Ski Review in Numbers

For those of you who have been paying attention to this little chunk of the waterski blog tube, you know that every so often we like to poke a bit of fun at Waterski Mag for the incessant covering of slalom skiing.

Its all in fun, obviously, as we do have slalom skis of our own (in all fairness, we suck at it).

However, it is a decent rag and in the most recent issue, super sexy CRB commenter, Tadd Schreiber, wrote a piece where they tested some of the top slalom skis.

If you don't know which one we are talking about, its the March issue, the one with Karina Nowlan on the cover (RAWR!!!!).

(Note: Karina skis on the Goode 9800, which wasn't tested (boooo) and there is a picture in the mag of Freddy Krueger, that picture is just awesome...its hard to explain, but, it looks like it was taken from like 20 feet up and 20 feet in front of the ramp, catching Freddy in mid-flight, its amazing. If we could purcahse that pic in a frame we would.)

Normally, we would look at the prices of the skis and go crazy and belly ache about the cost and somehow turn that argument into a grandiose piece on the state of the world and skiing and predict locusts and raining frogs and celebacy.

In lieu of that, and given the tone of Tadd's article, which was nice, instead of tearing down the skis and pointing out flaws, they tested the skis and pointed out the the benifits and how it would make you, the skier (and moneybags mcgee) a better skier.

How unique!

Within the piece there was no real ranking system, so, we immediatly hopped into the CRB Camaro and made our way to HQ to fire up the Commodore 64 matrix device.

Here was our goal, to somehow weight the skis, taking into account their price and number of expert picks. I.e, we tried to somehow mesh the performance of the ski to the cost.

This, however, proved to be quite difficult, as our math skills seemed to have evaporated a bit.

So, I ran the excel machine and came up with a few things...so...appropoe of nothing, here is what we got.

What can you possibly take from this? Well, of all the skis tested, the Connelly and the O'Brien are the only ones that fall outside of the norm, they are the outliers, the remaining skis are within about 350 bucks of each other.

However, of note, the Connelly, as the cheapest, also received three fist bumps from the pros where as the O'Brien received two, while being more then 1200 bucks more expensive.

Armed with this information, here is what we want to know. Does anyone out there have the mathmatical ability to apply a weighted scoring system to determine the best value per ski?

Please comment or come up with your own or anything. We will try our damndest to try and figure it out too. There has to be a way to determine once and for all the best value / perfomance, etc etc for a slalom ski.

We command everyone to go out to the bookstore or wherever they sell words that are printed on shiny paper, then packaged up in a convienent 8 1/2 by 11 inch pamphlet. Because, unless you receive the Waterski Magazine in the mail, you can't see Tadd's article as it isn't linked on their website. WHAT?

Now, maybe this format won't work, using the arbitrary fist bump method of determining the actual performance value of a ski. Is there a better way to break down a skis variables that can be used in an equation to determine value?

UPDATE: In thinking about our little value system, here is a fairly simplistic equation. For the terms of this equation, we divided the cost of the ski against the median value of the entire group of skis, then, multiplied that by the total number of fist bumps over the fist bumps received. The idea was that you would get a smaller number for the cheaper ski in relation to the group, and then with the fist bump calculation you would get a smaller number in correlation to total fist bumps. therefor, when you multiplied everything together, the smaller your ending number, the more valuable that ski was to the fist bump value equation.

In terms of mathmatics, the equation looks as such.

(Price of ski / Average cost of ski) x (Total number of fist bumps / fist bumps given to ski) = total value for the ski.

Please note, in this formula, the Goode 9900SL Wide Ride was kicked to the curb because it received no fist bumps. In fairness, its similar to the regular 9900, but, slightly wider and shorter.

So, here is the raw data.


Meaning. In our ranking system, the winner is the Connelly Prophecy! Woo! The final rankings for all the skis in the test are as such:


So, there you have it. Obviously this crude valuation system isn't perfect and it obviously weights very heavy on the price and fist bump factor. Which makes sense of course given a small sample size and limited variables. This is notable in the close finish of the D3 X5 and the O'Brien Elite, as they are very different in price and yet with two fist bumps the O'Brien still lost to the X5.

YAY! MATH!

Tricks are for skillz

I have always enjoyed wakeboard vids, even though I'm not much for wakeboarding. Ive always thought that the powers that be allowing wakeboards in the trick event is a bad thing for the sport. As a long time collegiete skier I never liked seeing skier after skier go out and do a wake jump and a grab or just eat it trying to do a "butter slide".

Or the ever popular
/side slide
/flip
/fall

But wakeboarding does know how to make good vids, they have been making intertaining vids for years now. While waterskiing did not come out with anything worthwhile until the last few years. Evolve, the most recent ski vid is very cool and was well worth the dollas. Throw some love towards those that are willing to put their own money on the line to bring us some sweet waterski action while we sit and look at the snow and general crappyness that is outside our doors right now.

And there is some fun stuff on the youtubes as well.

Thats Not Your Boat

Many people, in fact, most people, at least those who aren't complete and total assholes, go about their lives in normal ways, wake up...go to work...pay bills...walk their dogs....oogle pictures of scantily clad girls on company computer, you know the normal things!

These same people, lets call them "good" people occasionally reach a point in their lives when they decide that they want some sort of luxury item, something to provide them with some pleasure away from the day to day grind. Maybe they want a fancy sports car, maybe they decide to take flying lessons, maybe they purchase a classic car to fix up in the garage, maybe they decide they want to get a ski boat to take out on the lake with a family (hopefully their own).

