Binding woes

Having noticed at the start of the season that the highback on my front
foot Salomon SP5s were breaking, I spent some time trying to get a
replacement to no avail. I checked in with numurous Salomon dealers who
didn't carry such spares. I tried contacted Salomon direct at home and
got nowhere.

On my recent trip to Jackson Hole I noticed that the highback was nearly
completely broke... it's been sort of tearing off around one of the heel
cup hinge points, and gradually getting worse. There was about 1cm left,
and I was getting increasingly concerned. The shops at Teton Village and
Jackson town were helpful but just didn't carry the spare. One guy
contacted Salomon themselves. It took 2 days for him to actually speak to
anyone! Apparently he was waiting on a ski warranty as well. Anyway,
they told him they didn't have any highbacks. His only solution was to
wait until I got home and then send them my highback. Which meant I had
less than 1cm of tearing to go before it broke completely, and 8 days of
my trip left.

Well, screw them. I bought some Burton Mission Greed bindings, after
checking out virtually anything else. I know from past experience that I
can go virtually anywhere in the world and get spare parts for Burton
bindings... plus, they'll phone me back if I ever call them.

The Greed's are pretty good. I'm not totally convinced that the new toe
strap thing pulls your boot into the heel cup, as my foot is pretty wedged
in already, but then I was getting a tight fit. I hardly need to do up my
heelstrap at all, but I do clamp it down for general riding.

As always with new bindings it took and takes some tweaking to get them
feeling right... and I'm really not comfortable with lots of forward lean,
but I got there, and I really like them. Apparently for next season a lot
of the Burton bindings are going to have this new toe strap, which will
mean spares should be readily available if you ever need them.

The only thing I don't like is the lockable forward lean adjustment thing
on the highback. What's the point of that? On a number of chairs, it's a
good idea for us to push the highback over so it doesn't get broken, but
on these things you have to unlock it first, and the gap to get your
finger behind the lever isn't that big... it's pretty hard with mitts on,
but better with fingered gloves. I'd rather take it off, but I don't
think that I can. It's a minor pain, but just something else to slow us
strappers down!

- Dave.

--
..sig is missing in action

with the foward lean locking thing, if i want to be able to flip the hi-back
down i just unlock it and turn it 90 degrees.

then its out of the way and you can flip hi-back up and down no problem.

supposedly you sacfrice a bit of stifness in the binding having if undone,
but i can't really tell myself ....


"Switters" wrote in message
...
Having noticed at the start of the season that the highback on my front
foot Salomon SP5s were breaking, I spent some time trying to get a
replacement to no avail. I checked in with numurous Salomon dealers who
didn't carry such spares. I tried contacted Salomon direct at home and
got nowhere.

On my recent trip to Jackson Hole I noticed that the highback was nearly
completely broke... it's been sort of tearing off around one of the heel
cup hinge points, and gradually getting worse. There was about 1cm left,
and I was getting increasingly concerned. The shops at Teton Village and
Jackson town were helpful but just didn't carry the spare. One guy
contacted Salomon themselves. It took 2 days for him to actually speak to
anyone! Apparently he was waiting on a ski warranty as well. Anyway,
they told him they didn't have any highbacks. His only solution was to
wait until I got home and then send them my highback. Which meant I had
less than 1cm of tearing to go before it broke completely, and 8 days of
my trip left.

Well, screw them. I bought some Burton Mission Greed bindings, after
checking out virtually anything else. I know from past experience that I
can go virtually anywhere in the world and get spare parts for Burton
bindings... plus, they'll phone me back if I ever call them.

The Greed's are pretty good. I'm not totally convinced that the new toe
strap thing pulls your boot into the heel cup, as my foot is pretty wedged
in already, but then I was getting a tight fit. I hardly need to do up my
heelstrap at all, but I do clamp it down for general riding.

As always with new bindings it took and takes some tweaking to get them
feeling right... and I'm really not comfortable with lots of forward lean,
but I got there, and I really like them. Apparently for next season a lot
of the Burton bindings are going to have this new toe strap, which will
mean spares should be readily available if you ever need them.

The only thing I don't like is the lockable forward lean adjustment thing
on the highback. What's the point of that? On a number of chairs, it's a
good idea for us to push the highback over so it doesn't get broken, but
on these things you have to unlock it first, and the gap to get your
finger behind the lever isn't that big... it's pretty hard with mitts on,
but better with fingered gloves. I'd rather take it off, but I don't
think that I can. It's a minor pain, but just something else to slow us
strappers down!

- Dave.

--
.sig is missing in action