BINDING LOCATION, THE BEGINNING – NOT THE END
When your ski arrives, it comes with set-up instructions which tell you where to set your bindings on the ski. Most people set them at this FACTORY RECOMMENDED setting and forget about it. They go on and start messing with the fin and wing. I have found over the years that it’s far easier to set-up a ski by first setting up the fin and wing correctly and then moving the bindings to get the ski to accomplish whatever the skier needs.
Goode has determined exact numbers down to the thousandth that their skis work great at. Other ski companies need to follow suit. In the ski tests I have been conducting, whenever I install one of my Slot Fins and Mini Wings on any ski, I set it to my exact recommended settings and the ski works! By moving each binding independently of one another, you can alter the turning characteristics of one side or the other rather than affecting both sides like you will with the fin/wing. When moving the fin/wing, you affect both turns equally. When moving a binding you affect that turn and that turn alone, sometimes with 90 plus percent efficiency which means that the opposite turn remains almost exactly the same. Old wisdom says that your feet should be as close together as possible. This is bunk! World Champion Jeff Rodgers has 12.25” ankle to ankle on his size 10 feet! The rule is this, put your front and rear bindings independently where the ski works the best! The front binding controls the off-side turn and the rear binding controls the on-side. Moving the front binding forward is like adding tip to the fin as this will make the ski slow down more and turn earlier and harder out of the off-side buoys. Moving it back will do the opposite. When a ski is hopping during the off-side pre-turn and turn, move the front binding forward. The rear binding controls the on-side turn. Moving the rear binding back will allow you more leverage to turn the on-side. Moving it forward will increase your deceleration coming into the on-side buoys. These are just one of the FOUR PLANES OF MOVEMENT when it comes to ski tuning through binding adjustment. We’ll be discussing the others in the near future. Till then………….. Don’t touch that dial!
BINDINGS
Perhaps the easiest method of tuning a ski is to reposition the bindings. Repositioning the bindings can mean moving them forward or back, side-to-side, turning them on the ski or canting them. The simplest of these is the forward/back move. Moving the bindings forward puts more ski in the water. More ski in the water equals more efficiency against the boat in the acceleration phase which means more angle and being earlier for the next buoy. More ski in the water means better deceleration into the next buoy. However, there is a point of diminishing return, which you must identify by going too far forward and too far back. Somewhere in between lies the perfect setting for you! Factory recommended settings are just that, "Recommended". While working with Goode Skis, I went around the world setting up skis. The first thing I would do is set-up the fin and wing to exact factory settings, essentially "Blueprinting" the ski. I knew from past experience that these factory recommended fin settings worked for almost everyone. Then I would put their bindings on the ski at the factory recommended settings. The next step was to watch them ski on it. If the ski was stopping on the off-side turn, I'd move the front binding back. If the ski wouldn't turn on the off-side, I'd move the front binding forward. If the ski wouldn't turn the on-side, I'd move the rear binding back. Rarely did I move the rear binding forward for any reason other than to keep the skier's feet at a somewhat acceptable spacing. Acceptable spacing is something like this. The old rules for binding location were to have your feet as close together as possible! In 1998 while working with Jeff Rogers, I measured the spacing between his ankles. It was 1.75 inches more than my ski. My rear toes were up on top of the front boot’s heel horseshoe. Jeff had a lot of space between his feet so I moved my rear foot back 1.75 inches and tried the ski. The biggest thing I noticed was that I could explode out of the buoy much like I watched Jeff do! I finally settled in on 1.25 inches more than I previously skied with. So the new rules for binding location are that your feet can be spread so that your ankles are up to 12.25 inches apart with size 9-10 feet. With smaller feet, use smaller spacing. With larger feet, use larger spacing. To measure your spacing, find a point or part on your front binding that is identical to a point or part on your rear binding and measure the separation. If this won't work, measure from the rear of the front boot to the rear of the ski with the rear binding off. Then reinstall the rear boot and measure from the rear of the rear boot to the rear of the ski. Subtract the rear boot distance from the front boot distance to arrive at your spacing!
The New Rules for Binding Adjustment are; "The front foot controls the off-side turn and the rear foot controls the on-side turn". This rule will affect the chosen side far more than the other but will still have a slight effect. Let's suppose we're working on a ski with a fixed fin with stripped screws and the owner of the ski will not let you touch the fin! After consulting with and watching the skier, we see that the ski won't turn on the offside but is fantastic on the on-side. We surmise that we need to get more ski in the water on the off-side turn to get additional deceleration so the ski will turn earlier so we move the front binding (only) forward. Other solutions are to turn the front binding on the ski clockwise for right foot forward skiers and counter clockwise for left foot forward skiers.
