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I was just about to post the same thing.

Need any test pilots?

So, I've never splitboarded (is that a verb?) but it seems like these bindings would be sweeeeeeeet! Will, you're brilliant! Can you anodize them in pink for me since you can do custom orders? You must have a very lucky girlfriend....

...nice work babe, livin' the dream.

Great stuff, Will. Keep up the good work. You gotta love homegrown innovation. You can mark me down for a pre-order, too.

I would opt for the lock-down option if it were available.

I second (or third) the idea of making it bomber first, then trimming weight.

I've always liked the Salomon straps. My $0.02.

Yeah Will!!!!

Now you're attracting telebabes to the website. Unexpected business benefit? hmmmm.. or carefully thought out. (wink emoticon)


Welcome telegirl. (very happy smile emoticon)




-I think my javascript is screwed up -

hmmmmm Lockdown would be super sweet for slogs and traverses. I can think of more than a handful of times I wished I could lock my heal down. Currently, I do worry about the toe connection in ski mode ripping out. It has never happened on any of my boards, but it seems that the overall system would be more durable. Could you imagine skating on a flat road like a skier....ohhhhh my my think of the time you could save.

How is it that you're able to make the height of the bindings so much lower compared to using the normal Voile slider tracks? In the picture from your site it looks like the footbed of your bindings are nearly 1/4 inch lower. But, in terms of that height, aren't you only eliminating the height contributed to by the thickness of the metal on the Voile slider track (much thinner than 1/4 inch)?

Great work! Count me in for a preorder also.

I also love the cap straps - a huge improvement which I have retrofitted into my old Missions.

I think the decrease in height off the board is a great extra advantage. I always felt like the added height from the slider tracks was like "lifter plates' in ski racing and caused the board to be a little too squirrelly. Not a great feel for soft powder and too much for tight Vermont woods (inadvertent edge pressure leading to inadvertent turn leading to inadvertent maple bark in teeth...) It actually was enough to drive me away from my hard boots into softer set up. Maybe with these I can go back to hard bootin!

Telegirl: Can you anodize them in pink for me since you can do custom orders?

Yeah I've seen that telegirl on the slopes before and she was looking goooooood
Thanks for the support ya'll, even my sneaky lady. I am planning on anodizing these bindings and there are many colors available. My buddy Tyler in Bozeman whipped up some brake levers and got them anodized in these colors through a shop in Idaho:

(pm me if you want to get in touch with Tyler). I'm definitely into mixing and matching the colors on the baseplates, lower plates, and the heel cups to get these binders looking good.

Lewmt, Ecobrad, T, Wyomingsplit_ride, Bentley and the rest:
So it sounds like people are in to lock down heel action, I'll get right on it. I'll post what I come up with. Thankfully I will have some free time next week for turkeyday with the telegirl out in NH. We're going to fit in a Tuckerman's mission on Tuesday, and I'll get some time for design work as well.

Splitlips: How is it that you're able to make the height of the bindings so much lower compared to using the normal Voile slider tracks?

Here's a shot of a conventional and the split specific strap binding

In the upper picture you have the slider track and the baseplate adding up in thickness. Baseplates for standard bindings need to have a certain thickness to accommodate the four hole disk. You don't need a four hole disk on the split setup as the pucks provide angular adjustment, so all you're left with is a baseplate the thickness of the slider track.

Killclimz, Affix snow, vtrider: We want cap straps

Cool, I'll look for them when I'm sourcing.

I received an email with concerns about snow clogging. Maybe it's a bit unclear from the pics I've had up. This one shows the vent, against a stylish denim couch:

Cloggage is no problem.

So my turn: vtrider, would you be riding a strap binding with a hard boot? Or would you be looking for a low profile hard boot binding with toe and heel bales and no highback?

Soooo, where's the exclusive bozeman sneak preview? I might be persuaded to switch back over to :gasp: soft boot. Anyways good to see some local boys innovating new designs to help the split community. Good luck.

I would think using the lighter weight hard boot heel and toe bales would make the most sense. However, if your set up is lighter to start with, maybe there isn't as much advantage to going to hard boots..?

What would be approx weights of:

1. traditional set up with an "average" strap set up (missions or whatever)

2. traditional voile hard boot set up

3. your new system

When can I get a hold of some?

Yikes. We're in the midst of a warm and rainy spell here. Next week's R&D session probably isn't going to happen.

(Crossing my fingers for the weather anti-jinx.)

Lifelinksplit: Let's head out some time after thanksgiving and compare. I haven't been out with a hardbooter before, I'd like to check it out.



Question 1:
My previous setup was a set of Drake F-60's from a few years ago. This binding plus the gasket, track and pin weighs 42.7 ounces (1211 g). Now I'm thinking about taking the scale to world boards and seeing what the weight range is on other bindings, not info that gets posted in buyer's guides.

Question 2:
I don't know, I don't have that setup. Can someone with that rig chime in?

Question 3:
I just weighed the binding with pin and it came in at 34.8 ounces (987 g). This was a surprise, I recently switched highbacks and straps and must have lost more weight with those, so now my weight savings per foot is 7.9 ounces, and nearly a pound off of the assembled board. I'd better update the website! In either case my driver x's weigh 41 ounces per boot. There may be lighter soft boots out there, but I'm a sucker for vibram. I'm curious as well how the total weight compares to a hardboot setup.

Question 4:
I'm working on it, plenty of motivation thanks to everyone's input.

T - Thanks for the heads up on Tux, perhaps we'll hike some trails and I'll daydream about splitboarding, better bring the gear just in case

I'm always looking for more people to ride with. probably hitting up beehive and blackmore this weekend if you're interested. PM me if ya might be interested. Again I would love to see your new setup.