Water Ski Boots Needed

Wiley's still makes the same reliable rubber boots they've been making for years. Including rear toe plate. Used by many competitors. I've got a set on the new ski I bought two years ago.

You will see a big difference with a more modern ski, however. Even if you buy a used one, or get a new one that is one or two model years back.    My $.02.

Good luck

BKH

So many misconceptions and false facts in a couple of these posts I can't even begin....
Mark, buy a 2 year old ski with whatever bindings are on it and let it blow your mind. If you skied -32 on crap, imagine what you could've done with today's equipment:

Thanks for the information shared, I am good with two boots as long as you don't need goop to put a foot in them.   It is much easier to come out of the water with one foot dragging but a rear boot is fine. I will look up Wileys and I really appreciate the tip.
I'll have to demo or borrow some of the new skis to see if they can enhance my life any.

When a neighbor got one of those new fangled non-wood ski's back in the day I hated that thing the first time on it, eventually after riding it a few times realized how much better it was. Same thing holds true with the modern ski's of today, there is some great gear out there, try anything you can get your hands on. After a couple hard falls with rear boot not releasing I ditched the double boots. Going back to a RTP did not have any negative effect on my skiing. Also agree with Tim, any decent rubber binding these days is gonna need a little lube to get on easily. If your not against spending a few bucks check out some of those new fancy pants shell style bindings, very light and I don't think any lube is required.

I thought the reason for laces/latches was to get in out easier (sans lube.).

I did a dab of lube with my Animal and also do now with my Wiley.

The irony with some of the easy entry lace ups is that you don't come out when you take a bad fall. Wiley's wrap with Ivory dish soap lube is easy to get into and you come out when you go OTF. I'd rather put the work into putting the boot on than risk not releasing when I need it to.

dip wrote: Ivory dish soap lube

I Use 1/3 laundry detergent + 2/3 water for binding lube, supposedly the dish soap is harder on the rubber material??

Yeah go buy something nice for yourself, its your birthday. Thats a free pass right there

63 Skier wrote: the dock has collapsed from all the potential I've left there!

mine too

All boot mfgs make rear toe plates... don't know that any stopped.

And like others have said, I am amazed first, that you can get into an older Kidder binding w/o a touch of lube and 2nd you are running 6 balls at 36mph on a boot that you can easily slide into esp at 32 off (13m line)!!!

I'm not a ski sales man, but if you were to get out on a ski made in the last 5 years, you could probably get into the 35-38' off range...

I like the ski-it-again idea... but if looking new... miaminautiques.com has quite a bit!

AAM196, I have not hit 6 balls at 32 off and 36 MPH in 20 years. Actually have not been in a course for 20 years, lost access.   Still love to ski though. Now it is at 15 off and 33 MPH, minor adjustment. I will look into the new skis. Thanks again. Mark

I ski with a guy who uses shaving cream for boot lube on a new HO Triumph Ski. It cleans up as soon as he hits the water when he falls off of the platform.

I too was reading an article a few months ago somewhere on line, maybe it was ball of spray.com and they were saying that many of the pro skiers were going back to the rear toe plates. One guy in particular was stating that he was able to come back from a foot or ankle injury faster by using a rear toe plate.



Donald

My 2012 Connelly Carbon V came with a front hinge tech binding and rear toe piece. The hinge tech makes it much easier to get in and out of the binding. No lube is required I did take a while to get used to the new ski, big difference was how fast it accelerates off the turn.

Think I have used up all my potential........actually it is now decreasing. My biggest problem was lake of talent

We had a group, called ourselves the Feather River Ski Club. Built our own course and kept it submerged in the river. All our balls were connected to floats we left in the river about 3 feet under the surface.   The whole course was 5-6 feet deep, perfect spot glass non stop unless a boat was active. The area was only about 200 feet wide and a mile long deep enough for power boats and past each end was shallow so pleasure boaters never went there. The rangers never bothered us as long as we took the course down as we left each time.   Each time we went out we had to dive down and connect the turn and marker balls. We had the course anchored and used it for about 3 years. It was lot of fun while it lasted.
Then one day it was gone. Someone needed it more than we did I guess or the fishermen were fed up with us skiing on their fishing water.   I suspected the latter.
At that time we all had young kids in Soccer, baseball and swimming plus the kids wanted to wakeboard and I was rebuilding our 100 year old home so we moved on.   We had a couple of friends that worked in tournaments locally that helped with our set up, it was as accurate as a bunch of yahoo's could create.   That is where my personal best was 32 off at 36. Not official to anyone outside our old group and I know doing this in practice is not anything like doing it for real in a tournament.. Even then the pro's were going 39.5 and I think the record was one or two balls at 41.    We watched them and dreamed. One of our friends trained some with the La Point brothers. He says riding in the boat with those guys was incredible. Said they could jerk the Mastercraft they were using 1 foot out of straight with every turn. They were incredibly strong skiers and this was at the very tail end of their careers.
That is my rant and fond reminisce. We are supposed to get a couple days in the mid to high 70's and are hoping for one more ski this year.
Once again thanks for the tips and advice.

Joel, no more posting for you until your new 200 shows up in the diaries!!
Nice fleet you have going, congrats!!