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AdamCord

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Everything posted by AdamCord

  1. @swbca I haven't read this whole thread so I apologize if this has been covered - There is more material than you think before you hit the core, certainly enough to change the ski and make it act completely different. And if you're like me and you sand into the core sometimes, just soak it with epoxy and keep going. Ignore anyone who tells you not to modify your ski. Take it from someone who has been modifying skis for a long time...everyone thinks you're crazy when you do it, that's just part of the deal. I'll give one warning: almost every ski I've ever modified the bevels on has ended up trash. This is because if I make a change and it's better, I'll inevitably keep sanding to try and make it better-er...until I go to far and it starts to really suck. That's just part of the process though, enjoy!
  2. Pretty sure Joel hit 1 ball. His dismount was very impressive
  3. @HortonI know you've always wanted this, go ahead and send your resume here: https://www.teamworkonline.com/olympic-jobs/usngbjobs/usa-water-ski/executive-director-2053845
  4. That ski is sliding sideways, as is evident by the spray. It's entirely possible to hit it and have your front foot still go outside of it... as @jjackkrashsaid you need to see the next frame to determine if it's a buoy or not.
  5. Along with the announcers the webcast in general was really good. TWBC has really raised the bar and it’s good to see that other non-TWBC webcasts putting together high quality webcasts. My hat’s off to Kevin Kelm and the webcast team in Cali.
  6. @Jaypro We have small teams of ski testers at both Trophy Lakes and Hilltop Lake that we have been abusing over the past few months. Skill sets range from 32mph 22off to 34mph 39off. We've asked those guys to stay tight lipped about what they are experiencing. Skis start shipping to customers in 2 weeks....
  7. @MattP from memory so may not be correct, best scores today: OM Asher 3@41 Caldwell 1.5@41 Bartalsky 3@39 OW Bull 1@41 Mills 3@39 MM Me 3.5@41 Miller 1.5@41 Two more rounds tomorrow
  8. Ok so what were the results? The internet does not appear to know this event took place...
  9. Thank you guys...the endeavor over the last year to create this ski has been much more ambitious and fraught with potential risk/failure than anything we've done in the past. One of these days we'll have to tell the story on a podcast or something. Let's just say that those memes that show the path to success as a winding road instead of a straight line are spot on! This ski is different....it's too early to say whether it's going to be industry changing or not, but so far the success it's causing is hard to ignore. FYI I'm not skiing any more than normal, and am still working full time and raising my kids up here in Seattle. We don't plan to go into detail about exactly what this ski is. I will say that it is WIDE. Other than that we are keeping it under wraps because it took a ton of work to fine tune all the other aspects of the ski. @Taperflex We are going to start producing them in small quantities next month. @adamhcaldwell hand builds each one at our shop in Charleston, so quantities will be limited to start. The plan is to keep building skis over the winter so that in the spring we have an inventory built up before summer. Then we should be able to start to keep up with demand.
  10. @DW no crashes but @adamhcaldwell did show me up by running it back to back https://www.instagram.com/p/Cu5v-E9uBXl/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
  11. 2nd set on a PRODUCTION c95....41@34...😃 https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cu3CxkjJ-Qd/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
  12. It won't be run without a step change improvement in skis. The tech we have developed thus far isn't getting us there, but that doesn't mean a ski that can get someone through 43 can't be made...
  13. Hi @RobHazelwood no worries, I always appreciate a good slalom technique discussion... I'm not sure if this is just a difference in perception/feel or poor communication on my part, but when I watch you ski I see you doing exactly what I described. You get into your glide and I don't see you moving into the turn until your speed has dropped below the speed of the boat. I learned how to ski (well) later in life, so I have had to really think through the mechanics of how a skier swings in relation to the boat. I was lucky enough to spend a number of those years skiing with and learning from Mapple. One thing he always reiterated to me was that he didn't need a ton of width on his gate, he just needed a tight line. For the past 10 years or so I've been experimenting with gates along with Caldwell (me a righty, him a lefty), and while there are differences, one thing is for certain...if you're too free from the boat when you turn in, you're going to take a path through the wakes that separates you from the handle too soon at best, or the worst is you'll turn without a tight line, fall to the tail, and be completely out of position cutting to the wakes. I would agree that you CAN turn in right as your speed matches the boat, but timing that at every site, with every boat, with every wind condition is really tricky. You need a margin for error. The safer bet is to give yourself a window where you're moving slower than the boat, but haven't dropped back all the way to the whitewash to use as a turn in point. I would also say that getting a ton of ski angle before you load the rope is the wrong approach. We want to load the rope by moving toward the wakes with the upper body, then let the ski build angle as it accelerates your mass to center. Again to my eyes this is what I see you doing, but it could be the difference of perception we both have. Lefty Caldwell for reference:
  14. With @adamhcaldwell's help I've been dialing in my gate a lot this spring. To his point above, the boat HAS to be moving away from you before you even think about turning in. What I've found is that so long as I wait for this to happen, I actually have a very large margin of error for when I can turn in as long as I get my body moving ahead of my feet. If you sit back and jam your feet/ski between your body and the boat then you're screwed from the start. But if you wait until the boat is leaving you, and therefore the line is getting tighter, and you can move your body before your feet, then you have a wide margin of error to make sure you land just inside the right hand gate ball. As far as pullout timing, it's going to depend on your ski setup, pullout body position and intensity, wind, etc. The trick is pulling out early enough that you are consistently slower than the boat when it's time to turn in.
