Tele on K2 Pontoons anyone try?

A few things... first of all pontoons are old technology. Yes, they are fat and one of the original fat skis, but for all their area underfoot they are not the most elegant and friendly of designs... In short, they work ok, but they have a huge sidecut and are inherently less stable than the fat skis produced more recently, and harder to ski well than newer designs.

If you are going to use your pontoons and keep them, you need to understand what you have and adjust your expectations to their performance envelope. Those skis need at least 10 inches of fresh to be appropriate.... (yes, I know some will argue that)

I have extra green powertubes you may have courtesy of MD2020,... who gave me them,... I think because he likes hermits..... or something like that.  :

The shop advice you posted,... sounds like utter nonsense to me. I have been skiing NTN for a few years... What Randy and a few others are saying is true about NTN and the need for solid two footed technique.

The lever arm of NTN isn't attached to your heel, so lifting your heel does nothing... Where as with traditional heel cables on active bindings, you could steer the skis with the tip pressure generated just by lifting your heel. Many skiers can ONLY ski that kind of technique. The Hammerhead binding has enabled a generation of teleskiers to develope that technique as their only technique....

NTN's mechanics don't work like that, you need to drive the force down to flex the ski into an arc to turn it, not lift the heel up to drive tip pressure into the ski tip... to steer the tip...

It's a good system, but like any mechanism it only works the way it's designed to work. It doesn't ski well if you use old school technique or need excessively active bindings to enhance your technique. It's not hard to get the feel for NTN if you have an adjustable technique. *(which every skier should have as many tricks in their technique bag as possible)

Also,.. The right amount of spring tension should make the NTN tension feel like the bindings you are accustomed to so you have similar resistance and feedback from flexing the boot in the binding to the bindings your technique is already accustomed to. The problem will be whether you can get the feel of adusting your technique to get the feel of the new binding.

A few things... first of all pontoons are old technology. Yes, they are fat and one of the original fat skis, but for all their area underfoot they are not the most elegant and friendly of designs... In short, they work ok, but they have a huge sidecut and are inherently less stable than the fat skis produced more recently, and harder to ski well than newer designs.


If you are going to use your pontoons and keep them, you need to understand what you have and adjust your expectations to their performance envelope. Those skis need at least 10 inches of fresh to be appropriate.... (yes, I know some will argue that)

I have extra green powertubes you may have courtesy of MD2020,... who gave me them,... I think because he likes hermits..... or something like that.  :

The shop advice you posted,... sounds like utter nonsense to me. I have been skiing NTN for a few years... What Randy and a few others are saying is true about NTN and the need for solid two footed technique.

The lever arm of NTN isn't attached to your heel, so lifting your heel does nothing... Where as with traditional heel cables on active bindings, you could steer the skis with the tip pressure generated just by lifting your heel. Many skiers can ONLY ski that kind of technique. The Hammerhead binding has enabled a generation of teleskiers to develope that technique as their only technique....

NTN's mechanics don't work like that, you need to drive the force down to flex the ski into an arc to turn it, not lift the heel up to drive tip pressure into the ski tip... to steer the tip...

It's a good system, but like any mechanism it only works the way it's designed to work. It doesn't ski well if you use old school technique or need excessively active bindings to enhance your technique. It's not hard to get the feel for NTN if you have an adjustable technique. *(which every skier should have as many tricks in their technique bag as possible)

Also,.. The right amount of spring tension should make the NTN tension feel like the bindings you are accustomed to so you have similar resistance and feedback from flexing the boot in the binding to the bindings your technique is already accustomed to. The problem will be whether you can get the feel of adusting your technique to get the feel of the new binding.

The Old School Pontoon with the NewTN Rottefella exactly, how do you make that work? Yes, 10 inches and more of snow is ideal and why I bought the Pontoons, so my first test drive was inconclusive and not fun on 6 inches. I'm in luck with these new storm cycles and may get a chance to try it out again soon.

Next thought was to change out the binding system to sloppy to match the ski as in a G3, cuz I have an extra pair. After chit chatting on line and in person with others a looser power tube on my already mounted NTN Pontoons is suggested as the next step before remounting to a sloppier binding. I just purchased new power tubes both green (to replace a stripped side) and white as I mean to get to the bottom of this issue and float that ski in a tele turn!

Then technique......to match me and a rocker on a NTN tele set-up? I do have bilateral foot-butt-knee tools of experience to adjust my form to suit the equipment or so I think. What unsettled me was feeling that the ski under foot with my NTN set-up could not touch the snow while in motion. Or as you put it I could not drive the NTN into the ski, hence why I think a weight belt is a useful idea. I could feel the tails and a bit of contact about ~1/2 a foot distance before the tip, nothing else. New skis, lot's of pop. SO it has been suggested that I schmeer my turns and get sloppy to suit the ski and dial down the binding tension to facilitate the NTN in matching the ski slop and go with 10 inches underfoot or more. I'm game, will try this weekend if I get a chance.

Thanks for your input, much appreciated.

Randy's comment re: butt-to-heel rather than knee-to-ski is exactly what I was getting at... the butt-to-heel, in my experience, is what the NTN system favors and is the style that makes it pretty effortless to ski.

If your green cartridge is truly stripped out, I probably have an extra one you can have.

Thanks for the offer on the green power tube, that is very nice. I found them online!

My felt sense on my NTN is that I am working it correctly, but then again maybe not?, I do have a variety of binding ski set ups that include 7TM, Chilis, G3 and the NTN. I really enjoy the NTN as it is like being in a candy store with a pocket full of coins and am hoping the match-up of the NTN and the Pontoon could be the best candy ever on a powder day.

Time will tell........

that's dumb. What does he mean "blow the bindings out"? Your boot might pop out of them, but it's not going to "blow the binding out". I got a pair of white ones you can try, but I'd bet green on 1 is plenty soft. Are you sure the power tube is stripped? Sometimes it can be tricky catching the threads on the cable when replacing them.

Curious, what do you mean by "tricky catching the threads"?

The part I feel is stripped comes when I try to dial down the right binding's right power tube. I rotate it and it spins back no matter what. I then have a wiggle in my right side toe piece and the left side of the right binding is holding me steady but not the right side of the right binding. Stripped, right?

I could feel the tails and a bit of contact about ~1/2 a foot distance before the tip, nothing else. New skis, lot's of pop. SO it has been suggested that I schmeer my turns and get sloppy to suit the ski and dial down the binding tension to facilitate the NTN in matching the ski slop and go with 10 inches underfoot or more. I'm game, will try this weekend if I get a chance.

Thanks for your input, much appreciated.

Actually, that's why pontoons need so much snow. A huge portion of the ski's surface area is flapping in the breeze until the snow is actually deep. I know someone who skis them on everything and the tips and tails are always pulsing away in the breeze on less than deep snow days.

You aren't the first person to find NTN awkward at first. I don't think the pontoons help....

Curious, what do you mean by "tricky catching the threads"?

The part I feel is stripped comes when I try to dial down the right binding's right power tube. I rotate it and it spins back no matter what. I then have a wiggle in my right side toe piece and the left side of the right binding is holding me steady but not the right side of the right binding. Stripped, right?

I doubt it's stripped. Sometimes you really have to push and hold the cable into the hole of the power tube while turning the tube to be able to engage the threads. I had one that gave me quite a bit of trouble once.