Does anyone give consideration to the height of the footbed with your binding setup?
I’ve run a radar vapor carbitex front for a few years. For a back I’ve gone from a Vector feather frame to a stock adjustable rtp to a modified rtp. The modification. Was removing the footbed padding and moving the rubber strap back on the mounting plate.
Skied with the modified rtp for the first time last night and seemed to have a hard time getting front foot pressure during the glide.
Was dry testing the various setups in the garage and noticed the different footbed height between front and back foot (back lower) seemed to prevent me from getting over my front foot.
Anyone else notice something similar, or would it just not matter on the water?
Early season here in Canada so just free skiing, no real performance gauge for setup difference yet.
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The ski will also probably be less efficient with a tip-high attitude. Gaining speed will be more work, and you might have more of an impact when hitting the wakes.
I've played with a lot of different binding set ups, and find that the more level the front and back boot are the better in general.
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I have tested a LOT of binding configurations.
I started down the path of RTP and modified RTP based on forum discussions. Seeing how many high level skiers use a hardshell/rtp combination I didn't even consider if foot bed height would be a factor. As with other things individual body mechanics and technique may allow some skiers to compensate for the different foot heights. Something for me to play with as I get into the season.
With any binding setup, there are trade-offs, so Andy moving to a Reflex was an improvement at the expense of raising the foot. Many skiers have done well with the old HO Animals that raised the foot considerably, and the Goode Powershells, that raise the foot approx 3/8" over a similar Reflex setup.
If someone got creative and designed a realistic way to reduce the material thickness of a hardshell setup, I will wager the performance improvement will be quite noticeable.
For left handed it is the opposite way round.
Does front and rear binding foot bed height matter, yes it does.
Looking Forward To Getting On The Water, It Has Been A Bleak Winter
I cut out a couple pads for under the plate from 1/8" rubber I had laying around. The rubber is flexible so as not to affect flex but not significantly compressible. Standing on the floor with my boot on and bare rear foot in position, I can feel that without the 1/4" added in the back shoulders come forward to balance and hips go back. With the pads under the rear foot I don't have to try as hard to straighten my back leg or bend my front knee to balance.
Leveling the binding has certainly been talked about before, but I always thought "close enough". @Fam-man Thanks for bringing this up. I'm kind of excited about trying this out, I think it's going to make a difference for me. Course goes in Thursday.