swt

Réal: Vous avez un email. Merci, Scott

Not a bad idea, I'll think about that a bit. I have already set up a few new rules to combat the erroneous spam filtering. I also do visual spot checks in the spam folder for legitimate messages, but that's ponderous with the hundreds to thousands of real spam messages that come in across the CATEK accounts every day. As a rule, if you fire me an email and don't hear back within a day or two, send me a follow-up. BTW: scott@catek.com is the very best address to use.

FYI: OS2 short and long plate, step-in or standard bail versions are in stock and shipping within 1-3 days. Our laser engraver is currently down, so custom color binding order lead time is longer. Regards, Scott @ CATEK

Queequeg: That's an excellent reminder regarding setting appropriate expectations. Cheers. We are actively working on closing up the gaps in service and deliveries. Of course, laser engravers do go down and legit emails do land in the spam folder. In short, sh!t happens, but we're still here, still making bindings, and even working on new goodies. Moving forward we will try to keep those expectations well within the confines of reality so there are no ugly surprises. Scott @ CATEK

All: I am in the uncomfortable position of having to apologize for letting too many balls drop last season. Life and circumstances forced my focus elsewhere and customer service at CATEK suffered. Moving forward this season, I pledge to do my part in rebuilding the support system for CATEK customers. I can be reached at scott@catek.com with any issues or questions. I will do my best to get answers back to you in a timely fashion. Regards and best wishes for a snowy season, Scott @ CATEK

Hey Gunnar: Interesting issue. I can see that you might have some off axis loading issues with the combi disc when you use the D3. The off axis loading potential is the reason that we moved to discrete 4x4 and 3-hole discs (much to the chagrin of some riders). In fact, I still run combi discs with D3s on one of my 4x4 boards with no problems, but you do need to be exact when installing and check the screws frequently to ensure that everything stays tight and aligned. I've sent you an email directly in regard to the question and offering a solution that I hope will work well for you. Let me know. Cheers, Scott @ CATEK ps. I apologize to anyone (including you and Stradas) if I missed your emails. If I didn't get back to you quickly, please send me another email to scott@catek.com and I'll respond ASAP. :)

Gents: I once again apologize for slipping in regard to service. I have been fighting with connectivity issues. As of this Thursday, I finally have a landline and broadband. I also have several hundred emails to answer for CATEK. Perhaps uninterestingly I also have a full time day job and a full time Masters program with time demands. Does that absolve me from letting the ball drop? Nope. Does it mean that I'm behind the 8-ball? Yep. What I can explicitly say is that I am trying to dig out quickly and get parts to riders who need them, facilitate shipping of bindings to people who have ordered them, and generally get customer service back on an even keel. Sorry to have ruffled feathers and caused concerns in the community. Scott

Willow & Tufty: Thanks for the offers -- be careful, I might have to take you up on them. :):) Scotland and the Alps are both on my "will ride" list for this season. I'll be grabbing gear when I head home for Christmas break. When I get back in January, I'm going to start planning trips. Cheers, Scott

hdhu1152, et al.... I got the full update on production from Jeff -- he's transforming into the mad postal super shipper this week since we're finishing up laser engraving and assembly of parts. He is planning on some long days to pack and ship bindings to everyone who has ordered silver color OS2s. Custom color parts are being anodized and we'll assemble and ship the bling-bling bindings next.

Hey all -- Sorry for too much quiet from the CATEK lines. I moved to the UK for graduate studies in September. Long, frustrating story made short -- between the actual move and the impossibly slow British telecommunications system I have just managed to get back online after weeks of black-out. Now armed with mobile broadband and a wireless connection (thanks to a friendly neighbor -- still no landline) I'm back online and digging through my email inbox. I'll get answers out as quickly as possible to everyone. Best regards, Scott

Hi All: I'm sorry for the erratic replies -- I'm in the middle of moving from the US to the UK for graduate studies, and between house sales, logistical hurdles and blundering telecommunications providers, I've been without reliable internet access for a while now. That will all be solved shortly. In the meantime, Iron-Butt, we'll get those new plates out to you immediately so that you're ready to rock when the snow flies. To everyone else, if you have any CATEK questions, just fire me an email via the Help Center the www.catek.com web store and I'll get back to you as quickly as possible. Give me an extra day or two to reply for the next week, then I'll be back to speedy reply times as normal. Cheers, Scott

