Echo Skis Dream Rope Contest
 

My name is Ryan and I am with Echo Skis. We make ropes for wakeboarding, trick skiing and barefoot skiing. We are running a contest where you could win a free rope.

Our background is mostly in the trick skiing and barefoot world so we are trying to reach out to more wakeboarders.

Basically we want to know what features your dream rope would have. The prize for this contest is that if we decide to start producing anyone's dream rope we will give that rope to the first person that suggests it to us for free. If we try out your dream rope but do not put it into production you will still be able to buy that prototype rope from us for the cost of the materials. You can reply with your suggestions here or email contests@echoskis.com .

Thanks,
Ryan

P.S. This is my first posting here and I am sorry if this would be considered spam.

Take the accurate jacket series rope, and put a PVC coating/sleeve on it and that'd be the best rope.

Are you doing handles too? If so I really miss the older carbon handles from straight line. They just seemed more responsive.

Thanks for your interest.

Delta Force: A neoprene jacketed rope with a PVC coating would be cool. It would probably be a little pricey but we will look into it.

Red: Here is a list of some of our project that are in the prototype stage.
-Handles
-Aluminium, plastic and carbon fiber cores for our handles.
-Synthetic and natural chamois grips, foam grips, ribber grips and a rubber/chamois hybrid grip.
-Ropes
-Our ropes have a sliding loop on the tower side of the rope. This allows the rope to tighten up around the tow point making it easier to get a secure attachment to the boat. We are currently working on getting this style loop to work with neoprene jacketed ropes and linear dyneema lines that have a polyester jacket.
-In a few days we are going to release a clear PVC coating option for all of our ropes. So, if you checked out our ropes and like the sliding loop but require a coated rope we will be able to offer that now.


Red, Is there anything specific that you would like to see in a carbon handle? Are you interested in it for less weight or for more strength or do you just like the increased stiffness?

Thanks,
Ryan
http://echoskis.com

The straight line was a triangular solid handle. I prefer the stiffness. But I heard they got sued and tgats why they discontinued them.

Hey Red, PM me - I have a Proline carbon handle that i don't use if you are interested. (they may not be the same/similar to the Straightline ones though).

We have gotten a decent amount of response for the contest so far. I plan on running the contest until the end of the month and then picking the winner. So, far most of the entries we have gotten are for handles with camera mounts.
Does anyone else have any ideas? It can be something as simple as "I want a rope with x line length". Or something way out of the box.... I'm thinking laser beams.
Feel free to post your entry here.

~Ryan

I want a good quality coated rope that when changing lengths for other riders, they knots don't slip such that it's hard to use the length anymore. And my color preference is orange.

If surf ropes are an option too, then a good fat knotty surf rope with high quality foam and single hand handle. Also in Orange.

Dax Jolly, just to clarify are you having problems with the factory loops getting smaller after using the rope?

Rope that allows length sections to be added/removed without a significant effort trying to untie the loops... After use for a week or two the loops/knots get so tight on the removable sections it takes 15 min to get apart.

Ryan,

Yes. On the coated ropes I have, I have riders that ride at 60 ft out to 75 ft. The knotted sections that have the 60', 65', and 70' anchor points, slips to the point of almost not being able to loop the rope at those points. I do not just throw the knot over the tower, but loop it properly. One where the knot doesn't slip would be much better.

Dax Jolly, I think that we already have a solution for you. You might want to check our site this weekend. The rope I mentioned earlier with the sliding loop and clear pvc coating will be available Sunday. Our sliding loop is able to go between two sizes, big to fit over the tow point and small so that it can't come off. If our Average Joe Wak Rope doesn't offer enough sections don't worry because we are also going to release a version of our wake rope that has more sections. Since we use brummels and buries instead of knots you won't have the problem with the loops getting too small. This picture shows the loop opened up on the bottom and closed on the top. We don't normally sell orange but since you submitted an idea that we already figured out I will make one at wholesale cost for you in orange if you are interested.


