what do you do?

what do you do when you have some people that are regular and others that are goofy.
do you just make them surf backside or do you unfill all the weight and move it

Most nice people will move the ballast. Depending on the time frame available to ride. If you are only going out to ride for a short period of time I would ride backside if I was in the minority in the boat. Great practice by the way. I know that some people will only weight their boat on one side so it's backside or nothing. The best solution is that everyone learns to ride both sides so it evens out.

thanks dennis
its ussually on my boat so the weight would be set so that i could ride frontside but i never knew that riding backside was good for your riding. next time ill have the wieght so i can try backside

I think more and more competitions will be having riders ride both sides, if you are interested in competing.

I think competitions requiring riding both sides are a bad idea. In most situations it's just not practical for everyone to ride each way so very few people get to experience it. For instance when I go out on the lake I'm more then likely I'm going to get one shot at riding and I'm sure as heck not going to waste it riding backside when I don't know when the next time I'm going to get out on the water.

IMO the primary goal of competitions in a sport as young wakesurfing should be to spread awareness through maximum participation. In my experience not enough people ride both ways for it to be viable in a contest scenario. I know that my sister hated that aspect of the Arizona contest and I would never enter a contest setup as such as I simply don't ride backside enough and don't feel it's a fair representation of my riding.

(Message edited by caskimmer on June 24, 2007)

(Message edited by caskimmer on June 24, 2007)

Actually Sean I agree with you. I would never push for riding both sides in competitions. I have just seen talk of Arizona and the event in Ohio. I personally really don't want to compete backside. I think it would allow ocean surfers a great advantage over strictly wakesurfers.

my wife rides goofy and I am regular (footed that is)
now that we have the new VLX and have insatalled the 2 pump make-a-wake system, it's easy to just hit buttons and fill/empty whichever side you want!

but sometimes, I will just ride backside.....it's almost starting to get easier than frontside

.......but then again, I ride a landlock and don't do any tricks

Hey Cliff did you get the Make-a-Wake RCII system? I think that for folks where it's easy to swap ballast, riding backside is great fun. The RCII does that.

Sean and Dennis, I LOVE riding backside. It's a new challenge and while I'm not great at it I really enjoy it. Personally I enjoy doing new things out on the board.

The AzWA contest's inclusion of backside was last minute and my understanding is that all of the riders were asked if they wanted to ride backside - the majority ruled, I would guess. They only had the one boat and so practically speaking it allowed an equaliztion of rider assessment AND gave everyone more riding time. I know that James and I were enthusiastic about the option, when asked. I think that most of the folks that rode had a blast with it. It was great fun and in the moment folks were laughing and enjoying themselves. To me, that has great promotional value.

I like the way that Ed S is working with this option at Wakefest. Participants will get two rides and the OPTION of riding backside on the second pass. So that would accomodate Sean's desire not to be FORCED to ride that way and accomodates me because I want to demonstrate that I (believe ) am a more progessive and well-rounded rider than those who can't ride backside.

I also think that in a situation as with AzWA, where you only have the one boat and some free time, running everyone port and then again darkside is fun and introduced a number of people to another facet of riding.

I know that Ed S has also TALKED about requiring some form of backside at the NWL Nationals and maybe this is the better option - allowing folks the option of being able to ride backside...but I also understand Ed's point. If you are going to confer the title of NWL national wakesurf champion it would best if that person COULD ride backside.

Just one of the issues to be wrestled with when you have dedicated sides to ride.

I thought I posted on this thread, must have been lost.

Wakefest in Columbus, Ohio July 7 - 8: two runs, ride any wake you want. I score riding any stance other than your normal toes to the wake stance as a trick.

NWL Nationals in Dayton, Ohio on August 18 - 19: Advanced riders will be required to surf both wakes in the first round. Other riders chose their wake.

Ed, how will the Nationals first round work? From the way you have it described I am envisoning ride one boat port going one direction and then switch boats for the other direction or will it be two passes behind two different boats?

This requirement will be for advanced riders only. We will load the boats with judges and riders. Once crews on both boats have completed a set we'll swap crews. A composite first round score will be used as the first heat scores.

We usually have an even side to side water ballast balance, and just have the boat riders move to one side or the other for surfing.