Hi Guys, CATEK does stock serial boards specifically designed for us by Kessler, but we also bring in full customs built for individual riders. We're happy to get that full custom board for you. Pricing is the same, but special orders will take more time. For more information you can drop me a line via the CATEK website. Cheers, Scott @ CATEK

Daniel: Ursle has it right -- that's a heel bail. The profile on a Step-In toe bail is very different, and the overall height is several mm shorter. You have a heel bail installed. Please feel free to contact me (scott_at_catek_dot_com) and we'll get you set up with proper bails. Cheers, SWT

Hey guys, sorry about the slow replies recently, I had a death in the family followed by an attempted trip to Colorado (trying to get some snow time) that was interrupted by another family emergency that had me flying back home. Long and short...life impacted my standard response time, but I'll be getting answers back to all emails ASAP. Sorry for the delay. Scott

Naj: The Spacers will work with any bindings and on any 4x4 or 3-hole board. (Obviously, you need to get the right spacer width for your board.) Scott @ CATEK

In regard to materials, the spacers that we are selling are machined from 5mm thick Makrolon brand polycarbonate (www.makrolon.com). We briefly tested a number of plexiglass/acrylic materials, but none were suitable as a spacer -- they were prone to cracking and stress failures. The Makrolon spacers are far superior in strength, and resiliency. We didn't have a single failure in a full season of testing. Scott @ CATEK

Bordy: You want cool new school alpine gear? We're working on it. You know what, we have been for some time. You want to know why I spirited away that broken board at ECES? It just happened to have a prototype riser system on it. Sophisticated plate systems (Hangl, Vist, SFlex, etc) are currently all over the place in terms of the methods utilized and intended effects. CATEK has been working diligently to get its arms around the whole thing; incidentally development on one of our candidate systems began 11 years ago. To date we have invested well over $20k in this type of advanced R&D – and $10k of that was real cold hard cash we paid for prototypes. Simply put, development takes time, money and effort, and if consumers are frustrated with the rate of advancement, it's nothing compared to those of us who work to build the products. Jeff and I have a ton of product ideas that we're developing. If I had a magic wand and could make them all appear for the 07/08 season, believe me I would. But it doesn't work that way, and we're forced to address as many issues as we can in what we deem to be the most advantageous fashion. The Spacers that we are selling are a very legitimate answer to an obvious need. They are a low brain cycle product that we could develop quickly and get out fast to meet the market where it is at. There may be people who aren't overly talented with a hack saw and a drill press. Some people might be alienated by Home Depot. There may be people riding metal boards who don't need the weight & complexity of a full bore riser system like the Hangl (see the image below showing the women's podium from the recent World Cup in Soelden (photo from the SG website) -- the riders are on spacers, not Hangl risers). Basically, there's a need for a simple, ready-made spacer product. We addressed that need. That doesn't mean that we're stopping there. The Race Spacer is an excellent simple product that fills a need and fills it well. We certainly know that there are other products to be addressed, and we are working on them. If you are disappointed with the speed of progress...please feel free to offer some constructive feedback about what you think the product needs are, and what you conceive of as the ideal solutions. We are always happy to listen to our dealers and customers. Regards, Scott @ CATEK

Wow, Bordy. I'm fairly certain that I've never been so wildly misrepresented in such a short and senseless space. There is so little accurate substance in your comments that it is probably more responsible and effective to simply state my position rather than attempt to follow and rebut your thread. - I'm as commited to the sport of snowboarding as anyone out there. - I too have, in fact, gone out of my way to help hundreds if not thousands of riders get the most out of their equipment and experience. I would never intentionally misinform a rider, deaf or otherwise. - CATEK is quite commited to developing technology that is optimized for the titanal boards that are dominant in racing, and increasingly popular for freecarvers. That was the genesis of our interaction with Kessler. We wanted to ensure that we had access to the equipment that racers were actually riding so that we could build a binding product tailored for the prevailing demands of professional and casual athletes. - CATEK OS2 binding unit sales reached a new peak last season, so evidently some riders are quite pleased with the existing product even if you are not. - I personally, and CATEK as a company, are stepping up to the plate as you term it. Interestingly though, developing new products does take time and substantial expense. Jeff and I are both paying the dollars and spending the time. Regards, Scott @ CATEK

Hey Thumper: I wanted to let you know that CATEK will shortly be launching a thin spacer product designed for use on titanal boards. I tested the spacer last season with fantastic results. It's a thin spacer done right -- custom shaped and machined out of high grade polycarbonate. This material is amazingly tough and distributes point loads exceptionally well without adding weight or complexity. It also fits on any 4x4; no odd insert requirements. I'm to the point that I ride the spacer on all of my boards, and the added protection is a no-brainer when it comes to protecting your serious investment in a Kessler or similar titanal board. Cheers, scott@catek.com

Lib ran 1/4-20 back then. Your standard M6 hardware definitely won't work, but (gently) try a US 1/4-20 and I bet you'll be set.

