Interesting, very interesting. I’ll be checking this puppy out firsthand later this week at OR and SIA. It looks like in the first pic there’s a clamp between the white plastic blocks on each board half. I imagine it works in the same fashion as one of these:

The other thing that’s interesting is this from Burton’s patent 6523851:

1. A binding mechanism for a touring snowboard having at least first and second board sections to be arranged in either of a snowboard mode and an ascension mode, the binding mechanism comprising: a base configured and arranged to receive a snowboard boot; a first interface to mount to at least one of the first and second board sections; and a second interface mounted to the base and configured and arranged to engage with the first interface when the touring snowboard is in the snowboard mode to mount the base to the snowboard; wherein one of the first and second interfaces includes a clamp moveable between a closed configuration wherein the one of the first and second interfaces is adapted to engage with the other of the first and second interfaces and an open configuration wherein the one of the first and second interfaces is adapted to release the other of the first and second interfaces, wherein an amount of clearance exists between the first and second interfaces when the clamp is in the open configuration and wherein the amount of clearance is decreased when the clamp moves from the open configuration to the closed configuration.

So would you consider this block to be part of the “binding mechanism”? Glad I’m not a lawyer!

Thanks for the link affix and thanks to steve from teton AT for taking the pics. Too bad he didn’t have the interest to take some pics of the actual interface like he did all the silly dynafit stuff that he’s in to. 😆

Apologies to the splitters that I’m not in a position to cover this product correctly and that our site isn’t important enough for Atomic to officially notify regarding this new product.

Enough of my whining…..

The design looks interesting and props to Atomic for pushing the innovation and taking a dive into the sport. :thatrocks:

I’ve imagined a similar clamp design so its kinda cool to see this. Looks like it has the potential to be way more active than just split hooks. Doesn’t look too clunky or heavy but in the picture below the plastic look like it might have a broken piece out of it.

Does anyone else see that irregularity in the plastic or is it just me?

Sure wish we could see the binding and interface.

Re the Voile and Burton patents, based on some of the comments in the other Atomic thread, it almost appears that Atomic is taking the approach to ignore the existing patents and gambling that the patent owners will not legally protect their patents. Of course that is just speculation and not anything official.

@bcrider wrote:

Doesn’t look too clunky or heavy but in the picture below the plastic look like it might have a broken piece out of it.

Does anyone else see that irregularity in the plastic or is it just me?

Yup, looks broken to me.

I agree! This piece of plastic definitely looks broken.

A year and a half of development and at its debut it features a broken part……. 🙄

Now do you all see why I was worried a little bit.

@brg wrote:

Karma, did you say the board skins in reverse, meaning the tails are the tips. I don’t like to mock it until I try it, but sounds kinda wack.

Si

@bcrider wrote:

Apologies to the splitters that I’m not in a position to cover this product correctly and that our site isn’t important enough for Atomic to officially notify regarding this new product.

Well, they only get one chance to make a first impression. Right?
So they just took a different approach at this by allowing pictures of their broken product to surface, thus creating the ever-powerful “internet buzz”.

First impression internet buzz says: “this product is made of cheap, breakable plastic”.

I wonder if that kind of publicity will work in their favor. Only time will tell.

yeah, I’m sure they did a structural analysis… 😆

tails are the tips when skinning…

It looks like the tail of the board has a slight swallow tail – sort of in the shape of two ski tips next to one another. If that is the case, it would seem they are trying to make this board work with standard straight bail skins.

Judging by Lou’s pics, it looks like it will/might only be compatible with Atomic bindings. At least at a quick glance, they seem similar to Will’s new bindings in terms of height.

Also, no broken plastic apparent in his pics versus Steve Romeo’s.