Thread: Mounting Chicks

Haven't worked in a shop in a while and I need to mount my babes new explosives. Do you still want to mount the center a little bit forward? Just a cm or so?

Thx

Heres a little Ditty from K2s site
"Our flagship ski of the T:Nine series, the Spire returns with not only a new look, but also new MOD Monic technology, further widening the performance gap between it and its closest competitor. Pushing boundaries both on and off the snow, the Spire is truly a high-performance, all-mountain ski made by women for women. Lighter, softer flexing, foward mounted, foward thinking."

I think the rep said that the mid sole mark was 1 cm foward of the men's ski when he was at our shop.

yeah, definitely mount them a tad forward for her (1-3 cm). they're mounted pretty far back (being a volkl) already.

p.s. love your photo-stoke!

Personally, I don't like my skis mounted forwards. I can see it maybe if they're groomer-only skis (like the Spire would be) and she has a problem keeping the tips weighted, but on Explosives? My G4s are mounted at the regular mounting point and I mounted my Big Stix 106 2cm back so the tips stay up better in powder and they work really well that way.

I definitely would not call it a hard and fast rule - not all women are built the same way and I think you just have to figure out what works. Maybe I've just adapted and am used to the men's setup, maybe it's because my ass and my upper body are proportional and it doesn't throw me in the backseat like a woman with no upper body. Anyway, the whole reason for mounting forward is to correct problems for women whose center of gravity is too far to the rear so they are always skiing in the backseat or have problems pressuring the tips of their skis.

Somehow, I'm guessing that if she wants to ski explosives, this isn't an issue (either that or she's suicidal...)

I did mine on the center mark and it doesn't seem that far back. There is lots of tail. I donno, I say trust Volkl.

Originally posted by altagirl
. Anyway, the whole reason for mounting forward is to correct problems for women whose center of gravity is too far to the rear so they are always skiing in the backseat or have problems pressuring the tips of their skis.

Somehow, I'm guessing that if she wants to ski explosives, this isn't an issue (either that or she's suicidal...)

good guess AG
lady in question below


& rad dont you have some bros in a shop in the RFV?.
Mounting skis is one thing I am not a fan of doing yourself, even with your mad skillz

She rips pow on a monoski. Sick!

I'd be curious if anyone had an explanation of why a woman should be mounted further forward. I think of it as industry wide mythology or misguided compensation at best. I think there are reasons for the problem but I believe changing the mount is compensating for a symptom instead of treating the real issue. Be curious to hear and have some questions for alta girl that DON'T involve porportion of ass to upper body.

Of course I could ask at Epic but don't really want 5000 words justifying what they've been told but never really questioned objectively.

Originally posted by L7
Be curious to hear and have some questions for alta girl that DON'T involve porportion of ass to upper body.
\

So... what are your questions?


Anyway-
Here's one epic-ish thing I found online:

http://www.winterfeelsgood.com/winte...age=buy_w_skis

"Skis:

Problem: You sit back a lot, or worse, you constantly cross your tips or have trouble starting a turn.

Here's why: Compared to a man, your hips are probably wider, your height and your legs in particular are shorter, and you carry more of your weight lower on your body. As a result, when you stand on your skis with your knees bent, your center of gravity is lower and farther back, making it more difficult to apply tip pressure necessary to start a turn and to stay balanced over the center of your skis.

Solve it with women's skis! Most women's skis allow the mounting point for the binding to be one to two centimeters ahead of the center of the ski. One manufacturer actually moves the entire waist of the ski forward. Both options make it much easier to balance in the middle and pressure the front of the ski. In addition, women's skis usually have a softer tip, which draws the ski into the turn with less effort."

I demoed a pair of the Rossi women's skis where they move the waist forward. (Helping a shop). To me, they just felt strange and a little unstable. On top of the waist change, they were super soft, short and light - so maybe there were too many variables involved for me to pinpoint what I didn't like (which was probably a combination of all of the above).

For anyone who's used to "normal" mounting points, I'd think you should experiment with sliding demo bindings forward before experimenting on a good set of skis.

Women have a lower center of gravity, namely hips, not ass that changes thins up. IMHO, at least that's what I've been led to believe.

I agree though mounted lots on the center and lots up front really depends on the skier. If you know about it chances are you don't need it. Helps those who can't helpthemselves from sitting in the back seat seling beer, waving hands all over the place.

