oh my god…did you see how much futzing with the binding baseplates there was? with a crampon to boot… all i could think 15 seconds in was, this would be impossible on top of a cold, snowy, windy mountain. do they even know how much icing and snow there would be with all those little holes and everything. not my cup of tea. and while i for one would love a better system than the voile which i think could use some re-engineering to make it better, lighter, lower, and more up to date… when it all comes down to it, the system works. its quick, it goes together and comes apart easy everytime, and it does its job of making a snowboard. IMHO any “new” system needs to seriously think about the user aspect. this is the backcountry after all. i don’t wanna be dealing with dropping the one clip that holds my board together into 3 ft of snow on top of a mountain. or be trying to clear ice out of tiny holes to get my binding on. so for know, i’ll give props where props is due. the voile system with sparks is about as good as anything i have seen or tried yet. i guess there is a reason everybody “standardized” to it. chris
I’m not sure why they decided to have the heel lifters come off like that. I would glue those board clamps on the board and just have them flip away in ski mode. Just keep it simple and put some voile style heal lifters on there. It looks like a pain to have to twist that thing to get them on and off. What are you saving… like 10 grams? And then you have to carry a big pair of crampons anyway. ๐
it s not perfect – it is more than 2000000 miles away.
1 the split hooks are to havy . no one need some hard pom blocks to hould the ski pices …..
2 the bindingssystem is oly a sooft boot bindings … you must ride it – ore eat green grass….
3the bolt in the interface is metal in metal – ice conditions make it dead …
climbingbare wire must on the board mounted…. not lost in snow…
899 dollar for a prototype how must stand – testing on the market …
no no – new ideas – the are old … when the have a brain the go to voile an ask dg for some splitkit – and lorn in the first time how to make a good board … a splitboard core is a secret …. you never lorn it in a saision…
i am not a killer of new ideas … when the are new.
saw the Atomic splitboard “Poacher” yesterday at ispo, Munich (GER). the video on youtube tells more than 1000 words! I don’t want to do this in a snowstorm on the top of the mountain!
the Atomic salesman admitted that they have to spend some more hours on the development … ๐
brg, true, but instead of just gloves, how about in one of those plexiglass or lexan money tornado tubes they have at casinos in vegas? Only instead of $1’s they are swirling some snow and keeping him at about 20-25*.
Maybe after further examination thought some of the very ingenious minds here can find some way to take their attempt and turn it into something practical.
Crampon cracking your board junction plastic brackets, gouging up your top sheet, not to mention dropping one of the heel lift peices in the waist deep snow.
No F’ing way. That is why you double check your hardware the night before a tour. You never want to have to mechanic anything that detailed in the field.
on a side note. What are the costs associated with licensing the voile interface. hate to say it but perhaps Atomic is purely trying to take a few $$ off of Voile’s plate. rather than actually influence the market, or progress the sport. ๐
Who knows what they were thinking with that design?? Maybe Atomic has some R&D budget to clown around with. Obviously some of their ideas are retarded – why shave a couple grams to make the heel riser double as the attachment clip? Lose one of those suckers and you’re doubly screwed.
Their big advance – placing the binding directly on the board – was totally obsoleted in the last month by Will’s Spark R&D bindings so it doesn’t look so great now.
Having the heel riser drop down from the binding (a la the Burton system) allows you to have a floating crampon that bites with the heel riser up. But they should have a pad on the top sheet for it to land on. Hopefully Will will obsolete that one with his new crampon design as well.
It would be interesting to see how that thing skins in powder… it seems like in skinning mode the tips of the skis will be more narrow than the tail. (By tail I mean nose of the board in split mode.)
Gotta give Atomic credit for some heavy R&D. I bet it skins well. Tough game to get into, esp. with a new design. And we are a real tough crowd. ๐
I’m trying to bite my tongue here. ๐
OK. Yeah, i think this design is wack. I don’t get it. Use a crampon for a screwdriver. ๐ Parts that can get lost. Ice build up issues (most likely) under the baseplate.
Then, we have Dawson and TetonAt supplying the information and pictures. Not dissin’ those guys at all, but come on Atomic, you’re not going to win over any splitters with the marketing strategy. The video is hella funny, too. No way is that going to work outdoors.
I honestly think 80% of us could care less. My Prior with Ignition’s work pretty f’in good for me, but I could have used a swallowtail this weekend.
Then, we have Dawson and TetonAt supplying the information and pictures. Not dissin’ those guys at all, but come on Atomic, you’re not going to win over any splitters with the marketing strategy. The video is hella funny, too. No way is that going to work outdoors.
I honestly think 80% of us could care less. My Prior with Ignition’s work pretty f’in good for me, but I could have used a swallowtail this weekend.
the snow was so damn deep…oh yeah…I think it got dropped on lou and the teton site because they attended the OR trade show. nothing more nothing less. I don’t think they chose to release it w/ them. I make lots of mistakes though so take everything i say w/ a grain of salt. I love onions.
I like to see the same video, with a dude wearing gloves…
Yeah, I agree. Most of the time in the winter when I’m changing over it’s too damn cold to do w/o gloves. Also, I don’t want to have to go through all that bs when what I have to do now is so simple with the Voile interface. Plus, if you’re touring w/others who ski, it’ll just take you that much longer for conversions, not to mention the possibility of losing gear or cutting yourself with the crampons. I do give them props for moving into the market though, but just think the design could be improved….
I don’t like editing posts, so I won’t, but I kinda came off like a jerk. I guess it is all the unknowns that has me/us skeptical. No more arm chair quarterbacking.
Good luck to Atomic.
mtnrider-
I don’t think they chose to release it w/ them
I know. It would have been cool if this site or even BC mag could have got a press release out or at least some information on it.
Glad to see Atomic supporting their splitboard with a little marketing. The strong riders and great snow would make just about any board look good and the vid certainly shows the Atomic split well. (Note to self: Schedule Euro hut trip.) The backflip wasn’t that big but dude stomped it, clearly they work going down.
Changeovers are more complicated than on a Voile. Eventually a few owners will share their real world experience (hopefully here) and that will help to know just how easy/difficult transitions are.
As others noted the binding sits on the board which is cool. The big tips while skinning are also a nice feature.
I did like how they lost the slider pin. A two pin system more like a Dynafit binding holds promise for being faster and easier release and attachment. Burton’s take on this obviously was faulty, but I think the design could be made to work for splitters.
I do think though that saying that Voile is perfect with these new Ignitions doesn’t accomplish anything, it is indeed an old system, and could use a version 2.0 that adds a lot
such as
-standard tail clips for the skins -active interface design with very solid board connection
could it not achieve this maybe by having one female ski and one male ski?
with the same exact shapes and interface as now except with different inner sidewalls of the skis… with just a V-notch running down the inner sidewalls… one ski could have a convex V-notch and the other a concave V-notch, obviously a little ice would build up in the concave V-notch, so give the ice scraping tool the same V-shape so you can run it down both sidewalls quick before assembling, so you just slide the convex side of the tool into the concave ski and run it down the sidewalls, flip the tool around to its concave side and run it down the convex ski’s sidewall and you’re set
if the V-notches are pretty deep and strong, you almost wouldn’t even need chinese hooks, although with the torsion of the board… maybe you’d still need them. would NOT want the board to flex torsionally so much that the skis skip out of the V-notches. but no doubt they would unify the flex