Cable Parks....how exactly do they work?

I'm headed to Ft. Lauderdale saturday afternoon and plan on hittin up ski rixen over the week and a half I'm there at LEAST once. Now mind you I'm from WA, I've never traveled anywhere with my wakeboard but the columbia river so I have no idea how these things work....What happens when you fall and how do you get goin again? I was just told that sliders and "idiot proof" and I shouldn't bail out on them. Do I keep my fins on or take em off? ANY TIPS!???!

Thanks guys, I don't want to be "that girl" out there that's from the west side and makes a foot out of herself. lol

Jamie, florida bound in 1 day!!!

1. take off fins
2. if you can dock start, do it. if not, don't force yourself to do it. do a sit down start. i think you can do that at rixen.
3. not real familiar with ski rixen, but start with "smaller" sliders and work your way up to bigger ones.
4. if you fall, take your board off, and swim to shore. pay attention to "oncoming traffic."

joe pretty much said it. just make sure your confident about something before you do it.

Yeah Jamie...i wouldn't want to go out there and look like a "foot" either . For real though...we dont have any Cable Parks anywhere near Wisconsin...so to be honest, i'd be asking those same questions if i was going. I kinda understood the dockstart part, no fins, and maybe this is the most stupid part...i always wondered what happened if you fell. If the cable stopped, or you just swam to shore. Now i know.


-- The Cable Rookie

ask the operator and other people there to explain what to do in the corners. basically you cut outside just before the corner and then cut back in. it will keep you from getting the rope yanked out of your hand.

you will pick it up real quick and have a blast!

no need to cut outside around corners, just go through the buoys. That's what they're there for. You can have fins, but no metal fins as they tear up the sliders. Bring a helmet if you have one so you don't have to rent. A skateboard helmet works just fine. Try to learn how to load the line...it's a lot of fun. The ski rixen cable is really old, so it takes a little more work to fly out of the water, but if you're descent behind the boat you'll be able to figure it out. Sliders are farely easy, but make sure you cut to it at an angle...don't head directly for it. Hope that helps.

When you check your boardbag in at the airport they will ask you what it is, tell them it's water ski equipment, if you say a wakeboard it will probably will cost you an extra $75.00 each way. Have fun and be ready for the first corner.

Bendow great tip on cutting in on the sliders.

why thank you...I can give more great tips for a discount on obrien naturals

What about learning to harness tension and pop at the cable park. It blows me away watching professional cable riders get the big pop they get. How does that work and what is the feeling like?

I spent a small amount of time at Texas Ski Ranch and it was a blast, but never understood how to get air.

I am wondering the same thing as Steve. I live in Dallas and have gone to TSR once during my buddies wedding in San Marcos. How and when do you load the line, and how do you hit the crazy sliders? When I went down there I just hit the fun boxs and tried to spin as many times as I could on them.

you have to cut really hard away from the cable ie the nose of your board pointing directly towards the beach or inside depending on your stance. While you r on edge dig your back heel in the water and push back. There are many different techniques of doing it, but that's how I do it...and it seems to work well for me. Peoples biggest problem is not being 100% committed, trying to jump forward, or cutting really hard let up and then try to pop. Best tip, release while you're laying down on your edge.

Oh...and the feeling is awesome. It's not as hard of the landings as behind the boat and you can get so much air that it's possible to things like double s-bend to blind and double heart attack. I think Murray did a triple s-bend on a cable.


(Message edited by bendow on December 08, 2007)

Hey Ben, what is a double heart attack?

I can't wait to ride on my own cable...one day.

double heart attack is a double s-bend to blind 360

I would sure like to see more cable parks in the states. Particularly on the west coast. California could use like 3. Redding, the Bay Area and LA or San Diego.

Roughly, how much would it cost to do in indoor cable park facility? In my mind that would be a huge structure.

Or how about even an outdoor one? I bet it costs alot, anyone have any info on costs and revenue? Actually I am doing a project next semster and I might actually build/design a business and that is probably going to be it.

Steve- Make that 4. We need one in the Sacramento area too.

The cable itself is like $250K

If there are natural lake - you use it, otherwise you dig a pound for another $250K to $1Mil

Then you build bar(s), club(s), restaurant(s), funpark(s), bungalows, pools and whatever you could think of - another $500K to whatever...

For $1 Mil you'll build a pretty nice cablepark.

Indoor? You should build a hall with at least 20 meters håight, 250 meters length and 100 meters width... I have no idea how much will cost that.

(Message edited by georgi on December 10, 2007)

I guess the cable park in Ft Myers is still underway. I stopped by it and took a few pictures at Thanksgiving when I was visiting family. Just saw a few cable parts on the ground and what looked like a pool then went into the lake for probably a winch. Still not much progress.

Totally, Mark

Sacramento would be a good place to have a cable park.

You could almost run a cable park full time in a place like San Diego or LA. TSR has a great thing going because it is not just the cable park, it is a skate park, a motocross track, a ski lake, and if I remember correctly it is a mastercraft dealership and inside a boardshop.

Steve, you forgot to mention that TSR has a Restaurant/Bar...it's fun to go ride and then go up to the bar that over looks the lake and have a few beers with your friends.

Coconutz!

I heard about a company that partnered with another company. (I know.. juicy) The same folks who built a lot of the cable equipment in eur are working on brining more parks to the US. It will prolly take a while, but we should se more.

I wonder why we don't see more cable parks in the west, particularly in California, is it due to all the strict environmental laws and regulations, codes, permitting, general stuff like that. I have seen that there are 50 or more cable parks in Europe. I guess why it is so big over there is one they don't have the bodies of water and area to support recreational boating, two possibly less strict on laws and environment to where they can dig a hole in the ground anywhere thats available and fill it with water and put up a cable system. But maybe I'm wrong.

yeah...it's because the US is retarded with all of are regulations. From an environmental standpoint it couldn't be any greater. It only cost about $15.00 a day in electricity to run the cable system.

i think that the building for the indoor cable park would be the least of the problems...i mean the building wouldnt have to be any bigger than an indoor dirtbike track

Actually it's the opposite. There are much stricter environmental laws in Europeen countries that disallow the use of motor boats on bodies of water (apparently, only on rivers.) So to get around the environmental issues, you build a cableway which has really no significant environmental impact.

Gergi, it's pretty much impossible to build for $1million. Land is very expensive plus all of the other equipment required to run the place. And then, you likely would want more than a lake and a cableway...

Land $100 000
Excavating a lake $300 000 - $1 000 000
6 Tower system - $400 000
Lodge - $250 000

Riding on your own cable lake, priceless...

Where ever you are buying land, please let me in on that secret. In California $100,000 won't buy you anything.

In Canada eh! Oot and aboot there its cheaper right.

Shoot yeah!
80 acres = 50 000$ish 1/2 hour out of city

(Message edited by lives2wake on December 14, 2007)