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Summer water ramp plans

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Bright_Nation
Posts: 400 - Karma: 12
So this summer myself and a couple of my friends are planning on making a water ramp at my cottage.  Has anyone on NS attempted to make one before?  I have a couple of questions:

1.  I've used astro turf with dish soap to cover a drop in for summer rail sessions,  would I be able to get enough speed using it as the ramp/in run surface?  Also what surface is used in professional setups around the UK, I know there are some summer ski hills there that use an astro turf-like surface.
     (the in run is a hill, give or take 30 degrees, way longer than anything we'll ever need)

2. Jump angle / width?  I know there are millions of variables to account for here, but what have people done in the past?  What would you like to see?  (Within reason!  I'm not building a second JOI jump here!)


If all goes well we will have a summer rail setup with 5+ different rails, the water ramp and a small rail park for wakeboarding using a winch i built a couple of years ago.

Any NSers in the Muskoka Parry Sound region are welcome to come shred when its all finished!

Thanks for the help guys.
Apr 6 2009 6:42PM
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lifesadream
Posts: 161 - Karma: 145
SNOW FLEX. but dont use it for the rails it'll like rip ur skin apart if u fall.
Apr 6 2009 6:50PM
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Aaaron.
Posts: 11817 - Karma: 903
google SNOWFLEX.

Apr 6 2009 6:51PM
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pjbauer
Posts: 2145 - Karma: 480
You can use snowflex for rails, just put it on the in run then put turf for the landing and around the rail
Apr 6 2009 6:59PM
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Aaaron.
Posts: 11817 - Karma: 903
you could even use regular carpet for around the rail.

Apr 6 2009 7:16PM
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Bright_Nation
Posts: 400 - Karma: 12
Sounds like a solid plan, but turns out snowflex runs 45$ per square foot, and that's a bit outside my budget.  I emailed to ask if they have a cheaper option.
Apr 6 2009 7:20PM
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beowulf
Posts: 893 - Karma: 164
my friends and i had the same plan and then we saw this Backyard water ramp! - Ski Gabber - Forums - Skiing's Online Community - Newschoolers.com
and decided that using lollerblade would work so much better.  unless you want to pay a pretty penny building one for skis more than likely wont go down. and for the jump thats somthing you need to go on with how much pop you want and how far you want to go how deep your lake/pond is.

ill be finishing mine up probably by next week and ill post pics and design plans if you want them
Apr 6 2009 8:12PM
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Mr.Huck
Posts: 6096 - Karma: 14,893

Check this stuff out:

This is kind of the old school stuff.  Lots of old euro ski hills were covered with this stuff before snowflex became the new thing.  I have been trying to remember the brand name for the old stuff.  This sportfix stuff is like the new generation.  It's made in Poland.  I couldn't find pricing on the site but I have spoken with the snowflex reps in Great Britain and they seem to think their product is pure gold.  This stuff is probably cheaper.

This may be tough, but my advice is to try to find an artificial ski hill in Canada that recently was resurfaced with snowflex.  They could have a ton of the old school ski surface sitting in storage.  If I can find out what the product name of the old ski surface was I'll post it.   The stuff came in like 1 foot squares and I think it was like a honey comb bristle pattern.  If you fall on it you could lose a body part, but it has been used a lot for water ramps. 

I am trying to build a water ramp park in Denver.  I have done a butt load of research on snowflex.   For my biggest ramps they suggested that I have a 120 foot inrun on a 20 degree slope.   Obviously you can go steeper and shorter, but that makes it tougher to drop in switch.  The inrun for the snowflex ramp at Woodward is about 35 feet long on a 40 degree slope.   I think that's a little too steep for switch drop ins on flex.   They have it that steep because it's indoors and they can't go any higher.  They use a mixture of water and silicone on the surface to get it to slide faster.  In Europe, they have sprinkler heads in the snowflex that spray water on it every few minutes. 

For a cheap outdoor ramp into pond deal, I would do this:

1) Try to find some old artificial ski surface material that someone has laying around and see if they will give it to you or sell it cheap.  If you can't find that, look for something like astroturf.

2)  Build the longest steepest inrun you can.  If you have some natural hill that's great.  If you put the ski surface down on top of wood ramps, I would throw some tar paper on between the boards and the artificial ski surface.  Otherwise the wood will probably rot out in a summer. 

3) To make the surface faster and feel more like natural snow, I would run some of that perferated irigation garden hose down at least one side and have it continously misting the surface. 

4) 20 feet wide and about 100 feet long would do a good job, but you could probably cut the width in half.  It will just be sketchier dropping in switch. 

5) Minimum of 20 degree slope.

Here is the link to Sportfix:

http://http://www.sportfix.pl/en/contact.html

Apr 6 2009 10:38PM
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Bright_Nation
Posts: 400 - Karma: 12
pics of your setup would be greatly appreciated sirfiletofish,

 I'll check out those links too guys.  I doubt there are any dry slopes in ontario, we get enough snow to make for a decent enough season.
Apr 6 2009 11:59PM
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PatSul
Posts: 109 - Karma: 16
snow gel all the way it is good when u r not useing it u cover is with a tarp and when u go to use it spray it with a hose it last a long time http://www.snowgel.com/
Apr 7 2009 12:04AM
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Mr.Huck
Posts: 6096 - Karma: 14,893
You'd be surprised.  If you check out the snowflex website, you will see links to some of the snowflex covered hills.   There seemed to be a ton of them in Can.  I saw footage of comps that they had up there.  Anyway, I still bet there is some of the old school stuff laying around somewhere up there.  I found some in Denver, but I didn't jump on it quick enough and they threw it out.  I am kicking myself for that.   I don't know about this stuff posted above.   It looks interesting.   I'd get a little of it and test it.  The website had some footy of someone's back yard rail set up.  It looked like they used it on the run in, but no where else.  I'd want more info before I bought the stuff.  Not  sure how it would stay on a steeper run in.
Apr 7 2009 4:44PM
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