So, they begin to budget, put some money away, maybe skimp on the handle of Jack for the weekend and instead go with Jim Beam. You know, trim some fat.

After a bit, they can then afford this luxury item, so they go to the local boat dealership and pick out their weapon of choice.

These "good" people then enjoy the fruits of their labor with a big smile, some tasty beverages and probably a sun burn.

However, there is another group of people, lets refer to them as "bad".

These people decide that instead of actually working towards the object of their affection, they decide to steal it. Because, as everyone knows, doing things the honest way is for losers.

Oddly enough, this group of people, the "bad" people, actually have organized into a world-wide group, complete with a online membership, yearly parades and festivals, lapel pins and awards for achieving great heights of dickholness, secret handshakes and syncronized STD treatments. This group affectionatly refers to themselves as, "The Scum of Society" or "SOS" for short.

One of the more heinous, or notorious, chapters of the "SOS" reside in Oxenford, New Zealand. Within their social circle they refer to themselves with silly pet names, such as, "dickless piece of shit" and "socially awkward loser" and, a CRB fave, "Mr. Poopy Pants". Its funny because its true.

Anyways, the object of their desire was a new Ski Boat, in fact, they had their eyes on a new Ski Nautique 196 (Pictured above on the right, in better times) and figured that the best one around was currently owned by the Gold-Coast Waterski Club.

The Oxenford Chapter of the "SOS" realized quickly that the actual owners of this boat were obviously a bunch of suckers and didn't deserve this fine piece of equipment that they had obviously worked so hard to obtain and THEY WOULD TEACH THEM A LESSON!

So they did, they went and stole their boat, a $50,000 boat, because why not? And for gosh sakes, they didn't need their slalom course, so they nabbed that too. Oddly, for being a bunch of losers and dipshits, who have never had any sense of personal responsibility or ability to complete any meaningful task in front of them (including, school, reading, urinating, pleasing a women, etc) they were somehow able to pull of the heist without impaling themselves on street signs, driving their cars through the water or sticking their dicks into the ciggerete lighter.

After obtaining the groups charter statement, which was written on a napkin in crayon, it states that these people are bound for a life of poor choices, karmic retribution and general douchebaggery followed up by a life in hell being burned alive over the course of eternity.

If only that was the case.

McDonalds Odd Quarter Pounder and Waterski Website

If you happen upon the espn.com and see a ad for McDonalds, and then proceed to click on it, you get this random dude as your website loading meter.

Some random wearing a basketball jersey and skiing on what appears to be a couple 2x4s without bindings. Most likely not great for control or performance, but, high on the functionality scale, as you can build some useful shelving after a pull. Sweet.

Anyways, within the site there are all these odd things to click on where the Quarter Pounder has some weird ability to do....gah, it makes no sense, just click on it and look.

The Quarter Pounder lessons in confidence, and really, what better way to build confidence then eat a zillion calorie burger from a massive corporation to teach you confidence and the ability to have pride in ones self though assimilation.

Anyways, for the waterski confidence booster, or waterskiing in the amazon, you get these handy tid-bits.

1. Forget what you've heard. Piranhas are really small....and they're just fish. How much damage could they possibly do? Besides, you probably don't tast that good anyways

2. Don't Fall. That pretty much says it all. So if you don't have good balance, get some.

3. You're awesome. You know what else is awesome? A Quarter Pounder with Cheese. So, Get one.

Don't Fall, small fish, eat mediocre burgers, have sex. Gotcha.

Just think about it, after dominating the Amazon on a set of waterskis, one will be immediately inclined to use their eaticles on a greasy burger.

"Get me a Amazonian prostitute and a quarter pounder....heavy on the cheese!" I will say.

Winter Confrence

Skiing in the cold up north in February? MCWSA winter confrence is set for Feb 7th in Milwaukee Wisconsin. What kind of waterskiing is there in wisconsin in the middle of winter?




ummmmm... woot?

Oh Ryan Dodd will be there? hmmm, well he is a Canuck, so hes probably just testing out the snow.



skills!



Cale Burdick will be there! wow, 2 big names, this sounds kinda fun.

Collegiate Career

Purdue University

• NCWSA Division 1 National Championship - 2nd Slalom, 5th Overall
• NCWSA Division 1 National Slalom Champion – 2@41 off – 2006
• NCWSA Division 1 National Slalom Champion – 3@39 ½ off – 2004
• NCWSA Allstar Slalom Champion - 2008, 2007, 2006, and 2005

not bad...not bad at all

And Scot Ellis! well this is quite the line up.




Um, scot, just dont coach how not to crash...

Rykert jinxed us all!

Damn you for seeing your shadow! I will sick nola on you with the quickness!

Supa bow gets shark happy

On Supa Bow™ sunday the CRB crew was given $20 gift cards to Dave and Busters or Outback Steakhouse (their choice). The CRB strives for a happy work environment. Well, as it turns out our on staff shark decided to show how happy he/she was at the CRB generosity.



Anyways, we polled the staff as to whom they thought would win the Supa Bow™ and we came up with the following.

Cardinals - 23
Alabama A&M - 15
40oz Olde E - 13
Steelers - 23
Xbox - 1
I quit - 4
Naps - XXI

So clearly, the winner will be???

**live comments below**