  15. Step 1 in any coaching I do is tell people to STAND UP. It’s amazing how many other problems go away when you do just this.
  16. I was talking to Caldwell and he actually had what I thought was a really elegant solution to this. Anyone who falls into that excluded category, in this case a 35+ skier who has skied a pro event in the last couple years, can ski but are at a 1 pass disadvantage. That way in the head to head if the normal starting line length is 32off, then the person who falls into the excluded category has to start at 35off. Then the skiers compete head to head like normal, straight up the line. If the normal MM skier runs 3@39, then the "pro" has to run 3.25@41 or better to win the round, and so on. That way it's handicapped without it getting complicated, anyone still has a chance to win the event, AND the spectators at nationals will get the chance to see some really good skiing (CP skiing at 34mph, anyone??).
  17. Once again, 35+ high level skiers are punished and required to quit the sport for several years and then come back if they want to ski competitive events. How is this good for anyone except the egos of the guys who want to win one of these events more easily?
  18. I tried my best to avoid this thread because I knew I'd get sucked in....and alas....here I am. I apologize in advance for what comes next: It would appear that this all started when @bko asked a seemingly simple question...does a shortline skier need to cover more ground than a long line skier? I read through all of the responses and I think I can confidently say that everyone here is right ! Hooray! Also everyone here is wrong. Boo. The reason is that because the original question seems straight forward, there's actually a lot of nuance in the question: "does a shortline skier cover more ground than a long line skier?" The answer is YES! ABSOLUTELY! Except for the times when they definitely do NOT. Let me explain. At a longer line length, the options for where a skier can ski and which path they can take are many. They can ski wide and early, and they can ski outside the buoy by a wide margin, making what could be considered a version of a square wave. Conversely they can take a path that is straight from buoy to buoy, drawing Zs all the way down the lake. As the rope gets shorter, however, our options for where we can ski are reduced. By the time we get to 41off, the path is probably not just "as wide as a garden hose", but man it's close. Also as the rope gets shorter we MUST take a path that's more buoy to buoy. When you're approaching 90 degrees to the boat there isn't enough kinetic energy to keep the skier out there for long, and when the rope is crazy short it may be just enough to slip your ankles outside the buoy. Having said that, let me address some of the excellent points made above. @Bruce_Butterfieldand @Menzelskier I like where your heads are at, but I think you are ignoring the fact that the speed of a 15 off skier (relative to the boat) is vastly different from a 39 off skier. So just because the 39 off skier covers more ground relative to the boat, they are moving much slower (relative to the earth) at the start of that swing and much faster at the end. What results when looking from above may actually be a pretty straight line. So if we're asking if the skier covers more ground relative to the boat, you're spot on. If you're talking relative to the world...maybe not. I think @MarcusBrownhad it right from the beginning...IF you're talking about the same skier. Will Asher at 15 off could get to the next buoy line 50 feet early AND 8 feet outside the buoy line. That is obviously going to be a longer path than what he can run at 41 off. But compare him to someone like @Horton who can barely run 15? Then their paths may be pretty close. I also want to address David Nelson and Schnitz with coordinates since it was brought up and also since I'm on a work trip in a hotel and have nothing better to do....I don't think those guys were totally wrong. I also don't think they were totally right, but if I understand coordinates correctly they were talking about moving the apex of the turn closer to the buoys instead of trying to apex way up course...? If that's what they were preaching then as I have said above, you can only be 90 degrees to the boat for a moment, so at super shortline that better be right when you're at the buoy and not a moment too soon. As we have also tried to preach with GUT the handle path going to swing up and past the platform of the boat when the rope gets short...trying to take that handle to the shoreline will get you nowhere. So again I don't know that I fully understand what those guys were talking about, but in general it doesn't sound too crazy to me. end of dissertation 😅
  19. @Jayproas often happens in development with us we felt like we were pretty well done with the ski development…until a few conversations led us down the path of discovery…again. We are getting closer to having a production ready ski, and the concepts we’ve uncovered in the past couple months have been SUPER exciting. Suffice to say the discoveries we’ve made with ski technique, looking at what top skiers are doing and what has been successful in our skiing and those we’ve coached, is starting to really coalesce with what we are asking the ski to do, and how we design the ski to make those technique improvements more automatic. So without saying anything specific, we’ve made some really big leaps this winter in designing a ski that will make a skier more automatically ski like a better skier…because the ski naturally puts you in the right positions behind the boat and through the 2nd wake swing. I realize that all probably sounds like hype BS, but I can honestly say I haven’t been this excited about a new ski in a very long time 😁😁
  20. @RichardDoane you’re doing a great job with the Hilltop club boat! I also can’t thank you enough for scheduling the engine swap for when I’m at out of the country at Ski Paradise 😎 Can’t wait to ski it when I get home
  21. @Jody_Seal We currently have the 422, is that a bad choice for this new engine?
  22. This is the boat I ski behind regularly, sooooo looking forward to this new engine. Thanks @RichardDoane for getting this done when the weather sucks anyway 😀 @Bruce_Butterfield This boat has had more and more issues over the past two years as the hours have really racked up. Last year Richard had to put new exhaust manifolds on, replace the injectors, and many other items that have caused us to be without the boat at Hilltop. We have a lot of members so there are days in the summer where this boat barely stops from dawn to dusk... I do have one question for @Jody_Seal or anyone else who may know....We currently run an Acme 422 on this boat with the 5.7L, should we be looking at a different prop with the 6.0L?
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