Waternut

So I got my setup on the course today but unfortunately forgot my camera at home. I will go ahead and say that 1/2" of heel rise is WAY WAY too much! The ski was snapping around so hard on both sides that I could barely control it. If it didn't break me at the waist coming out of the buoy, I'd get lean locked and be super early but massively out of control at the next buoy. I cut the first set short because I didn't want to ruin myself by trying to get used to that setup. Second set, I used 1/4" of heel rise and it was a lot better but still a little too much. Bottom line on the first day of course trials... No video evidence but at 1/4" of heel lift I don't feel like I'm breaking at the waist coming into the buoy like I normally do. However, the ski is overturning coming out of the buoy which is more likely to break me at the waist coming out of the buoy. If I can control the turns, my cross course posture feels good with more weight on my front foot instead of riding the back foot like I normally do. Subsequently, I was considerably earlier and wider at 22off through 32off. Will probably try 1/8" of rise tomorrow and see if I can still get enough ankle flex without it biting off too much. At this point, I'm trying to stay away from changing binding and fin settings to accommodate the heel lift as that just seems like a bad idea.

@Deanoski What do you mean by flatten out the reflex?

@Horton I kind of agree with you that this shouldn't be some sort of normal tuning tool which is why the question was posted in the first place. However, I've been skiing into 32off for the last 3 years and the last 2 years I've been knocking on 35off. I've had several lessons which do help with consistency...temporarily...but I haven't really made any significant headway because of them. I've been on 2 different D3 skis and 4 Radar ski's since I started skiing the course. After 10-15+ sets, I always seem to settle on similar fin and binding settings (not on purpose). When I find a ski setting that ultimately works for me, I find that I am always having to force myself into the correct body position because it's not a natural feeling at all. It's as close to natural feeling as I can get with standard ski tweaking though. So instead of continuing to contort myself and beat my head against the wall, I figured I'd try something a little unorthodox because all of the orthodox methods aren't doing it for me. At this time, it's just a trial run... I do know that I've rolled my ankles more times than I can even remember and I do know that my ankles are stiffer because of it but it is hard to know if that is really affecting my skiing. It definitely looks like my ankle has enough flex in "living room trials" but on a ski, it feels like I'm powerless to flex forward as if someone is physically holding my shin back.

Nice @david_ski I was thinking of using some of the same stuff in the form of mold release wedges but I couldn't find where mine went. I ended up using some firm rubber stacked up. The lift was 1/2" and I placed some under the heel and another under the mounts. It's just a temporary solution for now. I only free skied today and it feels a little funny when my heel doesn't go all the way down before cutting in. However, after the first wake crossing, I don't notice it at all. I like to have the feeling of my shoulders back, chest out, front knee bent, and more weight on my front foot coming into the buoy. Normally I have to really concentrate and force myself into that position or I'll bend at the waist in order to get far enough forward. I felt like this change puts me there without any additional effort. Subsequently the ski feels like it comes around a little better and gets a little more angle but I was also free skiing so it's tough to really tell. I'll see if I can get it in the course later this week or this weekend.

No not yet. Maybe I'll look into that tonight and free ski it tomorrow. Hard to tell from just one video what's going on with a new mod.

Might be a good time to just replace that rudder packing. When you do that, you may find the source of the problem. Could be a loose packing nut, loose bolt, or some metal piece binding. The other thing to check would be the teeth in the helm. Could've broken a tooth and it's got some nasty burr which binds heavier when steering in one direction.

The gates seem to be my nemesis. I'm pretty sure I've tried every trick in the book and nothing consistently works. Good gates and I have a decent shot but bad gates make life really difficult. Our course is setup on a banana shaped lake which makes things more difficult. On one side we cut out as the boat turns right and get a little bit of a slingshot if I cut out as the bow passes through the 55's. On the other side, we are pulling out with the boat turning left so it requires a little more effort. Either way, if I try to line up the 2,4,6 buoy line, I'll almost always miss the gate completely on the hard side so it's always a bit of a guess on how far to pull out. Funny thing is, as the line length gets shorter, my gate consistency goes way up but at 22off, it's a real PITA!

The back bolts on mine are always the ones that loosen up first regardless of what ski I have. Just a guess but if they loosened up too much and you released, the force from the binding slamming into a loose screw is substantially higher than when it's tight.

The ski-doc orbit does look cool and I like that it's out of the way. The offset is negligible. because you're talking 6 inches at 38 feet which comes out to be less than 1 degree of difference. You'll get a lot more than that in just slop between the rope and the mount in most systems. Now the bimini top may be more in the way on one side than the other but you'd have to be running pretty shortline for that. However, I don't see that thing fitting any pylon I currently ski behind because all of mine have tapered tops.