Originally posted by CaddyDaddy77
Women have a lower center of gravity, namely hips, not ass that changes thins up. IMHO, at least that's what I've been led to believe.

I agree though mounted lots on the center and lots up front really depends on the skier. If you know about it chances are you don't need it. Helps those who can't helpthemselves from sitting in the back seat seling beer, waving hands all over the place.

Agreed. But while women do generally have a lower center of gravity, I still think there's a lot of variation there. Example in women's fit variations: I finally bought my first-ever pair of women's boots this year. Salesperson got me to try them and I do have the typical female narrow heel, wider forefoot. Salomon X-wave women's boots hold my foot beautifully. The weird thing is that the calves required modification. They make them for people who are shorter than me, so the fact that I have skinny ankles and my calves start higher (like a typical guy's calf) makes the women's boot not fit my calf at all. (Which is supposedly why they're great for women). At least they're stiff boots and were easily modified to work for me.

I find it pretty difficult to sort through industry info on anything female-oriented because most women's gear in past years has been beginner-only crap. Companies are definitely getting better, but it's still hard to know who they're truly marketing to. Some women's gear is nothing more than gear for shorter, lighter people. Some is meant for lower center of gravity. Some is meant for absolute beginners. Some is the same as men's gear with girly graphics. The label of "women's gear" means almost nothing.

I'm rambling. But my point is that when a manufacturer says "Women's mounting point is 1-2 cm forward" - who do they mean by that? I have no idea.

Originally posted by altagirl

I'm rambling. But my point is that when a manufacturer says "Women's mounting point is 1-2 cm forward" - who do they mean by that? I have no idea.

It's nice that companies are now actually consulting, get this Women for Women specific products, whoooaaa!!
Fischer has a line coming out, that's a bit like the one K2 has. Rossi really has more bells and whistles than actual female inspired details (look at their ski and boot line-up there's a god-damn color for the whole rainbow in there)
Volkl and others have actually engineered the sidecut into the ski, I think most of what your getting at is probably really the different ways men and women ski, I really have no basis for this arguement but think that most of it had to do with the differences of engaging, commiting and exiting a turn from men to women.

Yes, many are built differently, and different strokes for different folks, I have troubles with my heigth and weight with skis, I can simply fold a lot of skis up with litlle to no effort.
Boots I think it's made a world of difference from old Salomon volume fit boots to anatomically formed boots for both women and men, skis, it really helps beginers, and retains more skiers, but for advanced females, this jury's still out..

Here's another quote I just pulled from a women's gear review:

"Generally speaking, women have a lower center of mass than men do, and they tend to be less aggressive on skis; these two factors cause many women to sit back on their skis more than they should. In alpine gear, manufacturers have addressed this problem by lifting the boot heel at a specific angle, or by recommending that the binding be mounted farther forward on the ski, to move women closer to the front of the ski for optimal control. "


The whole "tend to be less aggressive" thing is what makes this frustrating. How much of these adjustments are compensating for a non-aggressive stance? I guess, yes, industry-wise you need women's gear that's made for women who don't ski aggressively, because yes, in reality, most of them don't, and an bunch of them have no desire to. Thing is you can't market stuff that way or it won't sell, so they just market stuff to women in general.

Another note from that is that last year I did use heel lifts. Read they were good for women, right? So I tried it. Went to Steeps Camp and my instructor said - hey you have this nice aggressive stance but it's almost like you're tipping too far forward - you don't have heel lifts in your boots, do you? Yep. His opinion was that heel lifts are a correction for people who can't figure out how to balance themselves. Took them out and it improved things. (of course that caused other problems with my boots then being looser in the ankle, but my balance felt better.)

I do REALLY appreciate that this year, manufacturers have made leaps and bounds in high-end women's gear. The women's Salomon boots I bought are nice and stiff, which I previously didn't realize was available. The Phat-Luv looks like a really good ski, light but still pretty stiff, and considering that the fattest women's specific ski last year was 70mm underfoot - that's huge progress.

Women are NOT small men!

Besides the (obvious) anatomical differences, they are structurally (skeletally... is that a word?) different than men primarily to accomodate childbearing. This structural difference changes the way a woman (well, most women) applies pressure to a ski as compared to men. Not necessarily "worse," just differently. Many women can (and DO!) ski quite well, regardless.

