lpskier

All of the first season is excellent. Gates, on side turn, off side turn, alignment, driving.

Ride the biggest (longest, or widest or most wet surface area, whatever big means for a particular ski) ski you can turn. KLP

@Ski_Dad They do. Your mower seat and your boat seat have exactly the same thing in them: your butt!

@skierjp They bid for two years, got one (because only a bid for 2023 was solicited) and later withdrew their bid for ‘24.

@VONMAN I’m a lawyer. What did I ever do to you?

The bid has not been awarded. Ski West Village in Bakersfield (really Arvin) CA. looks like it will be the venue. No other bids as of the Winter AWSA BOD meeting. Board votes at the summer meeting in August. I hear Wilmington is interested again and may bid for ‘25.

@ski6jones I couldn’t agree more. Training plans are key. I pull lots of skiers and usually ask “What’s your plan for this set?” before they hop in. 90% of the skiers, the answer is some variation of “What do you mean?” @503Kento I worked a long time on keeping my elbows pinned to the vest into the buoy, particularly on my off side. Now I learn that is causing me to ski straighter to the buoy than I’d like at short line. But wait!! You have to have your elbows in! Bring your center mass to your elbows not your elbows to your center mass, and you do this by keeping your chest up off the second wake.

@Drago I imagine that if you never bend your front knee, front foot rotation may make less difference. But just for fun, take a listen to Freddie Winter’s coaching in the video on the “do you know what you need to fix?” discussion.

I live on a well patrolled lake. When that new rule went into effect, I bought a wrist strap for the kill switch lanyard. Simple enough to slip on, so that makes compliance simple. No fussing trying to get the hook attached to your shorts. And it is safer, so what the hell.

@Horton. In a vacuum, the heel side/toe side thing makes no difference. What does make a difference, I think, is that by rotating my front foot toes to the right (opposite of what most LFF people who rotate a front foot would do), when I flex my front knee forward, it flexes directly over the center of my ski. If my front foot is straight, my knee flexes well toward the left edge of the ski. If my front foot is rotated toes to the left, my knee flexes off the left side of the ski. Assuming you agree that the back foot primarily controls the on side turn and the front foot the off side, and further assuming you don’t advocate skiing with locked knees, if your front knee flexes to the high side edge in the off side turn turn, the knee pressure is working to diminish the roll of the ski. If the knee flexes over the center of the ski, its pressure is neutral on both the on and off side and thus does not interfere with roll on either side. Getting the front knee to flex over the center of the ski is the benefit, as I see it. The consequence for me is a true heel side/toe side, which by itself probably makes no difference at all. Jenn LaPoint encouraged me to straighten out my front foot for years. It’s easy for me to try, so I have. I tried it for four months and I lost a full pass. My current coach says that he likes how my ski is set up. I’ll ask him about the rotation thing and report back. Could be a little while though as I seem to have injured my knee. Hopefully, not badly.

Andy had a back to back two ball course. In one trip down the lake you’d get two out moves, two in moves, two gates and two one-twos. Brilliant.

If the binding wasn’t designed to rotate, it wouldn’t. Just for fun, stand in your binding when it is straight and push your knee forward. Do the same with the binding rotated. Which setting puts your knee over the center of the ski when the knee is flexed forward? You rotate the front binding to adjust your off side turn. Your back foot rotation controls your on side turn. Binding rotation is the final fine tuning after ensuring an optimal fin set up. @Horton disagrees with me on front foot rotation. I ski with a lot of binding rotation , but unlike the more common rotation of pinky toes toward the edge of the ski that @Drago mentions, I have both of my heels rotated to the left ((LFF) and all toes rotated to the right, giving me a true heel side/toe side. Not many people ride that set up, but it works for me. Final point: when you figure out what works best for you, don’t forget periodically to check your binding screws for tightness.

@Broussard Yeah that possibility occurred to me after my my second cup of coffee.

Interesting that Connelly is sponsoring. They don’t make a trick ski any longer. Good for them to see the value in supporting more than slalom.

I tried to transition from double hardshells to a Reflex and a kicker. That didn’t work well. I lost a whole pass even after giving it a four month long try. I detransitioned right back to double hardshells. Point being, that’s a hard switch for many of us to make, so don’t feel bad that you had a hard time, too.

This should be a very good event.

Connelly skis typically ride deeper in the water than other skis, in part because they have a rounded tail that creates less tail lift as opposed to a ski with a square are “squarer” tail. This probably is what you feel and like with the V. The Connelly DV8 has interchangeable tails, round, square and in between, giving you the option to determine which works best for your style of skiing.

SM is epic, in particular Season 1. I’ve listened to the entire series more than once and select episodes multiple times. Highly recommended.

I guess he’s screwed…

In our MC club boat at LaPoint Ski Park we have a key pad. Each member has a four digit code for personal skiing and a second code for guests. There is a club code for warming up the boat and doing course work. The boat won’t start without a code. It works great for keeping track of each member’s monthly use. It has the added benefit of reducing the hours out on the boat because if the motor is running, you are paying for it. The system works very well. Five stars. I’m not sure who makes the product but it came with the boat and we get out boats from Doug Meeker at The Liquid Edge.

I made a lot of money arguing about what the words “sudden and accidental” meant in Chubb policies. And I would tell my clients “ If you start with the basic understanding that insurance companies don’t make money by paying claims, everything they do makes sense.”

I passed this on to a friend with such a ski for sale.

No camping at the tournament site and the airport isn’t that far away. Flying is generally cheaper than driving, especially if you are going to ski your event and leave. If you know someone that’s also going, buddy up and split expenses. If you don’t know anyone that’s going, ask around at Regionals. @mike_mappleis right. AC and a cold beer will be much appreciated after a hot day at Okeeheelee.

Interesting. This would cover (or more specifically NOT cover) a sanctioned practice. So if you are hoping to get site liability coverage for your practice seasons via USAWSWS sanctioned practice, you will lose your hull liability coverage via Chubb’s exclusion.

That pretty much works for all line lengths.