Bob: Send us the address (via email) where you're hanging out in the great West, and we'll get a care package headed your way ASAP. Scott

We have had a number of riders experience problems with the heel cup mounting blocks and loosening hardware with their FR2s. We sent hardware upgrade kits -- including a complement of longer, stronger and custom threadlock patched hardware, plus high torque wrenches -- out to all FR2 riders mid-season, and our tests of the upgrade hardware have shown that the related issues are resolved. If there are any FR2 riders who didn't receive the upgrade, please contact CATEK customer service via the "Help Zone" link at www.catek.com. As for the heel cup mounting blocks, we simply underestimated how aggressively some of you guys are riding these days. We know that breaking equipment is no fun. Worrying about breaking equipment is no fun either. So...we have already designed a new mounting block. We've done extensive Finite Element Analysis and other software testing, and we have been conducting on-snow testing of the new design on both coasts. The new part is substantially redesigned and an order of magnitude stronger. We redesigned the part with the singular goal of increasing strength. We've had tons of great feedback on the ride and performance of the FR2s, and we're determined to iron out the mounting block design so that even the biggest, baddest, most aggressive carvers and cliff-droppers out there can focus on the ride. The fact of the matter is that in an attempt to squeak out every bit of FR2 performance we pushed the design envelope a bit too much while underestimating how aggressively some of you ride. So the newly designed part is more conservative and adds material back in where needed to optimize strength. To date, on-snow testing has gone well; once this testing, along with parts inspections, is concluded we will be building a run of replacement FR2 heel cup mounting blocks. These will be shipped to every FR2 rider so that your FR2s can start next season with a burly new set of blocks. If you have any questions/concerns, again, feel free to contact us via the CATEK website. Cheers, Scott @ CATEK

A primary design goal of the D3 system was to provide increased protection for boards in two categories: 1. lightweight/less robustly constructed freeride boards 2. titanal topsheet raceboards We envisioned that the first group of boards would likely see use with the FR2 soft binding. Few mass market boards are constructed with anything remotely resembling the care and quality that we see in boards from Donek, Prior, Coiler, Virus, and the handful of other specialty producers that we know and love. The direct power transmission of the FR2 is unlike any other soft binding available, so we felt it attendent upon us to design a system to help protect these mass market freeride boards with which the FR2 might likely be used. Titanal topsheet race boards have historically been more prone to point-load stress failures than conventional construction alpine boards, and as such, we also wanted to provide a system that provided extra protection for these boards when used with the OS2 binding. The D3 elastomers are made of high performance silicone, with stepped thickness higher durometer pad under the mounting disc to provide firm support (and avoid "binding suck") while still providing isolation from "metal on metal" contact. The pads placed under the perimeter Power Plate contact points are molded from a much softer durometer silicone and also feature a profile engineered to reduce point loading. In addition to meeting the primary design goal of protecting boards, the D3s do provide a quieter ride -- particularly on harsh conditions -- as well as a number of other benefits that you can read about on the CATEK website. The statement regarding elastomer thickness is simply that, a statement of fact. It's not a slam at the TD2, or for that matter the F2, Phiokka, Snowpro, or Burton/Ibex plates. Each of these bindings has respective "selling points" -- in this case, the D3's design, which does provide more elastomer thickness under the entire binding footprint, is a selling point. Trying to turn that statement into a divisive "us vs. them" Bomber-bash is a bit absurd.

I can't speak for clearance on the TD2s, but you'll have lots of room on the Catek OS1s. The Intec heel pins sit well inboard of the OS1 heel bail.

Interestingly, we have received a ton of requests from riders and dealers alike that we segregate the discs. A lot of riders didn't like the elongated "shared" holes necessitated by combining the two patterns on a single disc. By offering separate 3-hole and 4x4 discs, we are able to optimize the discs for each insert pattern.