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Hi, I have used Catek FR2's (with broken part, see below). I'd like to sell them to those that need parts. I have base plates for both regular and Burton hole patterns! I also have a baggie of some extra bolts and spacers that I will include with this. I recently broke one of the aluminum parts that binds the heel cup to the base plate. Springs in the Nideker buckles are also need repair/replace. Located in Oregon. PM me if interested.

Hi Scott, I have recently submitted emails via the Catek tech support helpzone about a problem I am having with my FR2s. I have not heard a response yet. When can I expect to have my issue addressed? I would rather not have to vent my frusturations publicly on this forum. Thanks, Chris

Yah, sounds like I best put locktite on everything. So far Ive done the the toe strap bolts, but I'll probably set more. Do you also have the issue with the toe strap flopping forward when you are in 'skate' mode? I'm wondering if maybe I should put another rubber washer in the assembly to add some friction.

The latest Flows have an upper section that can rotate, but the hinge does not rotate, which doesn't seem as good.

Holy crap, that is a kiler deal!

Thanks. I think the minimum stance width would work fine since it is symetricaly centered on the baord still, not like what I did... I'm hoping the 40degree angle will help prevent my washouts -- So far I'm not sure how to detect boot-out, but it's my best guess as the problem.

I bought (and returned) the Folow NXT-FR's, they're junk. Not in the same class. I just wrote a review of the Cateks (in the catek FR2 thread), if you are interested.

