the lightest setup everrrrrrrrrrrrr (hardboot)

yeah but…………..

just kidding, congrats on your set up

ps. you should edit the title to read “the lightest hardboot setup everrrrrrrrrrrrr” 🙂

nice work vapor!! :thumpsup:
butttt……
phuk the ‘hard boot content’!!!!
BCR, ya gots some liter softy setup??? throw it down buddy!!

oh yeh, taxes… 😳

@karkis wrote:

BCR, ya gots some liter softy setup??? throw it down buddy!!

oh yeh, taxes… 😳

I never claimed to have a lighter softboot set up. If I were obsessed with having the lightest set-up possible I would learn to ski I guess. 😉

Luckily for me it hasn’t come down to that.

I’m not trying to shoot down product evolution either, there should be more HB options for splitters in the market that’s for sure. I’m just saying that for me personally this particular option doesn’t come without sacrifice and is sorta moot for the riding I do. I ride in pretty small mountains and terrain for the most part. If I rode in more gnar terrain maybe my thoughts would be different.

For me, while I’m definitely weight conscience, I’m not willing to change or sacrifice the feel of a softboot setup that I’ve become accustomed to after a couple decades of snowboarding. I have no idea what the actual weight is of my set-up (again not obsessed) but I do know that it’s the lightest it’s ever been, which puts a smile on my face. Soon it will get even lighter with some 2012/13 Spark Blazes. Beyond that I can’t see it getting too much lighter (unless the Edison system provides it) which I’m fine with. Right now having a better fitness level is more valuable to me than small weight savings.

I know yourself, Joey, and lots of other folks are having great success with HB setups and I’m stoked on that. I know with proper tweaking and mods the flex can be pretty similar to what I’m used to. For my use though the biggest hang-up I have with it all is the lack of a highback. I just dont want that support built into the boot…I want it independent of the boot. I want my boot to flex in all directions (except backwards) within the binding…and then bam….the highback is there when and where I want it. I came up with a saying a number of years back that I still believe in, “it all comes down to the descent”. To me this means that while I want my cake and eat it too by having the lightest gear possible, the feel that I desire on the descent trumps all. This is for bindings, boots, and the board.

Sorry for the thread drift, please carry on! :thumbsup:

and thanks for the reminder about taxes………………argh.

BCR, I was just kidding around. I’m really not that focused on weight, but for the spring time, it does start to add up for those longer days. It’s also an easy metric to compare one setup to another, but you are right that in the end, what really matters is that the feel is right. I think hard boot setups have more to go to get that right, but it’s fun to push the boundaries and it seems pretty close to me so far.

A lot of creative people out there and it’s fun to see what they are coming up with. Not trying to start a gear war, Ok, well kinda. In the end, I’m just hoping for a really nice simple, lightweight, reliable system that feels like soft boots (ie, loads of fun!). If this means I buy it from someone, great or if it means I get to play around and design one up, that’s cool too. I can say from playing around so far, it would be a lot cheaper if I could just buy it off the shelf. I think sometimes that we forget just how much blood, sweat, money and tears go into each of the great systems out there. Lots of respect for Will, the brothers and the others out there.

Great work Vapor! Really cool setup and keep up the innovation as it will push this area of the sport to new places.

put those on a triad baseplate and watch the weight drop off. Did you make those bails yourself?

Vapor I love your bindings :clap: I might have to scavenge the bails off my Bomber Sidewinders (or get a set from Finn) and try this setup!

So could one reverse (or create) a plate ( U – Shape) and have attached this binding the Spark R & D’s Edison interface?

@vapor wrote:

Thanks Barrows

Voile uses 3/16 stainless rod so threaded it 10-32. M5 and 10-32 are so close in dia and thread pitch that strength is similar.
I agree with you on canting pucks as canting above the plate is a pain.

Threading into the sides of the plate opens up the problem of the bails getting too wide ,specificly the rear bails
borderski commented to me awhile back that if your making custom pucks anyway just narrow them to to have normal bail width and would solve that problem.

Yup, but I think some creative bending could overcome this problem. I am not so sure that making the pucks narrower is a good idea. The extra width would only need to be about 1.5 mm per side more than what you show here (to have adequate thread depth for strength) so only a ~3 mm wider bail spacing is necessary. Some offset could also be engineered into the shoulder yokes.

I wanted to create something simple using mostly off the shelf parts to make this.
The eyelets were simple to make and any local machine shop could whip them off.

Of course, and I totally agree. I am thinking of this approach, and how it could be adapted to a commercial product, by someone with a CNC mill. DIYing something as I described would be very expensive, as the CNC set up and machining time would be cost prohibitive. This is why Spark R & D went all in and purchased there own CNC mill.

Powder rider
Since the edison is still in prototype stage its not a given but from what I see it could be done.
Hopefully Will has some free time on his hands to cad one up.
Someone else making a plate from scratch including the locking mech would be a big project and probably stepping on Wills toes to boot if you tried to sell it

Will has expressed interest in possibly making a plate binding based on the Edison interface. As I have mentioned before, anyone who is interested in this, please encourage him to do so; I am sure input from potential customers makes a difference for him.

@christoph benells wrote:

why not stand on the pucks and have a U with bails on it that slides around the pucks and a pin at the front just like the slider plate?

that would be the lightest setup everrrrr you may just float away

and it seems like you could strip down a spark to the base plate and attach bails to that somehow. spark could even sell a conversion kit if they were hip enough.

Because there would be nothing holding the board halves together and making the interface stiff, bails pull outwards on the board halves. You need the plate across the board to make the board interface work.

@Powder_Rider wrote:

If one is using a standard AT boot (an AT boot that does not flex under the ball of the foot); are there any benefits of using Dynafit toe binders vs a non-canted Vapor/Volie Slider track binding (757 grams)? My wife uses the Scarpa Magic AT boot.

Yes, absolutely. Using Dynafit toe pieces gets the weight off of one’s foot and into the pack. Less weight on the feet means more efficient touring. Consider that with Dynafit toe pieces, when one makes their stride, only the weight of the boot itself is actually lifted. Additionally, kick turns with the lighter set up are significantly less strenuous.
Honestly, I do not think that having flex under the toe of the boot (as with the TLT5 and Scarpa F1) is important at all, it is the reduced weight which is the advantage of the Dynafit toe piece. Most rando racing boots are moving away from the toe flex design to save more weight (like the Dynafit DYna race boot, and Scarpa Alien).