Hello guys,
I'm new on this forum. I'm not sure it's the correct section as gear review.
There is a great deal of information there, and I've got a question.
I'd like to go for boots, as I'm coming from a snowboarding and wakeboarding background, I like to have my feet fixed to the board. The picture of sliced skin and missing teeth after bad landing did not help neither.
I'm riding in a beach in China which is polluted by oil, so the feet gets slippery and I always got the feet out of my bindings (which does happen less in other spots)
I'm currently riding vegas 12m and 8m on a 139 Jaime with NTT.
I'd like to go bindings boots and I've ordered the north banana boot (seem to be the only one available here in China) and I'm lurking to the North team serie 2013 or 2014.
I'm not sure of the size I shall choose, i'm around 83kg. 140 would mean i'd have to change my board bag too as the 139 barely fits in. the other option is 137.
Here we also often have low wind, which would push toward bigger size.
I'm also a bit worry for my knees as bigger board will have more drag on the bad landing. I also intend to do a little bit of wakeboarding with that setup.
I'm starting to do unhook tricks as railey, unhook downloop and so.. and landing with the jaime is sometimes a bit shaky (especially when half the time you have one strap off).
Rider: 83-85kg, intermediate +
Style:Wake, Freestyle
Weather: 13-25 knots
Thanks for your feedback
Cheers
Not sure how good a team series will go with boots. I have heard of alot of people breaking the team series when they put boots on it, if your wanting to stick with the north range id be going the gambler, 139 or bigger if i were you.
Hi glendog,
I've seen a lot of people using boots with the TS.
It's sure the board might not be designed for it.
Did you hear that a lot of people were braking their board, was it before their "track" system ? Was it long time ago rumor or it is still actually happening ?
I believe this is stronger than the inserts and should bear the boots. I won't ride kickers and modules with it neither.
Is there build difference between the TS 2013 and 2014? I've read that the 2014 is stronger.
So you would suggest me to definitely go for 140cm ?
Thanks
Select to expand quoteDammien said..
Hi glendog,
I've seen a lot of people using boots with the TS.
It's sure the board might not be designed for it.
Did you hear that a lot of people were braking their board, was it before their "track" system ? Was it long time ago rumor or it is still actually happening ?
I believe this is stronger than the inserts and should bear the boots. I won't ride kickers and modules with it neither.
Is there build difference between the TS 2013 and 2014? I've read that the 2014 is stronger.
So you would suggest me to definitely go for 140cm ?
Thanks
I think the tracks are the main thing that breaks. i broke my tracks when i had a jaime, but iv seen a few TS split down the middle. im only a light bloke 60 kg and from my experience i recomend sticking to wakestyle boards with boots. the other boards just dont handle it. if im breaking boards at 60 kg then somebody a bit bigger wont have much of a chance. i ride a naish monarch at the moment and i have snapped one already when it was about a month old, got another one under warranty, its about 6 months old now but it has a small crack that is slowly getting bigger. from now on only wakestyle boards for me. even tho the monarch is advertised to be riden with boots or straps its not a wakestyle board. na you should be fine on a 137 i recon.
glendog is rite, at the end of the day it wont really matter what size TS you get cos it wont last the season anyway.
I have seen a skinny 12 year old crease the 2014 TS, using bindings.
Thanks for your feedback. Doesn't look very optimistic.
I try to search online any bad comment about the TS getting broken or so and I cannot find much about it. Seem not much people are complaining about that.
My dealer told me anyway if I broke the board it would be under warranty (18 month). I don't know if it's a good reason to go.
He also told me that he had one TS 2014 broken by a 100kg + guy and never had any TS 2013 returned back for warranty so far.
I'm worry that with a pure wake board I won't appreciate much the ride, not much people are using these unless they ride some obstacles without talking about the weight.
Select to expand quoteDammien said..
Thanks for your feedback. Doesn't look very optimistic.
I try to search online any bad comment about the TS getting broken or so and I cannot find much about it. Seem not much people are complaining about that.
My dealer told me anyway if I broke the board it would be under warranty (18 month). I don't know if it's a good reason to go.
He also told me that he had one TS 2014 broken by a 100kg + guy and never had any TS 2013 returned back for warranty so far.
I'm worry that with a pure wake board I won't appreciate much the ride, not much people are using these unless they ride some obstacles without talking about the weight.
yeh i bet the warrenty wont work if you've used boots on the board. na not a wakeboard, a wakestyle kiteboard theres a big difference.
The vendor says it's all covered anyway. I'm also not (yet) riding like a psychopath ^^
Plenty of guys riding TS's in Perth with boots and out of all the guys I know, I haven't seen one TS come back with any issues in either 2013 or 2014.
Pretty sure in the last 3 seasons we've seen every modern wakestyle model broken in some way when riding with boots, so get what you like to ride and ride it until it dies. If you want something bulletproof you'll be riding around with 10kg of board under your feet rather than 5.
Enjoy 
Drew @ WA Surf
Glendog is spot on. I know of heaps of guys snapping them or boning the tracks. Remember the tracks are plastic... not like Slingshot's aluminium one. That said it is a very nice riding board and pops pretty massively. I would go for the Gambler though for boots. You can still break them but not as easily.
I snapped an early one with straps and was told it was because they didn't lay up the carbon properly, not sure about that. Then had a Gambler and when I sold it the track had lifted about 5mm where my boots bolted down.
Now I ride a Tona, which is cheaper and stronger, seen a few break also though.
... my son has the 2014 140cm TS with the Banana Boots and despite my nagging, abuses the board no end landing in all sorts of hard ways that my knees wouldn't dream of doing. Not one problem yet, and I've looked too for any stress etc around the tacks.
Mind you, he did one too many flicky flicky things in shallow water recently and his mum banned him from riding the boots so now he has to ride with flippy floppies as he calls them (normal foot straps) til he can prove he won't be an idiot in shallow water!!!! 
Til further notice, he rides with straps!!!!
Anyway, the point being it appears to be a good strong board so far which my son loves,,,, best board ever he reckons!
Cheers,
Robbie
Ok, thanks for all these feedback.
I'll take the risk, this board seem very nice. I'll let you know if i break it :)