Sunday I tried my new Catek FR2s (non-limited edition). Here is my review! Overview: First, it's a bit unfair of a test as I mounted them to a new board that I have never ridden before (F2 Respect 176) -- so I won't really comment on their feel/damping/handling. These are areas that I really have no concern with the bindings themselves --I had no issues and they perform well in these respects. They were comfortable and didn't cause any pain, and retained my feet to the board. The main reason I bought these is for durability, serviceability, and adjustability. My comments are mostly in these areas. Construction & Assembly: First, these are very well thought out, engineered components. The machining is meticulous. The parts provided (and there are several) were exactly the right number, and fit together well. The hardware is pretty high quality. Spare parts for gaskets, spacers and smaller screws would have been appreciated in a product in this price range, but were not included. I almost lost several small screws! The straps attach with a pretty small screw, and ALL FOUR screws (factory installed/tightened) loosened , two FELL OUT onto the snow after a few runs! I can't believe these weren't secured better. Needless to say, I did the Locktight thing today. Also, as someone else mentioned, these Allen heads are too small and strip out easily. I tightened them with the provided tool, and one is now stripped. Luckily larger sizes are used on other hardware. Assembly instructions were worded in English and with engineering precision. I appreciated these a lot, and I would have been clueless for finding where all the parts went otherwise. The photos helped but could have been larger. As I mentioned before, they come with 4x4-only compatible discs, but 3Ds can be obtained from Catek as a special order (at additional cost, unfortunately). There is no universal 4x4 & 3D compatible disc available. The Black anno of the base plate looks cool, but I'd actually just prefer silver/natural aluminum. It will only get scratched up anyway and look worse then. I did catch the liftie checking them out a bit... Damping/Elastomer Shockmounts: The rubber elastomer shock mounts beneath the mounting disc and on the power-bar seem like a good concept, and also protect the board from top-sheet damage. As I mentioned, I used the bindings on a board foreign to me, so I can't comment on how these affect the ride. I did find that the board insert screws seemed to loosen quickly, and I wonder if these elastomers and also the gaskets/grommets used on certain parts might allow enough flex in the system for screws the back out. This is something I will have to watch -- could just be a break-in thing, but might be a drawback to the design. Adjustability: The adjustability of cant and lift is great, clearly this is the greatest benefit of the binding. VERY COOL, smart, system that is infinitely adjustable, robust, and easy enough to configure. I loved canting my feet inward to reduce knee stress with my stance. I also lifted my rear heel and front toe. You might not think these things are important, but the feel of the ride is substantially improved, I think it makes a huge difference! I'm guessing Catek holds some intellectual property on this aspect, and is similar to what they use on their hardboot OS2 bindings (perhaps even compatible with). The height of the baseplate is also adjustable using the same lift/cant set screws. I wasn't sure how I would feel about being lifted off the board so I used the smallest master-screw to keep it to a minimum. After riding I didn't really notice it, and I think its a good idea to reduce boot-out. Of course with lift/cant settings, you have to have some hight in there... Oh, and I was worried about snow getting underneath the baseplate, which it can -- but this seems like an unreasoned concern and didn't bother me. Why would I care, weight maybe? Maybe it will bother me more in powder? The angle adjustment is neat, with good silkscreened graduations on the disc for measurement. The power-bar thingy has two screws used to set the angle, and is independent of other settings like cant and lift, which is good. The metal of this part seems soft and does deform when the screw heads are tightened to secure the setting. This may be by design to help retain the screw and prevent slip. The only bummer about the angle setting is you have to remove the main binding platform to make changes -- but since its only one big bolt its not a big deal. The forward/aft setting of the heel loop is a good feature, I'm impressed that this is an option - you set the boot-to-edge distance how you want. With this I configured my boot centered over the board with minimum (but equal) boot overhang on toe/heel side. Weight: The weight, yeah, it's heavier than plastic bindings, but not excessive in my estimation. They've shaved weight where necessary, but not too much to compromise the mechanical integrity. I haven't weighed them, sorry. Weight-weenies, here's some advice - just take a crap before your board session if you are that concerned. (for those into mountain biking I call it "the XTR crap") Highback: The plastic highback (non-limited edition), is too flexible. Also, the highback angle adjustment is a bit chintzy relative to the rest of the package. There are only 4-stops/settings. The injection molding process made the plastic imperfect cosmetically with some wavy lines in it (but I don't mind it much, ). Stiffer highback needed, more robust adjustment. Highback rotation involves flexing the metal heel loop. You are forcing it to flex. The instructions suggest a single hole offset (plus a sub hole adjustment) is permissible. It would be better if the rotation was better integrated into the design without having to flex (and possibly stress?) the heel loop. I think the stifness of the heel loop prevents rotation from being enough, and the profile of the flexation might be the issue (how and where it bends) -- it just doesn’t bend the way plastic heel loops do. --- I want more highback rotation than what the FR2 seems capable of offering. Straps / Ratchets: The Nidecker straps were comfortable and caused no pressure points. I like how easily the top strap's position of the pad section (and length) can be adjusted with a screw/cam mechanism. While the Nidecker ratchets are metal, but they seem to give out and stop tightening after a certain amount of pressure is achieved. This is a real problem! Some of the ratchets did this more than the others. I am disappointed with them and I don't know if this is how they are supposed to work or if I have 1 or 2 that are defective. I get the feeling the spring isn't strong enough to grab the plastic ribbed strap under high tension. I wonder if the FR2-limited version uses better ratchets? -- Regardless, I wanted my straps righter and I couldn't do it with these ratchets! On the plus side, when they are engaged they hold well and don't slip (it's just adding additional tension that is the issue). They release easily, and they seem durable since they are all metal. The toe strap retention hardware to the base plate is kind of interesting. Catek gives you spacers so you can set the width for the toe end of your boot. Neat. They seem a little weak, and I worry they will eventually bend the screw that goes through the spacers (well, maybe not with the Nidecker ratchets!). But, they haven’t bent yet and I'm no mechanical engineer so I'm speculating here. One criticism I have of the toe strap attachment hardware is that they allow the toe straps to flop around when your foot is not in the binding. I'm used to straps that have some sticktion in the hinges. It looks like a rubber gasket part is used in this assembly that might have been intended to cause some sticktion, but it fails to do that -- perhaps a flaw in the execution of the design with too narrow of a gasket? Anyway, getting on and off the lift (skate mode) the rear toe strap ends flop forward onto the snow. You might think is not a big deal, but when skating your front foot ends up kicking or stepping on the rear toe strap at times. I wouldn’t worry about it so much, but since I lost screws earlier in the day I was extra concerned that kicking the straps around might just loosen more screws and ruin my day. I ended up flopping the rear toe strap ends back onto the board after I removed my foot just to keep them out of the way -- fine, but an extra maneuver my back muscles don't appreciate. Summary: I'll give the RF2's an 8 out of 10. Nice, but not perfect. The numerous adjustment options, aluminum construction and attention to detail are benefits of the product. I'd give it a higher score if it weren’t for some of the issues I mentioned; in combination with the high-end price of the product. Also, I've only ridden these things for one day - I gotta give them more time, see how they wear, and if I can "feel" the difference. I'll keep you posed as I learn more about them!

