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How do you choose softie bindings?


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At the local shop, it seems like every binding was meant for freestyle or were advertised as do-all freestyle/all-mountain. I want to make sure the bindings I choose are stiff enough for some high speed riding and soft boot carving. Recommendations? How do you tell by looking at a soft boot binding that it's meant for soft landings in a park vs. hard carving on the groom or pow?

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At the local shop, it seems like every binding was meant for freestyle or were advertised as do-all freestyle/all-mountain. I want to make sure the bindings I choose are stiff enough for some high speed riding and soft boot carving. Recommendations? How do you tell by looking at a soft boot binding that it's meant for soft landings in a park vs. hard carving on the groom or pow?

these days most of the high end stuff I have tried is at worst good enough to do the job.

Gilmour likes Union Force bindings. I like Ride, nidecker 800s and a few others. thing is though most of the newer stuff does power most softboot boards just fine.

burton stuff is softer but is light and rides well. my choice if I'd have to hike a lot for pow stashes.

I am on cateks, I like them but they are almost overkill in the icey east nevermind anywhere else. awesome though if you want response.

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The Flow website has a stiffness comparison chart for all their bindings.

Got a pair of Flow NXT AT this year to go with the Swoard Dual, and I'm loving it. For the small hills around us, Flow is the way to go, don't want to spend all day putting on bindings. Carving hard this morning and yesterday at Brimacombe on the man made stuff and loving it. The forward flex is all boots/ankle. Very nice surfy feel. They seems to be solidly built.

My 2 cents.

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I just rode my first day today on the new Flow NXT FRX and I have to say that they are great. They are plenty stiff and i had no problem with a variety of conditions including soft boot carving. Took a little bit of time to setup but totally worth it, and so easy to get in and out of. Love em.

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The problem I have with Flows is that they tend to loosen up on me as the day progresses. Then there is no easy way to tighten them up. I think I like standard straps better for this reason. I like the look of Ride bindings. Aluminum frame.

yeah, it's weird though metal does not alway mean stiff. nidecker 900s are a good example of a composite binding that's stiff as hell actually more so than all the other bindings I've ridden other than cateks and the cateks in their stiff configuration use nidecker 900 components.

super stiff is not always good though, it's more about stiff where you need it.

that's one of the issues I have with cateks and 900s the ride is rigid enough that they transfer TOO much energy to you in some cases. with the 900 some of it I think was specific to my body but where the side of the binding was caused some serious ankle pain when landing airs and coming into chop fast.

that's actually why I dumped mine.

I have not been on the latest rides but I have been on migs and tomcats and they were really nice.

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