I am a proponent of tweaking equipment to allow it to perform better for YOU as an individual. There's lots of skis on the market, why do we choose one over another? There's nothing wrong with making the equipment work for you... that's what we all want, isn't it? If moving a binding mounting point works for you (man or woman), I say "go for it!"

Although her clinics are (unfortunately) aimed at the "average" woman skier,Jeannie Thoren has some damn good insight into this very subject. I have seen her take some rippin' women skiers, and help them to be even better... more comfortable with their equipment and more confident with the improved performance of their equipment. This stuff isn't magic, it can't make a gaper a ripper, but it can help you to maximize your skiing experience.

Originally posted by altagirl
So... what are your questions?

My questions (some of which you answereed) are;
What size boots do you have, how big and low is your calf muscle and what bindings do you use?

I'm aware of most of the typical rationalization and can buy into some of it but think a lot is over generalized and misapplied. Woman 'tend' to have a lower center mass and lesser muscle mass in the upper body may make it harder to compensate once the hips go back. The real issue why to the hips go back.

I'm not surprised you have limited trouble with it and skinny calves. MANY woman have a large or at least very low calf that then will get involved with the back of the boot and push the lower leg forward. From there the only way to compensate is dropping the hips back and lesser upper body mass may make it harder to adjust there. This also causes a more squat position with lesser absorption available.

Woman also tend to have a smaller foot and combined with ramp angle in bindings the lower leg is again pushed forward. A man on a binding with a 1cm difference heel to toe and a 320mm boot sole length will not be effected as much as a woman on the same binding with a 275mm boot sole length not to mention shorter leg length to absorb it.

MANY woman have this problem but not all and blanket solutions don't apply. I will use heel lifts for many woman mostly to lift a low or large calf muscle out of the boot a little to allow the lower leg to straighten more and allow the hips to stay over the feet in a more balanced position.

A woman with a calf pushed forward by the boot can also be getting near end of range of motion of the ankle meaning any flexion occurs solely at the knee and drives them into the backseat. Heel lifts can also open the ankle joint giving them more range as well as lifting the calf to straighten the leg.

A lot of the thoughts of centre of mass being further back only occur after the boot comes into play and that is where I think it should be addressed. Putting more lift on a ski at the heel just exacerbates the problem in my mind.

Leg/body lengths and proporions also have a huge effect but again there is no set formula for that and I still think it's better dealt with through stance in a boot then positioning on the ski.

Other thoughts?

Originally posted by Magoo

I am a proponent of tweaking equipment to allow it to perform better for YOU as an individual. There's lots of skis on the market, why do we choose one over another? There's nothing wrong with making the equipment work for you... that's what we all want, isn't it? If moving a binding mounting point works for you (man or woman), I say "go for it!"

I absolutely agree - Make the equipment work for the person. I think L7 is right - you have to start with boots that fit correctly and allow the right stance - so yes, women's boots are important since many women don't fit in men's boots. I think you should only add heel lifts if you can't get a boot that works right without them. And I'm not opposed to changing the mounting point - if it works, it works, I'm just concerned that it's being used to compensate for things like boots that don't fit or just poor skiing posture in general.

The thing I worry about is this. You take a beginner/intermediate female skier and mount her bindings forward to keep her tips pressured and compensate not only for her center of gravity, but also her non-aggressive posture (or boots that are putting her in the wrong position for that matter). Thinking back to when I really made leaps of progress skiing - one of the things forced me to ski better was changing to skis that demanded that I stay forward and ski them or I was going for a ride. What if I (instead of changing my body position to learn to drive the skis) just changed the mounting point so I could stay in the backseat and still control them? There are tons of variables here. If I wasn't lucky enough to have boots that fit/upper body strength/etc. - would it have been possible for me to do that at all? Don't know...

Oh, and I'm 5'8", 305mm boot sole length, 178 G4s/180 Big Stix 106, Rossi Axial 120 bindings on both. I wouldn't say my calves are skinny, it's just that the muscular/wider part starts higher than the average woman - so says my bootfitter. A men's race boot calf fits me perfectly - I just can't get the ankle/heel tight enough. Last boots were Tecnica Icon Carbons - with a bunch of extra padding around the heel.

And being the gear junkie that I am, I'm totally digging this discussion...

I think L7 gets it! altagirl, too!
It's all about getting it to work for you! There are no cure-all solutions, ya gotta be willing to experiment to find out what works best for you.
It's letting go of the staus quo ideas that is hard...!

Well this isn't going to be that much fun if we all just agree.

