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Serious weakness w H-boot & H-bindings ???


SteveInOregon

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This is a new thread that rose out from my messed up ankle thread:

QUESTION> It looks like hard boots & hard binding are transmitting all the shock & energy to the 1st member in line ( the ankle ) a relatively delicate member which seams to be for all intense purpose an encapsulated prisoner to both body weight & down force from above and board-ride-terrain shock from below, that being the case, there looks to be no room for error.

"POSSIBLE FUTURE REMEDY" ??? > You guys talk about the TD3 with one of the poly urethane type bases being a soft and flexible base cushion.

It seams to me in my limited experience ( just intuitively ) that if I were on one of those more lateral forgiving & shock absorbing binding set ups I mite have escaped my ankle injury, "or" could it be made worse ??? >>>> what do You think. ?????????

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For starters, sorry about your injury... Heal fast!

It looks like hard boots & hard binding are transmitting all the shock & energy to the 1st member in line ( the ankle )

No they do not. They protect you way more then soft boots would. However, you can brake the shin above the boot cuff, which is almost impossible in softies.

I believe that most of ankle injuries in h/boots come from ill-fitting boots or from too soft setting or boot type for the body weight and riding style.

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Compared to soft boots and bindings which stats have shown to make the ankle more vulnerable to sprains and breaks,particularly in advanced and expert park and extreme riding,the hardboot/binding rigidity is more likely to transmit shock and possible injury to the knees and hips.A look at ski injury stats compared to snowboard injury stats also supports this.

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I say this because I just read here about someone who was test riding the TD3 with the softest base.

I guess they come with different color urethane type base gaskets ( I cant remember the term for these ) but one is stiff and the other is soft and the tester did not like the "give" and lack of instant turning input with the soft flexable base, but this looks like a good interface for a recreational rider to help take away the jarring and sudden stop-snap if I hook the nose again, kind of a "progressive" base attachment.

It may seam anti precision / anti hard boot to purposely build in flex & give in the binding & base system but I am relegated to many realites, 1) I am too old to be breaking more parts, lol, 2) my 2 local mountains are not optimal the grooming is poor and not really sutable for long & low / long & wide.

I seams the very thing this tester was not liking may be the answer for limping gimps who want a little extra insurance, I dont now I am just pondering. :cool:

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For starters, sorry about your injury... Heal fast!

No they do not. They protect you way more then soft boots would. However, you can brake the shin above the boot cuff, which is almost impossible in softies.

I believe that most of ankle injuries in h/boots come from ill-fitting boots or from too soft setting or boot type for the body weight and riding style.

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MY REPLY: I think your really onto something here.

I went over to my local ski shop to ask about Intuition liners for my snowboard hard boots ( they looked at me like I was a space alien ) after I explained what an alpine snowboard was they said "OHHhhh sure no problem".

Ya, I felt my boots fitted good, but not as good as the way you guys speak when you have a high end liner and foot bed.

I would crank my boot binders down to a death choke just before take off but that only helped with my shins, but my ankle & foot pad area was not wrapped and hugged so out of ignorance and inpatients I may have participated in my own demise:o

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yeah, sub plates help with that but also if the sheer weight is overcome on the plate then you're in trouble and fighting with a extra 7 lbs of metal and plastic.

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MY REPLY: You may be speaking about something I am not familiar with .

I am referencing the poly urethane base gasket like rubbers that come with Bomber bindings when you buy the upgraded sort of deluxe kit, they look to only weigh a few ounces each, is that making any sense. ?

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I was pondering also. Was the SI heel a factor in my break? And would the side play in the TD3 and Sidewinders have saved the ankle?

I doubt it. I feel that the SI interface is quite bit more rigid than the toe buckle arrangement. The bails, no matter how thick, seem to have more spring than the pins and bracket of the SI. But my feeling is that no matter how much flex and spring exists in any system, at the end of the day (or end of the travel) the end result would have been the same. There only exists so my range of motion in any system and when that is reached, the weakest link will break.

I think that my upper buckles were too loose. I had to walk/hobble several hundred feet to where Ski patrol was congregating to get their attention and a ride down. I was only able to do this by really cranking down on the upper buckles.

Had these buckles been tighter would I have broken the bone somewhere else? I think that it is likely. I'm not heavy (135 pounds) but I was moving pretty fast. So the amount of energy was pretty high.

These are just seat of the pants observations from a pretty fresh start in hard boots.

I think that the only thing that would prevent this would be a releasing binding. But ski binding designs have the luxury of pretty much unlimited overall length. For us, overhang is a problem. No where to put the mechanics.

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I was pondering also. Was the SI heel a factor in my break? And would the side play in the TD3 and Sidewinders have saved the ankle?