I'm lazy and just havent gotten into the habit of waxing my boards. I should....

This board is marked as made in Austria.

I got to ride my brand new 176 Respect today, with great hero snow (but no pow) at Hoodoo near Sisters, Oregon. Here is my review! I did no tuning or waxing. I could see the edges were detuned a few cm past the tips. My previous ride was a Burton Johan 163 --- from what I can find it has a sidecut of ~7.9m. In contrast this F2 176cm board has an 8,5-9,5m (progressive) sidecut. Wow, this difference of ~1M feels huge. I need a lot more space and speed to carve with it. I'm using Catek FR2's (also first time on these -- I'll give my review of the bindings in a seperate thread). Soft boots (a size 10) Burton Driver X (with factory plastic add-on bits for extra stiffness) One thing is that the stance is a few cm wider than my Johan, but otherwise I setup the binding angles the same ... Front: 36 , Rear: 12. I found the stance a bit wide and uncomfrtable on my knees, so, while I initially had configured the F/R bias completely centered, I decided to move the front binding back one set of inserts (the last set of 4x4), and centered in the disc. BAD IDEA! [read on] This provided an asymetric setup where my stance was a bit rearward on the front. I thought it would be nice for powder.. but... Carving felt like I was on rails -- (well duh, I was), but I felt like I was leaned over really quickly, and my hand was on the snow and closer than before with the same effort. I was on ~40 degree wide groomed slope, pretty fast too. The edge held really well.... until the angle of slope decreased a bit. I was pulling some serious Gs and closing my angle with the slope, the tail started to break away -- at the same time pelting me in the face with snow/ice as the stiff board cambered off the snow. After a few runs this became a pattern, tail breaking away and me spiinning out. I couldn't trust the edge to hold me at low angles. So, at lunch I re-adjusted the front binding forward to the center inserts to have a more forward (neutral with the board inserts) bias. Also, having the Catek FR2's I decided to use the cant/lift features to my advantage to relieve the knee pressure of the now wider stance. I canted inward on front and back, and lifted the rear heel and front toe. Bingo! Huge difference. The tail was much more stable, and the "feel" of the carve was right-on. Transition between edges was very quick (felt quicker than my Johan actually), and there were times I felt airborne (perhaps caught by surprise) with the tail snapping me up on transitions. Much more stable at speed than my Johan, and on edge really felt damp compared to it. On my Johan I learned that certian speeds were just too much and would eventually cause chatter/washout. I was easily supassing this speed on the F2, and it scared the hell out of me because I was used to the Johan's limits. The F2 was stabe at any speeds I took it to, but I'm just learning what it can really do. I still think I was getting some boot-out causing some washouts.. so I am uping my angles to 40/20 for next time. By the way, the StrucTurn base felt nice and fast on the flats.. and it was about 26-32 degrees throughout the day (again, no wax). Overall, a pretty sweet ride.. seems like a good carver, but I'm still getting used to the larger sidecut radius... might become an issue on narrower trails. I can't wait to try it in pow! At $220 shipped (plus a pair of free sunglasses at $70 value! wohoo!), that means I got this ride for $150! hah! (Ok, the sunglasses might not actually be worth that much.) I've been thinking of getting a Tanker, but with a 10+M sidecut, holy crap, where would I carve that thing?! This might be all I can handle for the local resorts.

