Telemark Talk / Telemark Tips Forum

Hi. Hopefully this post doesn’t cause any ire at its potential to be redundant of others. If so, I ask for your patience in advance.

I have been a duckbill tellier since 2007 and I just made the switch to NTN (22 Designs Outlaw X). With that binding and boot switch, I got some new boards last spring - Rossignol Sender Free 110s with a 184 cm length.

Without doing any research, I asked my local shop last week in Mammoth to mount them. They recommended mounting them at the recommended boot center line. When I picked them up, I was surprised at how far forward on the ski the "recommended" mounting line is. I’ve never been on a ski with a mounting that far forward. I’ve used them for a few days now and they seem decent, but there’s a lot of tail to move around given the mounting point, and that's on a ski that, in its reviews by alpiners, is known to feel like it already has a bit of a stiff tail. I've noticed on steep chutes and open pitches that the amount of tail I have to swing around for jump turns feels cumbersome.

Today, I spoke with the shop about moving the bindings back 2 cm to a “Directional” line that is printed on the top sheet of the ski. The shop was somewhat against the idea though. They talked about how the trend with modern skis is to mount farther forward, and especially in the case of this particular ski, the more forward mounting helps with folks wanting to ride the skis switch.

I'm leaning towards having the shop remount the Sender Frees on that "Directional" line, which is 2 cm back from the "recommended" line. I'm not going to be doing much switch riding (if at all). I'm an advanced telemark skier. I'm 6'0 tall and I weigh 185.

For comparison, I’ve been skiing on some 2010/2011 Volkl Katanas (182s I believe). Even though they are rockered and probably aren't that great for tellie, I have loved them. They are heavy, stable, super playful, and they ski short, but can also blast through crud and hold up decently in powder. They also, interestingly, were also mounted by the same shop years ago and on the "recommended" center line. I do appreciate the fact that the Katanas are an entirely different kind of ski compared to the Sender Free 110s and that they are also probably from a different era in terms of ski technology and mounting philosophies.

Any recommendations?

To help me get a sense of things, I placed my Katanas next to the new Sender Frees to get some comparison. I include pictures.

Picture 1 shows the Katana side by side with the Sender Free where they are fairly even tip to tail. You can see how much farther back the Katanas are mounted relative to the ski.
Picture 2 shows the two skis mounted with the "recommended" mounting lines next to each other.

@mikeoliviero, I think you can move the bindings back 1.5” (~4cm) by drilling just three holes, by moving the bindings back back one set of holes (so, two holes on the back end of the binding and one hole at back end of heel).
It looks like that ski is mounted at -3.5 cm (pretty close to center, and moving them back 1.5” would put the bindings a bit more than -7 cm (still pretty forward).

I have no idea how that would affect how they will ski, but a pretty safe way to find out.
You could line up your two skis with that idea, like in the pictures, to see how that looks to you.

Thanks @RandomDude ! I had the shop push them back to the -2 "Directional" line. It definitely makes a meaningful difference. I'm going to ski on them like this for a bit and potentially move them back another 1.5 cm. Not sure. But, for how I ski, the edges started to come alive with the directional -2 cm mounting point. I feel like there might be more life in them still given how I turn if they get pushed back slightly farther.

I agree with @RandomDude.

I would also have recommended his fix, but you already had them redrilled, which is fine. I always start at boot center mark over recommended mounting point. In the case of 22 Designs, it's very easy. I have a pair of M-Cross 88's that I had mounted on the manufacturer's line. That felt a bit sluggish, so I moved the binding forward such that the rear 4 holes were over the front 4 drilled holes. I marked the remaining front two and drilled and installed binding Freedom inserts all around. This protects the core from water and allowed me to move them back and forth easily. After moving them forward, I have continued to ski them in that position, as that suits my purposes better. As you have found, there's a lot of personal preference involved. Front and rear rocker, if there is any, combined with your objectives will determine what works best. It sounds as though that's an improvement for you.

I think the distance between holes is about 1.6", so moving them back and forth is really easy.