Burton EST boards

[b0ardski]

I'm not anti burton per say, I still use burton rattraps on the asym primes, and backcountry hikes.

Mrs. b0ardski loves her burton SI, 5 bindings 2 boots, all for about $250:biggthump

I'm a fan E-decks & super models, BUT, the refusal to accept industry standards truely pisses me off, like a friend that kicks you in the nuts for the fun of it:AR15firin

[bobdea]

I'm not anti burton per say, I still use burton rattraps on the asym primes, and backcountry hikes.

Mrs. b0ardski loves her burton SI, 5 bindings 2 boots, all for about $250:biggthump

I'm a fan E-decks & super models, BUT, the refusal to accept industry standards truely pisses me off, like a friend that kicks you in the nuts for the fun of it:AR15firin

in regards to this system, the dual rails were a semi standard that did not really gain ground. at least four companies used them. revelation was the first.

this system if it does what it's supposed to should bhe great

question is will burton license? Burton might be trying to make the industry like the consumer ski industry and you're stuck with a binding that the manufacturer chooses

[philw]

I guess time will tell if it's a gimmick or not. The people riding them last year were positive, but I didn't see anyone actually tweaking them on the hill, as I had not seen previously with the Forum version. So I think that the tweakability is a bit like the old "Ess VAR" ski binding system, except that made some kind of sense when the bindings were bolted to the board, but not when you're using inserts, in my opinion. Again, with those bindings I don't think anyone ever tweaked them in the real world. The theory will no doubt be "oh, you can shift them backwards for powder". Well that's only relevant if you're trying to ride a mix of piste and powder; irrelevant if you're on a powder board in the back country, I think.

The other angle, and this one comes from Ken who did I think invent "baseless" is something to do with the feel of the board. I think that's a soft-booter's thing; I don't "get it" particularly. Even with two bolts there's some rigidity from the binding, unless the binding is very flexible, hence you're still going to have some effect on the flex of the board. But I've watched many race boards on hard piste under heavy load; they do not generally describe perfect arcs, sometimes the board shows almost waves along the length. Yet they work ok... so I'm not sure how much of an effect this is. There's one way to find out... let the other guys ride them and see if

they're still with us in a couple of years.

Market-wise, I think it would be an error to think of there being any difference between snowboard and ski markets. There was a "marketing" difference, but that's synthetic. It's all business; people have to eat. Check out the latest snowboard fashions... we're almost full-circle back to the brightly coloured one-piece clown suits.

[carvin29]

Good topic, I've been thinking about this myself. Over on the burton.com board, I opined that I'd rather have a triangle of screws rather than just 2, which was followed by "you're an idiot" and "if the pros use it then it's fine". I ride a T6 and definitely would rather have 3D than EST.

[Phil]

Show me a pro that is as big as me and I'll be fine with that logic.

That being said (we are still using EST incorrectly - the board with the channel is ICS and the semi-baseless bindings are EST) I think that EST is fine. Two screws on the outside of the binding seem better to me than two screws in one disk (if you are using the disk, you are not using an EST binding).

[philw]

Yes, I realize that the marketing nomenclature is like that, but really, well I'm damned if I'm going to use two terms to describe a system which in truth requires only one. That's aquiescing to their marketing. As it is, I hope they dislike the fact that I misuse their terms.

Anyway, I went to play with the new Burton boards in Wiegele's shop yesterday along with the adapters, my 4-hole titanium plates and also my 3-hole titanium plates. Burton's marketers are really burning up the planet, making me carry all that extra crap around the workd. I digress. The ski shop manager's a hard booter so that's good, but... well, you can easily align a 4-hole or 3-hole disk with the EST finbox bolts as you'd imagine. The problem is that the t-nuts mate with special Burton bolts, which don't sensibly fit with a metal disk.

I couldn't figure out how to connect the two systems, so I took out a Lib Tech Snow Mullet; I'll review that later when I've ridden it in a wider range of conditions.

So as of now I can't ride my favourite boards because the dicks who invented 3-hole bindings went and invented something even worse. I may be able to use the black plastic parts from the adapter kit to mate my Intec Titaniums with the EST finbox; maybe I'll try that later.

Oh, and for what it's worth the people I rode with said they'd never seen anyone ride so confidently or smmothly through the trees. I just pointed to my hard bindings and explained that it's all about the equipment.

The finbox system seems needlessly complicated to me; you're never, ever going to see anyone screwing around with that any more than they screw around with the current systems. I rode with people on the old Forum boards, and they never changed stance. I changed my stance (reduced the width from the reference) on the Mullet after the first run today... it's trivial with real 4-hole bindings anyway. Assuming the marketing guys can't dump this, perhaps I should hope for a future dual-finbox system. Then I could have 4 bolts, and all I'd need would be 4 nuts to mate that with my proper bindings.

Or I could stop whining and get some crappy soft boots. Anyway, posted here in the spirit of sharing knowledge of the enemy.