I doubt it. I feel that the SI interface is quite bit more rigid than the toe buckle arrangement. The bails, no matter how thick, seem to have more spring than the pins and bracket of the SI. But my feeling is that no matter how much flex and spring exists in any system, at the end of the day (or end of the travel) the end result would have been the same. There only exists so my range of motion in any system and when that is reached, the weakest link will break.

I think that my upper buckles were too loose. I had to walk/hobble several hundred feet to where Ski patrol was congregating to get their attention and a ride down. I was only able to do this by really cranking down on the upper buckles.

Had these buckles been tighter would I have broken the bone somewhere else? I think that it is likely. I'm not heavy (135 pounds) but I was moving pretty fast. So the amount of energy was pretty high.

These are just seat of the pants observations from a pretty fresh start in hard boots.

I think that the only thing that would prevent this would be a releasing binding. But ski binding designs have the luxury of pretty much unlimited overall length. For us, overhang is a problem. No where to put the mechanics.

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MY REPLY: What would be the down side to a break away / releasable alpine board binding ???

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I would think weight would be an issue. But I think that finding a place for all the parts would be hard. I am in the process of designing a completely new binding right now. Cannot really get into details right now. But as you add features, it weighs more, costs more to make, and is is harder to set up correctly. With this already being a tiny niche market with at least three binding manufacturers, it does not seem likely that another player is advisable.

At this point I am just designing because the idea struck me. Now I have no choice but to draw it. And I have time right now. :eek::eek::eek:

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what I was trying to say is, if you want to have less of those bone jarring impacts transmitted to your ankles and knees one of the sub plates like a hangl or Vist is the ticket. thing is, if you hit a rut so hard and manage to overcome the weight and movement built into the plate then it's worse. I've even heard rumors of increased amonts of tib/fin fractures with the use of said systems.

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what I was trying to say is, if you want to have less of those bone jarring impacts transmitted to your ankles and knees one of the sub plates like a hangl or Vist is the ticket. thing is, if you hit a rut so hard and manage to overcome the weight and movement built into the plate then it's worse. I've even heard rumors of increased amonts of tib/fin fractures with the use of said systems.

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MY REPLY: Ohhhhh ok, understood ;)

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Obviously down hill skiis are release types.

That begs the question, are there practical reasons & situations to want a break away / releasable alpine board binding ?

Lets leave the material , mechanical, and market demand issues out for now of and concentrate on a set of positive uses and a basic conceptual need for this new type of binding.

Indulge me if you will , just "imagine" that you already have a prototype of a refined light small footprint release binding that can be calibrated for particular person and dynamic demand.

Regardless of market demand, do you think it would be usable and ad safety or just ad another set of un-tested variables that need extensive testing.

I can only imagine the 1st break away ski bindings had to be worked out and extensively tested along with an evolutionary process over the years that arrived were they are today.

Using the borrowed parameters of a single ski binding for a base line person of such and such a weight as a start.

I can imagine an odd yet what looks to be a high probability scenario were one binding breaks away and the other is still holding the boot so the rider is now falling with one off ( front boot free ) and one on ( back boot held) which very well "may" complicate the injury factor, I don't know this is all hypothetical.

Do GS~skiier's think one break away is good ? take Lindsey Vonn when she lost one ski this week while jamming at top speed and it look like a perfect need, so is there a correlation to having one boot stay and one release on an alpine board, I don't know.

Sounds like this would have to be worked out in the field over and over again in all kinds of situations until some "test pilot's" come back praising the device or damning it. and one outweights the other by a large margin.

Ohhhh and then there is the lawyers, I can see it now " My clients binding released when he admittedly nose dived into a rut and the front boot broke away as advertised "but" he did the high speed splits, and now has torn ligaments in all his hip joints & back boot knee ( or something like that )

Its cool to ponder the mechanical and practical possibilities.

(( I'm not an engineer, but I dated one, & we did sleep in a Holiday Inn once :biggthump))

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I think that when you go down this way, either you blow the boot out and break your ankle, or the boot'll hold and you'll break your leg. Solution: don't crash like that. Avoidance tactics: when the snow is dodgy, favour the back of the board. I don't think many will break their ankle the same way twice.

IIRC speed boarding bindings are mandated to be releasable (although it's not a formal FIS sport). I can't remember what the bindings look like or how they operate though.

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I can't remember the research quotes I looked up at the time:

soft boots: break the ankles (no support)

snowboard hardboots: break at the talus (on top of the heel bone) at the extreme of the forward flex

ski boots: break at the tibia/fibula at the boot cuff

releasable snowboard boots (if they dont' release immediately at the same time): this is my guess, because the board continue to rotate at a different rate than your leg: spiral fracture of tib/fib ?ankles, ie very messy.

And that's without going into knee injuries.

So, avoid loading the nose in soft snow and don't submarine your nose. My 2c.

