the energy to the wound site. The power difference is really significant on deep tissue injuries where the Class IIIB laser delivers almost no energy to the site and has far less effect than Class IV. Okay, so I've got a bonafide proven rotator cuff (supraspinatus) muscle tear. It's stopping me from doing a number of weight training exercises and it really hurts when I do certain movements or activities that engage that muscle. I go into a Physio clinic with a Class IV laser and get 6 laser treatments over two weeks. I then take 3 weeks off taking it easy on the shoulder and then went back for 1 more treatment (which in hindsight I didn't need). At that point I was completely cured! I went right back to weightlifting and doing strenuous things with the shoulder and had zero pain and all of my strength and range of motion back. Luckily, I've never had an issue with that muscle ever since. Since then, I've sent a number of friends with rotator cuff issues to that clinic and while none of them had near as quick results as I did (my Physio said I healed exceptionally fast compared to most), they have all reported that they've made way more progress and have had way more positive results than they ever had with years of other types of Physiotherapy. Again, I can't promise that this type of therapy will be a cure for anyone else's shoulder cuff problems but it helped me an incredible amount and delivered excellent results quite quickly. With any luck, maybe this information will be of benefit to others on this forum.

@savaiusini My apologies. I have amended my previous response. I hope you find it more acceptable.

Edited Response: I don't know if this could help but on any VMax later than 2015 you can get adapter plates to mount them the regular way and avoid Direct Connect if you wish. The 2015s don't have this option. FWIW, the local pro shop here always mounts VMax the conventional way using HOs adapter plates .

@powbmps With the 2016 VMaxs you can also get adapter plates to mount them the regular way if you decide you don't like direct connect. On the 2015 VMaxs, that option is not available.

@btb24 You're welcome for the tip. I'm glad that you and a few others were able to jump on and get that smokin' deal as well and I hope everyone who did is liking their new ski. As far as the painful ankle spray issue, I've had that problem with other skis but fortunately, it's an easy fix. I just wear a neoprene spray protector like this. https://bartswatersports.com/catalog/Wetsuits/Wetsuit_Accessories/Body_Guard_Neo_Spray_leg/index.asp I started wearing one years and years ago. I then changed skis and have kept on wearing it even though I'm not even sure I need to anymore. I'm so used to having it on, I feel uneasy and out-of-sorts when I forget to put it on and tend to be tentative and not turn near as hard as I can on my off-side because I'm always worried that I'll get the painful cutting pressure washer spray across my right ankle (left foot forward skier) when coming into an off-side turn. When I put the sleeve on, I never think about that happening so always give 'er wild open on both sides. :p

How's everyone liking their new V-Type so far?

@vernonreeve That drop ski buoy looks interesting but they're "Currently Unavailable". Since it's a liquidation store I suspect they won't be getting any more of them. A Google search did not turn up any available anyplace else so finding one to purchase anywhere is probably going to be difficult. Do you happen to have one? I'd like to see how they get attached to the binding like they show in the picture. I'm thinking one could be recreated from a fluorescent orange canvas dog retrieval dummy but again I'd like to see how they get attached. The drop ski buoy looks like an elegant solution but in the end, it's probably easier just to get a cheap ski, paint it neon yellow and attach some weight to the tail to make it float tip up as others have suggested. Edit: Just confirmed with liquidation sports that they will not be getting anymore drop ski dummies in stock.

@Than_Bogan By that logic can't you also argue that deliberately making a ski that is a color that is hardest to see and easiest to lose and therefore more likely to get lost and run over and cause damage to expensive boat propellers or perhaps cause serious injury to a skier or boarder that hits it is also asking for legal problems?

Interesting. Maybe their size 10 is a bit bigger than normal. I think I ordered a size 8 and the fit was absolutely perfect everywhere, palm girth, finger length and diameter, etc. Again, I don't know what my normal/usual glove size is other than Men's Small so I can't say with any confidence whether the size I got from using their chart fit true to size. What I can say is that my hand must fit the proportions they modeled my size after.

@igkya Did you go off the sizing chart at https://legionsafety.com/ansell-glove-sizing-information-and-chart.html or did you just order your usual size? The liners I got fit me perfectly but I took the measurement shown and ordered according to the size chart. I don't know what my usual glove size is other than Men's Small so I can't say if the Ansell size I ordered was smaller, larger or the same as my normal/usual size.