slalom frog

What about French Canadians? Is it open season on them as well?

Hello Ballers- Frequent troller, infrequent poster here. I am looking for some advice with my seasonal course. I put in a course for the summer months in a public lake. In the past I have taken my anchors up at the end of the season, about 150# concrete, rectangular shaped anchors. I want to rid myself of taking out the anchors at the end of the season. That's not a problem, I have that all figured out. I am trying to decide the best way to anchor and tension. I don't have great protection from the wind and at times it can be quite a challenge to keep enough tension on the mainline of the course. I am leaning towards a couple of 200# pyramid style anchors. One end of my course is anchored in about 14' of water and the other is about 8' deep. I am comfortable with the bottom being quite mucky on the 8' end but I need to investigate a bit more on the 14' end. I think that the pyramid style anchors will do a good job of digging into the bottom. In the past I would tension the course by pulling one anchor away from the other. Sometimes this would work, other times the anchor would not catch well. In this new setup, I am considering using a comealong to take up the slack. Ed (EZ Slalom) tells me that he knows of some people that do it this way. Does anyone have any experience with anchoring a portable course that stays in for a longer period of time? Tensioning ideas and advice would also be appreciated. Sorry for the long post. Thanks in advance for your help and advice. SF

Put it all in perspective. It happens all the time to me that I ski great on one day and the next I would be better off on a pair of combos! Normally I find that if my set is going that badly I have to just put the ski away for a while and clear my head. Next time out usually goes much better and the frustration is gone. I will often switch to tricking when this happens.

What line length are you at? I own an 06 RLXi and I notice a big difference at 22 off when my form is not good. When I am skiing well, I barely notice it. Other times when I hit the wake with bad form I launch off of the first wake. At 28 and 32 I don't notice much difference ever, regardless of my form.

I used the Reflex bond a few years back to mount my plate to a Goode ski. It worked very well and I was much more confident in the product than Dual Lock. Never had much good luck with the velcro, though that could certainly be a product of my skiing style (or lack thereof!).

Than- I do not know Cy. We are on a small lake called Sheepscot. My wife and I are probably the only ones on the lake that know how to ski the course. Others try but with limited success.  Mike

I am Mike Boulet, "lurker" at BOS. I am a 40, married and a father of 3 great kids. We all live in Maine and I am quite possibly addicted to slalom and trick. Having skied the course actively for the last 5 seasons, I am always working to improve my buoy count, which has been happening but not as quickly or gracefully as I would like it to happen. The long off season in Maine causes you do do a bit of catching up at the beginning for every season.  I have never skied in a tournament but do put a course up on the public lake that I live on in the summer.

I purchased a stainless steel mainline from EZ Slalom and made the rest myself using 2" pvc. I found some stainless steel spring clips to be able to quickly couple the sections together. It has been very durable for me over the last 4 years. It is a bit of a pain to get it tensioned properly but overall I am very happy with it. If anyone is interested I think that I have the plans that I used to cut the pvc and related parts.

Scoke - any chance to get a photo or 2 onthe Reflex boot? If so, mike at theboulets . com  Thanks!

Andre-  I did get some sets coached by April, I think I have everytime. I was also coached by Chris Eller and Daniel Kennedy. I was working on my 28' and 32' off by smoothing out my turn instead of just jamming it around the ball. Much, much cleaner now and much more consistent!  I am the same slalom frog. Mike

I have been visting Coble's for the last 3 years, once in the spring and once in the fall. If anyone is looking for a nice place to ski on the east coast, I would suggest giving them a try. Great site with great people and instruction has always made for a great experience for me. In my opinion they do a great job with all levels of slalom and I thought I would share my experience with the group.

AJL6- I do this often and in my case it is a result of not transitioning from one edge to another edge soon enough in my pre turn. Then I end up carrying too much speed into the ball and I end up with more of a "Z" turn instead of a nice "S" turn. Not sure if it applies in your case but that is what happens to me often.

I used to ski on a Powershell with a RTP. From my experience I would not recommend Powershells. My issue was that I found the release of the dual lock. I had brand new dual lock on the ski and the plate and made sure the the plate was well secured on the ski. I would have the most outrageous releases when I was in perfect position just crossing the wake. I decided to give up on PS and then tried Fluid Motion. I like them but did not love them. I have finally ended up on a Reflex and have been using it for the past 2 seasons. I really like the Reflex setup. I feel like it holds when it is supposed to and releases properly when needed.

I normally ski until early/mid November. Gets very challenging with the weather, 3 kids in hockey, hockey for myself and work. I think if I make it until early November this year I will be content. Heading to Coble's currently for a year end week of good skiing.

I've had my left hip surgically reshaped in 2004 to try and slow down the damage being done to my hip due to an oversized femur head. I can say that my left hip no longer hurts but the right one has been bothering me quite a bit this summer. I have the same condition in my right hip that I had in my left hip prior to the surgery. I've just been waiting for the process to get a little less invasive and have a quicker recovery time. I am RFF but I'm not convinced that slalom has been affecting my hip. I think that tricking may be though.

Hi everyone- Really enjoy the site and visit it quite often even though my visit count doesn't show it. I guess I'm not logged in on the computers that I "lurk" from. Anyways, I have a whopping 1 comment. Why? Probably because I'm getting a feel for the interaction on the site and often I don't feel that I have much to add to the discussion at hand. Also, I'm way up in the northeast of the country and the whole watersports scene is not quite as intense as it seems to be in other areas of the country so I'm not really involved in any tournaments. I do a ton of slalom in the course that I set up on my public lake and when not skiing slalom I'l work on my tricking (does that get me banished?). Long story made short, I think it takes a little while before one feels like they "fit in". Certainly not trying to "lurk" in a creepy way. Mike - Slalom Frog

I just skied there on Christmas day. I only brought my trick ski because I did not want to travel with the size of my slalom ski. It was worth the effort of bringing the gear. The site is fine, the boat is fine and Scott was a nice person. It was my first time skiing on salt water and it was quite a change from skiing on fresh!  I would not travel without a hardcase for my slalom ski. I always try to buffer the tail and the tip of the ski a little from the ends of the case. I also make sure that the ski can't float around in the case, often by putting my other gear in the case.