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I think that when you go down this way, either you blow the boot out and break your ankle, or the boot'll hold and you'll break your leg. Solution: don't crash like that. Avoidance tactics: when the snow is dodgy, favour the back of the board. I don't think many will break their ankle the same way twice.

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Yes - don't crash like that - if you stuff the nose at an angle at anything above moderate speed there's going to be a big load on the front leg somewhere. If your boot is loose or soft you can hurt your ankle, if it's solid there's load on the shin and knee. Nothing like the havoc any type of releasable binding would cause, though.

Pressure down through the middle of the board is a good thought in ruts, and keeping your front foot light is good in slush.

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I can't remember the research quotes I looked up at the time:

soft boots: break the ankles (no support)

snowboard hardboots: break at the talus (on top of the heel bone) at the extreme of the forward flex

ski boots: break at the tibia/fibula at the boot cuff

releasable snowboard boots (if they dont' release immediately at the same time): this is my guess, because the board continue to rotate at a different rate than your leg: spiral fracture of tib/fib ?ankles, ie very messy.

And that's without going into knee injuries.

So, avoid loading the nose in soft snow and don't submarine your nose. My 2c.

Softboots: torn calf muscles (two here so far)

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I had broken my ankle & 5th metatasal (outer most bones on foot) with riding softboot. I was riding BX board with 50/45 on softboots on DNR SI binding. It all happened in heel turn when condition were slush.

When I leaned forward to initiate heel side turn, snow caught the nose and my body went over.

Now I do ride conservatively. I push/pull (forwad/backward) constantly in a turn, like riding mogul, to eliminate nose dive. But it's no fun. It didn't occured me riding on hardboots but riding bomber style (lean forward and on top of your nose all the time) is not proper way to ride in my opinion.

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Found some interesting articles regarding snowboard foot and ankle injury:

The snowboarder's foot and ankle.

Am J Sports Med. 1998 Mar-Apr;26(2):271-7.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9548123

Findings:

  • There was no significant correlation between boot type (soft, hybrid, or hard) and overall foot or ankle injury rate.
  • There were significantly fewer ankle sprains in patients wearing hybrid boots and fewer fractures of the lateral process of the talus in patients wearing soft boots.

Another article:

Snowboarding injuries. An overview.

Sports Med. 1995 May;19(5):358-64.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7618012?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_SingleItemSupl.Pubmed_Discovery_RA&linkpos=5&log$=relatedreviews&logdbfrom=pubmed

Findings:

  • Ankle injuries are more common with soft shell boots, whereas knee injuries and distal tibia fractures are more common with hard shell boots.

Finally:

Australian snowboard injury data base study. A four-year prospective study.

Am J Sports Med. 1993 Sep-Oct;21(5):701-4.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8238711?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_SingleItemSupl.Pubmed_Discovery_RA&linkpos=1&log$=relatedarticles&logdbfrom=pubmed

Findings:

  • Ankle injuries were more common with soft-shell boots, worn most by intermediate and advanced riders. Knee injuries and distal tibial fractures were more common with hard-shell boots, worn most by novices.

Conclusion:

I've got some mixed findings, but what studies above implicate is that hardbooters have either similar or lower ankle injuries than softbooters, but hardbooters have higher ankle fracture rate than softbooters...

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Steve-

Not sure exactly what you are asking about on the TD3's but I have tried both the blue (medium) and yellow (soft) rings between your bindings and the board and definitely noticed a difference in chopped up snow. Less vibration on my feet/ankles with the yellow.

Make sure that you have good footbeds also.

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Years ago I stuffed the nose while riding soft boots. I was on an Oxygen supercross with Preston bindings and those really comfortable Solomon boots (can't remember the model). I tore my peroneal tendon sheath in my back foot. This is the primary reason I only ride hard boots, it protects that ankle.

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+1 on overreacting a bit. This injury is relatively rare. It's crummy and I feel for you but sometimes bad stuff happens in action sports.

A releaseable binding would be interesting, but I'd much rather have both feet firmly attached to the board than just one. You'd need a 100% reliable way to ensure that both feet came out if one binding got enough load on it. The lawyers would have a field day on the maker of any binding that allowed one foot to release but not the other.

If you want to go really extreme you could look at a sub-plate that mounts both non-releaseable bindings. Then have some method to allow that plate to release from the bigger board. This would be heavy and complex - you'd need VERY good marketing to make up for it's drawbacks for the minimal benefits.

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Obviously down hill skiis are release types.

That begs the question, are there practical reasons & situations to want a break away / releasable alpine board binding ?

EA Miller made a releasable plate binding in the late 80's early 90's. It didn't really go anywhere.

The first releaseable ski bindings relied on a plate fitted to the boot similar to what a snowboard plate binding looks like.

I will mirror what others here are saying, it is unfortunate that you were injured in a crash, but snowboarding can be dangerous, that's life.

If you want to go through life with everything "bubble wrapped" for safety, that's your choice.

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