Despite the warnings, the-house delivered! I got my board today and mounted some Catek FR2's. I'm looking forward to giving it a try. As far as the construction, I would say this is a combination cap & sidewall construction board. It's cap near the ends, and sandwitch in the middle. The F2's sidewall profiles are a lot more vertical than the highly sculpted sidewalls of my Johan. Is this reson for concern? The base isn't as smooth as my Burton, it's got some odd divot pattern ingrained. I doubt I will feel it on the slope, but maybe it will slow me down -- what's the deal with the tiny divots? Anyone here know what the sidecut of a Burton Johan 164 is? I am curious how the F2 Respect will compare.

Uh Oh, I ordered from the website -- what's that mean? I haven't heard about the problems -- fill me in.

Ok, I'll bite. I ordered it -- $219 shipped. I did some research and it turns out F2 has their boards made at Elan in Austria -- they make boards for several companies... claim 20% of all snowboards.

Is the board a cap construction or does it have sidewalls?

ah yea, that makes sense. thanks!

Do they list 9.5 / 8.5 sidecut because its for the left/right side of the board? An asymetrical sidecut? would that mean the board should not be used goofy?

Any other opinions on this board?

I got my FR2's! I have studied their construction some, but have not yet mounted them. So far I am mostly very impressed -- the person(s) who designed these seem to have put a lot of effort into them. Well thought out! The materials are high quality, except for maybe the plastic highback (non-limited edition) looks a little generic, and there are lines in the pastic from the molding process, but I think its just cosmetic. I'm a bit concerned about the high-back rotation as the heel-loop is metal and does not seem to flex very much. It appears (from the instructions) that it is expected to flex to get the rotation -- do I read that right? The Discs do not support Burton 3D hole pattern, that's a problem for me. I need to see what Catek can do about swapping them out for something that works with3-hole.

Mine should be here this week,I'm psyched. I hope they are worth the dough! Do you know if the black anno will scratch easily?

Some rough calculations based on radius of turn and velocity yield accelerations around a few G's... maybe 3 or so. I'd think that'd be enough to pull blood away from your head. Fighter pilots wear a G-suit to keep the blood up in their body when pulling G's, so I don't see why it would be any different on a snowboard.

I had a great time carving last weekend. I linked so many high speed turns I found that whenever I stopped to rest and catch my breath I felt very light headed. At first I thought it was the addrenalin rush... I know it sounds funny, but I really think the g-forces are draining the blood from my head when I do so many turns like that. I was riding up hill at times, it felt so good. We need someone to make a g-suit for us carvers!!!

I just got the 2007 Flow NXT-FR bindings in the mail and had a chance to examine their construction and function. I haven't mounted or boarded in them though. I'm not impressed and will return them.: * I put my Burton driver X boot in and adjusted the highback angle inward as far as it would go without moving the cable, and ratcheted down the big-strap as hard as I could. Even with just my hand in the boot and binding not mounted I could lift the heel up to the point I felt it was unsafe. This is a major problem. * The construction is overly complex and prone to lost parts. There are several small screws on the highback and on the sides, and a plastic cover to go over the mounting discs (to make the insertion/removal of boot smoother presumably). * The cable and metal highback seems sturdy, finish seems good. * The new ratchets on the straps seem breakable, and do not operate very moothly. I believe they are rivited onto the strap so replacement of the entire strap would be needed to replace them (although its good you wont loose one). * The metal mounting discs are sturdy, but really heavy, and have an odd matte finish on them that can scratch easily (although it should not matter since they are covered by a special plastic thingy. * I was hoping that in deep powder I could exit and enter the binding without the highback entry. It is possible, yes. The ratchets are not so easy to operate and I think it will be somewhat of a pain in the ass to do often. The first issue is the deal-killer for me -- I need my heel solidly held down. I think the flow design is flawed in that you have to slide your foot in the horizontal axis which does not allow you to use your body weight to seat the boot against the soft/fabric strap with significant force. Theoretically you shouldnt have to mess with the strap ratchets every time you enter/exit, the force of the highback closure does not seem to be enough to highly secure the boot heel (unless perhaps if it is set at an extreme angle).