Tweaking of equipment is fine but I'm the same as you guys, it's the blanket statements that I don't get. A friend with a master's in kinesiology and ski coach who was training coordinator for our national team tells me woman have four general identifiable hip structures and one is pretty much the same as a man's. So unless the tweaks are done for each different structure what's the point.

I have seen Jeannie Thorens speak where she basically said all woman should have heel lifts. I only use heel lifts for specific reasons and the right boot is always first step.

I think a lot of these blanket statements come from some fairly standard observations but are then applied to broadly and often overlook the root cause and true solution.

I have a mutant long first toe and have always altered my mounting slightly to keep the ball of my foot properly positioned instead of the old distance off of half chord and I slightly varied from boot/ski markings. But that doesn't mean I wear high heels or thongs.

Originally posted by L7
I have seen Jeannie Thorens speak where she basically said all woman should have heel lifts.

Unfortunately, when Jeannie does a clinic, she does generalize a bit too much, especially on the heel lifts. If you take her program, try her suggestions (which are more than just heel lifts), use some common sense, and apply what works for you, I do think most people will benefit from some of her "creative thinking." If you get a chance to work with her one-on-one, I think one will get dialed with specific individual advice vs. generic advice (duh...).

But that doesn't mean I wear high heels or thongs.

Damn. I guess that's the part I will have to *convince* you of!

good thread

By the way AC your gear setup doesn't surprise me. You have a bigger than average woman's foot and that can help suck up any binding ramp angle. I'm not sure but I think that binding is one of the one's with a little more rise in the toe to level the binding and your higher calf muscle avoids that problem too.

Some woman have the calves that aren't that big necessarily they just start right around the ankles. Some woman have calves the size of their heads and sometimes I just want to look them in the eye and say, 'maybe skiing isn't really for you'. Alas, I don't really have that option.

Magoo, just so there's no confusion the reason I don't wear a thong is the package gets in the way. Ok there are other reasons too and it's not all peer pressure. Just wanted to clarify that.

Shocking no one took this thread down the tubes but I see it's sprung some related threads for that purpose.

Yeah - Looks/Rossis seem to feel the best to me of all the bindings I've tried. Really don't know much about binding ramp angles, but they just feel responsive and I like their release/retention mechanism... Are there big differences between binding manufacturers as far as ramp angle goes?

Also - I know when I had Fritschi bindings on my AK Launchers (just swapped for tele bindings) I could really feel the ramp angle/stiffness/super high lift difference. Took some time and effort to get used to them. I'd imagine if you really have a small foot, it would only feel worse and might make the ramp angle adjustments people were discussing here (in another thread recently) that much more important.

Atomics are pretty near flat which is part of why I like them. (They have some pretty wild stuff coming next year).
Getting into the 15mm difference between toe and heel isn't uncommon and I think one of them is 17mm. On a small foot that's a bunch. I think most are starting to wake up to it and raise the toe but not on all set ups. Then dynastar and their chick's skis. The other day at a PK the guy told us how guys went skiing on the woman's skis and got to feel how woman feel on skis (with the extra lift at the heel built into the ski). I just don't get how forcing a bad position on men or woman is good for the sport. Push the lower leg forward and force them to drop the hip back to compensate. That's what happens when marketing guys stick their noses into R&D which is usually Salomon's approach.

Originally posted by L7
Magoo, just so there's no confusion the reason I don't wear a thong is the package gets in the way. Ok there are other reasons too and it's not all peer pressure. Just wanted to clarify that.

Schving!!

Shocking no one took this thread down the tubes but I see it's sprung some related threads for that purpose.

Agreed.
Anyways, I think what happens (at least with the women's specific gear) is that there is no coordination between manufacturers. They hear "women need heel lifts/boots moved forward," so the boot people build boots with greater ramp angle, ski mfgrs biuld skis with wimpy flexes and just arbitrarily move the mounting point forward (what, 2 cm's you say?), the binding guys are all over the map, no one tells the bootfitter (or worse, the bootfitter doesn't think or take the variables into consideration) who just sells some heel lifts ('cause women need 'em). Now you've got some serious overkill! Women perched/tipped waayyy forward on top of mushy skis -- what fun?!
Bottom line (to me) is that trial and error with professional, open-minded and knowledgeable assistance is what helps anyone get the most out of their equipment-- which ultimately allows that person to maximize their skiing potential.