Author Topic: Head iM78  (Read 1672 times)

Svend

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Re: Head iM78
« on: May 03, 2010, 08:30:31 pm »
John, you are absolutely right about rental shop tunes ruining a great ride.? It's a crying shame.? I come out west occasionally in winter on business, and I will just rent skis for a day or two rather than schlep mine all the way here (my boots come along as carry-on luggage, however...!!!).? In all the renting/demoing I have done, there have maybe been two pairs that were actually tuned well.? Pretty pathetic stats, eh?? And it's probably one of the reasons I didn't like the Contact 4x4s....although even with a bad tune, the iM78s were far better IMO....

Gary, I attacked the tips and tails of the iM78s with my gummy stone, and it helped a lot, but not enough.? I even dulled the entire side edges a little to ease the nasty ride (gasp - sacrilege! Drastic measures, I know).? But I know enough about rental shop tunes by now that I always carry my gummy stone in my boot bag.? ?::)? First run, and then I'm usually at the bottom of the lift filing away like a nutcase.

But even with the poor tune on the iM78s, I could still tell that there was a really great ski in there.? A winning combination of power, energy, stability, dampness, forgiveness, liveliness, edge hold, soft snow / hard snow / ice performance.....jus t an extremely good balance of attributes.? Man, if the tune had been right on, I would have had an epic day of it at Sunshine -- the perfect ski for that mountain.? If I lived here, I would own them, and a second pair that were 95mm+ for powder.?

Back to tuning......I am going to have to find a really good tuner that can do a proper base grind.? My wife's Supershape Speeds are in need, as the bases are getting pretty scratched up from all the ice in Ontario? ;D .? John, you are lucky to have someone like Willi.? There is a guy near our home hill that built his own monster grinder because the commercial ones didn't satisfy his criteria.? He says the stone on this thing runs at half the speed of others so that he can control the grind better and not overheat the base.? Once the base is flat, he does the rest of the tune by hand as per customer's needs.? He does a lot of racers.? I'll talk to him first....sounds like my kinda guy.

Cheers,
Svend
« Last Edit: May 05, 2010, 09:41:04 am by Svend »