Canting; Canting is a method of correcting for the angulations between your hips and feet when in the ski. Let's say your hip joints are 12" apart. When standing in your ski, the center of your feet are on the centerline of the ski which means that there is 6" of difference between the centerline of your feet and your hip joints on each side of your body. If your feet are flat on the floor when standing at rest, they cannot be flat when on the centerline of the ski. To compensate for this angulation, sometimes it's necessary to install a cant. Usually this is not necessary in rubber boots as the rubber has enough flexibility to allow your foot to move. In hard boots, I cant 1.5 degrees. Sometimes it's necessary to cant in the new hard foam boots, as they are very efficient at transferring movement with very little energy loss due to excess flexibility. Suppose this same ski won't turn the on-side, move the rear (only) binding back, turn the rear boot clockwise for right foot forward skiers and counter clockwise for left. I have tried canting my rear foot but have not had any success.
TUNING HARD SHELL BOOTS
Hard shell boots have been around about 5 years now. Understanding how to set them up properly is still however in the dark ages. The basics still apply. The front foot controls the off-side turn and the back foot controls the on-side. I have found that a thin, 1.5 degree wedge between my front boot and plate, canting my boot out toward my front hip joint allows me to ski better with more control. I have tried this on the rear but without success. Turning the front of the front boot toward the big toe, raises the front of the ski on the off-side turn and lowers it on the on-side. Doing the opposite generates the opposite result. Let's say your ski is not turning on the off-side and falling over on the on-side. You would move the front of the front binding toward the small toe. This would lower the tip on the off-side turn and raise it on the on-side. Turning the rear boot toward the little toe increases the speed of the turn on the on-side and decreases the speed on the off-side. Suppose your ski is stopping on your off-side turn due because of too much deceleration and is turning too slowly on your on-side. Turn the rear boot towards the little toe.
TUNING YOUR HEEL LIFT
Tuning your rear heel lift is a totally new dimension. In the past, when you switched from a loose rear boot to a tight rear boot, you would drastically alter the performance of your ski. As you push your knees forward in the preturn, you increase the amount of lifting pressure on your rear heel in particular. This lifting of the heel transforms pressure into lifting of the tail. If the tail comes up, the tip goes down. The tighter the rear boot, the more energy you transfer into the tip of the ski. By adjusting the tension of the heel lift throughout its movement, you can adjust how much tip comes in and when. If you want less tip, loosen the heel lift. For more, tighten it. I recently added a cam type mechanism to my heel lift that creates an ever increasing pressure on the rear heel.
NATURAL INCLINATION 4/26/03
When we ski, our bodies reach a point I call our “NATURAL INCLINATION”. This is the point that our bodies are comfortable at when leaning over while accelerating, decelerating and turning. Our bodies will seek this inclination, this point of comfort. This angle of lean or “NATURAL INCLINATION” is transferred into our ski which causes it to also seek a certain amount of inclination in the water. The inclination I am referring to is the difference between the height of the tip of the ski and the depth of the tail of the ski. When testing off center binding location a number of years back, I discovered that moving my front binding over to the right, would give me more tip on 1-3-5 and less on 2-4-6. Going left gave me exactly the opposite. To get more tip on 1-3-5, I reasoned that my body was seeking its “NATURAL INCLINATION”. Since the binding was over to the right side of the ski, my ski must be riding deeper on the left side and higher on the right. The only way this could be possible was if my body sought its “NATURAL INCLINATION”, that is my body was keeping its perception of the centerline of my ski in the same place but the ski was in a different place. With the new “Volume” designed skis now hitting the market with a wider than normal forebody, our bodies seek their “NATURAL INCLINATION” and in turn the ski’s natural centerline, but being that the forebody is wider, it’s going to ride deeper. A deeper riding forebody will cause the ski to generate more angle while accelerating and more deceleration after the wakes. This is the reason the factory binding location is back more than on a conventional ski. If you find yourself going out the front or your ski is just too slow on a “Volume” designed ski, consider moving your bindings back. Another use of “NATURAL INCLINATION” is in offset binding location on any ski as it will do the opposite (add tip on one side and take it away on the other) on opposite sides of the course. This can be yet another tool in your ski tuning toolbox. Just remember this, every change we make to out ski affects both sides. Some changes have more effect to one side than the other and some changes have less. What we are looking for are combinations of more and less change to arrive at the desire effect; i.e., skiing awesome. Till our next adventure…. Schnitz!