Wakeye is probably the leading pylon mount right now but it's got the price to match. Trakker is very similar and just as good but doesn't have all the bells and whistles. The Trakker is just as expensive but you're more likely to find one of these used and they're made of metal so it's not going to degrade. Both track the skier well and neither have to be removed to change the rope length. The ski-doc is a simpler solution and considerably cheaper. I'd probably own the ski-doc if it was around when I bought mine. The downside to the ski-doc is you have to remove the piece to change the rope. However, when you aren't using the camera, the camera mount comes off and it's out of the way too. The Wakeye comes off fairly easy as well but you aren't going to throw it in the glovebox because it's too big. The Trakker requires tools to remove but the plate the camera mounts to is easily removable. In my opinion, if you typically have a passenger, the ski-doc is fine. If it's typically only a driver in the boat, pulling the camera off does make the drivers life a bit more difficult. All of them have issues with slack hits and handle pops because they're mounted to the pylon which moves. Camera choice is the critical point there.

I think the title should be.... How do you make others balance out their lives so they can ski more often? That's my biggest problem. Too many people have other priorities and I need a driver.

I'd say my lake is probably 50/50 skiers and wakeboarders. The majority of the skiers are out during the week and the majority of the wakeboarders are out on the weekend so it works out great for me. Weekends are also tuber central which is heart breaking. On a comical side note, I got a piece of mail at the beginning of the season advertising some kind of boat maintenance that said "Would you rather wrench on your boat or be tubing?"....my first thought was...what a stupid question! Of course I'd rather be wrenching.

@cvaught has a good point. It would be nice to see accelerometer data. Might be useful in determining where your cross course angle is poor and where you're over cooking your turns and losing angle. For example a steady increase in acceleration would lead me to believe it was a clean turn and a good pull through to the wakes. Some jittery numbers show hitting the wake and a steady deceleration shows a good preturn. However, a hard jump in acceleration followed by a drop and with more acceleration shows the turn was too hard and you were forced to back off.

@bbirlew Cool. Centimeters makes sense. Is that app ready by chance or is it still in development?

I have one of these that I used for snow skiing and the Trace Snow app. Part of the reason I bought it was to track waterskiing but in reality, I don't think I have a good enough grasp on the data to understand what I'm looking at. I think I get that column 1 is speed in mph. Is column X total distance skied in inches and column Y total distance about the courses centerline? Did you have to do any data manipulation to get these numbers?

I just used a simple T nut and a screw that originally attached them to the ski boots.

Unfortunately, I don't have another full set. I bought some ski boots a couple years ago for the liners and the guy included 2 sets of boots with lots of missing parts. It was kinda weird but he mostly had the funky latches like these... Link It wasn't hard but the one thing I did have to do that is out of the ordinary was bend the notch plates to match the contour of the Reflex boot. A little heat and they bend pretty easy. I also ground down some of the sharp edges on those notch plates so they wouldn't cut my liner since they went inside the boot instead of outside like the Reflex system.

Well I'm glad this thread got resurrected (also just noticing it was from 2013)...finally gave me the motivation to covert my buckles over. I think it came out pretty well but I'm sure the Reflex buckles are an easier fit.

I've considered doing this with some old snow ski buckles I have laying around. My plastic buckles aren't worn out but I feel like the micro-adjust metal buckles would be a little more consistent than a paint mark that kind of lines up. Plus I think it'd be easier to put on/take off the boot. Could possibly even re-orient one of the buckles to help push your heel back into the back of the boot rather than having it crushing your instep which would be huge for me. However, I think new replacement buckles are pretty pricey so it might be cheaper to just buy a used set of boots and rob the buckles off of them. Maybe even split them with a friend.

I used a countersunk screw and filed cut away the dimpled washer. Make sure you use loctite in those holes because they'll want to back out easier.

@gsm_peter That's a lot of padding. I was thinking of starting at around 1/4" but I was planning on using harder material under the mount. Have you skied with those yet? Notice any positive or negative effects?

Going from a 2000 ski nautique and a 2000 Malibu Response to a carbon pro a couple years ago, I felt B2 was gassing the crap out of me everywhere. Moved it A1 and it felt like PP. I agree that I thought ZO at least felt consistent which helps me. PP just makes me feel like I'm doing good and then all of a sudden, I'm late at 5 and 6 ball.

Well good to know I'm not totally off base here. I'll see what I can find/make to wedge the rear binding. I think the wedge would be more natural than raising it completely.

This sounds kinda silly but this year I started noticing that I can't really move forward onto my front foot, in good form, without lifting my rear heel. I have a Reflex front and an RTP in the back. I could maybe slide my rear binding forward about 1/8" at most but that doesn't really do much. I've injured my ankles more times than I can count on my fingers and toes. I've also always been a bit of a tail rider and starting to wonder if my ankle flexibility is part of the problem. Just wondering if anyone has raised their rear binding or maybe rotated it forward slightly...or if it's even a reasonable consideration.

Usually when the mufflers start coming apart you get some power delivery issues but that's just my experience. I still think you should try to run without a thermostat completely. Costs like $3 for a new gasket and if you're still running hot, you'll know that this issue lies deeper than the simplest of parts. Could be that a rubber impeller or some rusty shale has come apart in the past and finally lodged itself in one of the cooling jackets in the engine which isn't allowing enough flow. The only way to truly know that's the case is if you give it full flow through the thermostat housing.