David, I'll try making a rope with plastic coating on one of the loops and let you know how it goes. I should be able to do it this weekend.

Thanks,
Ryan

P.S. only a few more days left for this contest it will end at the end of the month.

What is the diameter of these ropes? The picture makes it look quite thick compared to more traditional wakeboarding lines?

The thickness you are seeing only continues for about 6 inches past the edge of the photo and then tapers down to 1/8".

Make a handle with different diameters. I have small hands, so I like the smaller diameter handles. Others I know like larger diameter handles. Also, make and option for a T handle as well.

All carbon fiber handles are no fun. Throw your arm through one or get hit with one, and you'll throw that sucker in the garbage where it belongs.

2 foot options on the rope would be cool as well. A lot of guys are picky and like to ride at 77 behind the newer boats.

I agree.

I think that it would be cool to see a company use different shapes metal for the handles themselves. Most wake handles are relatively round whereas something like a lacrosse shaft comes in a variety of different grip styles which many prefer over the traditional. If coated correctly a cut down lacrosse shaft could be a great start to a handle.

Thanks for all of the great responses,
We have decided to work on two of the contest entries. If your idea did not get picked it doesn't mean we didn't like it, in most cases there were ideas we liked but we are not in a position to prototype them.
The two we picked are a action camera mount on the handle and take off sections that are easier to take off.

We will post updates here as we work on the prototypes.

Thank you to everyone that participated I hope you all had some fun thinking up your ideas.

Ryan
Echo Skis

So Ryan, as it turns out, after finally getting out this year to get in the water, I do need a new rope. How much for the orange one at wholesale? If you'd rather not put cost in forum, feel free to PM me.

PM sent

A 2 or 2 1/2 foot section would be really nice, especially if you could take it on and off without pliers and an ice pick. And you gotta have a T bar on the handle.

I would like a quality rope with loops all the way down to ~40'. We use it for kids (5-9 years old) just starting to clear the wake at ~14mph.

This is a simple one for me. I would like a rope that is an 80 foot mainline, so with the handle I am riding at 85 feet. Coated would be preferred as it slides thru the wet hands nicely. Some old school late 80's early 90s trow back would be cool in the color scheme, where each section of the line is a different color, this is for two reason one I love that old school look and two it allows for you to identify how long you have the rope set visually so as the drive you can just look at the tower and know if the rider is at 80', 75', 70', etc. Like the old competition slalom skiing ropes.

For functionality, I would like this rope in question to have 1 foot section for the first 10 feet. I ride at 85 feet behind my X-Star, but behind a Malibu I like to ride at 83 feet, a g23 at 81 feet, and so on. I would really like to be able to dial in my rope length for every boat I ride. I always like to ride at 27.5 mph and as everyone knows, each boats sweet spot in the wake is at a different length depending on weight, rope length, and speed. These short sections would really allow you to dial in your ride. So this mixed with the different color sections for visual identification of length would be rad.

I tried out the echo line today. It appears to be a quality rope. Floated good, and had no issues with kinking. seems pretty durable.

Cool, any progress on the easier to take off sections?

The projects are going well. Once again thank you guys for your suggestions.
We are almost done with a Go Pro mount that is built into the handle. We also are testing a ten foot section that has loops on it every 1.5 feet. The only idea that we are running into trouble with is the easy take off sections. Most of our solutions have worked really well but show too much wear after a few rides.
We hope to have everything we are working on ready by the holiday season. If we end up with a working prototype for any of the ideas suggested we will contact you guys once we are ready to give them out to the contest winners.

Thanks,
Ryan
Echo Skis

Personally, I don't see a big need for easy to remove take-offs - just loop onto the section your using and either let the rest hang, or coil it up and hang it off the tower - no chance of losing sections that way, but to each their own I guess.

I like Andy's idea of different colored sections though. One of my original wakeboard ropes was an old tac line where they just put in some colored rope at each take-off, so was easy to tell someone to put it on the pink/purple/blue/etc. take-off, and easy to know at a glance where you're at.