Interesting new idea for a hardboot/board interface...

[slopestar]

k2 clicker/ aka clogger

[Ohob]

Ohob:

I see your idea about the wheels...wouldn't there be a lot of play in them, though, that would multiply through-out the system? Interesting thought, though.

I should have clarified; there would be a roller assembly in the toe and another in the heel of the boot. There would be very little play at all.

biggest reason I thought of the rollers would be for ease of entry. A person could engage the binding from the toe or heel side.

There is still the problem of ice and snow with the rollers.

[Alaskan Rover]

Ohob:

You mean like miniture closed-bearing rollers in the boot channel that would engage the track? But how would you alleviate lateral play in the rollers, I wonder?

Oh, about icing in the channel...the force with which the T-track engages the channel and the small tolerances thereof would effectively EXTRUDE the ice from the channel out the other end of the channel.

As for boot stiffness required, wouldn't a modern hard-boot be able to take that lateral force? They seem pretty stiff.

B0ardski:

i think the entry would be fairly easy...like I said, any ice in the channel would be extruded out...and as for release, there wouldn't be any safety release....just undoing the lock and slding the boot back out from the track.

Also, I forgot to mention, that somehow most of the boot-bottom must be in direct contact with the board itself, thus there would be less lateral force on the track itself.. May have to do this by recessing the channel in the boot to just the right amount so that enough plastic is there to contact the board except where the rotating disc is. I think this direct dynamic contact with the board deck would be be key to the whole idea....at least for non-canted, non-lift boarding.

[snowboardfast]

Why don't you just go buy a hardboot set up and learn how to ride it to see if you will enjoy this side of the sport or not? You don't even know if you like hardboots or not because you haven't even ridden them yet.

[Alaskan Rover]

Why don't you just go buy a hardboot set up and learn how to ride it to see if you will enjoy this side of the sport or not? You don't even know if you like hardboots or not because you haven't even ridden them yet.

Good question, Snowboardfast. I guess because I like to tinker, really. Plus, I am thinking that this system would be good for less forward stances, and since the boot would be a direct contact interface with the deck..sitting directly on the board itself, held in place by the channel/T-track, that the weight transfer, and thus power-transfer would be applied directly to the board better than wth the ubiquitous soft-boot and strap bindings. I think it might be a more direct application force form the boots to the deck. I think that might make the dynamics of free-riding (including at angles of 15/5 or even 15/-15) different and maybe better. Worth a try, I figure. :)

[kjl]

It seems like you should at least ride hardboots not to see if you will enjoy it, but so that you have some idea of what you want the binding to do. Do you want it stiff? Flexible? Heavy? Light? High off the board or right on the board? Lateral stiffness more or less important than toe-heel stiffness?

You can't possibly have any idea, having never ridden hardboots. It's like you're trying to make a car with superior road feel by looking at pictures of shocks, but having never actually sat in a car before. I don't get it.

It seems weird that you are trying to make a binding as stiff as possible when every hard binding is currently trying to find as many ways of getting more controlled flex and give as possible. It also seems weird that you're putting the t-track on the toe->heel line when the majority of the forces in alpine riding are lateral to the boot. You're going to bend the t-channel out on your first heelside turn and then the smooth slidey isn't going to slide anymore. If you make bindings as stiff as possible with no lift or cant, do you even know if you'll be able to get your boots in there without breaking your knees? The only people I know who ride with no cant or lift ride soft, loosey goosey bindings. I know when I set mine up with no cant or lift I can barely stand on my board in my living room...

Sorry to bag so hard on you. It just seems like the obvious first step in designing anything is to at least test the years/decades worth of existing product progression to see what worked and what doesn't work, or what they might have tried a long time ago and realized didn't work. Otherwise, you're giving yourself a negative decade head start.

[snowboardfast]

Don't expect to be able to ride hardboots at 15/5 or 15-5 and have it work well at all with a size 13 foot or any size foot for that manner. They are not going to work well like that. Also tinkering is good if you have the proper skills and knowledge to do so? You need to ride hardboots and try them first.Hardboots are designed to work with foward angled stances. Go try hardbooting in the proper way to see if you like it. You might try to find someone on this forum who could let you borrow some gear to try? If you don't know what you are doing with a boot binding interface you will have severe problems.

[Jack M]

I was kidding when I said this will work great. I predict epic failure for the reasons Ken has stated and several others. So many that it's not even worth typing them out. Not trying to be a jerk, just giving it to you straight. Forget this idea, you're wasting your time.

[Corey]

A key thing when creating something new is to list out what's better than current designs and what's worse. It's really hard to be harsh on your own designs but it's what separates the ideas that succeed from those that fail.

Pros:

- different, will get some customers that want to try anything new.

Sorry, I can't see any other pros...

Cons:

- Taller. I know you are going to recess it into the boot, but there's not much room between the current boot sole and the user's foot. You're going to have to add sole thickness or slot the users foot to accept the T shape. ;)

- No provision for cant and lift. This is a complete deal breaker for anyone that runs anything other than flat bindings. I believe that's much more than half of the alpine riders out there.

- Engaging this channel is going to be tough. When you're first starting, just getting your heel into the heel bail is tough. Lining up your foot precisely in all six axes and sliding it the full length of your foot is likely beyond the skill level of the average boarder.

- The long T-channel will affect board flex more than any current plate designs do.

- Your design would require all the boot manufacturers to make new boot molds. Right now we're just happy they make boots for us at all!

The current bail and the Intec step-in systems are quite good. Once you clear snow/ice off the boot sole they're REALLY tough to beat.

[Alaskan Rover]

Thanks KJL, Snowboardfast, Jack Michaud and Corey Dyck for for your informed input. Yeah...Dan was the first one to bring up the issue of cant and lift. I've seen some hardboot plate systems that almost look like ice-skates blade frames!

Knowing the innate problems it would pose to carving due to lack of cant and lift, I began thinking how it could be applied to free-ride stances. Like a lot of people have found, the dynamics and linear forces totally change when riding at angles past 40 or...flat to the deck with no cant/lift. I go no higher than 40/35 with my flat-binding, soft boot...tried 55/50, 55/55...didn't do me any good. So, I started wondering what hard-boots, not necessarily Alpine hardboots with their much more forward lean, but SOME sort of hard-shell would do to change the dynamics of free-ride, flat-binding, low-angle stance that most non-carve soft gear is now.

I realize that flex in the system is a good thing from a physics/mechanical point of view...as it both disperses excess energy, AND helps to transfer a force to a different vector, and can alleviate some detrimental moment. Present soft, strap bindings obtain this flex from the looseness of the interface with the boot, whether intended or not. I realize that if flex is designed out of the system.,..many of those forces are going to be transferred directly to the PERSON, rather than absorbed by the flex and looseness of the binding.

Those are the bad points of loss of flex...so I am wondering, as a "thought exercise": would there be ANY good points to loss of flex in a free-ride, non-carve mode? I am thinking that if the boot to deck interface was more direct, one may be able to transfer needed moment to the board in a more efficient manner. That's why I started thinking about a track/channel system. I think there would be less dynamic loss. Granted, the extrusions would have to be SUPER-strong. And there would need to be either HDPE or rubber underneath the T-track where it overhangs the disc that is the same thickness of the disc to contact the board. Figuring out how to lock the boot onto the track with ZERO longitudinal movement and still be simple is another catch. And the tolerances in the channel to T-track interface would need to be very low to enable higher force transfer without loss. Tolerances too low in the channel/track and you'd need a robotic leg to engage it! And would there be enough plastic "meat" in the boot bottom to be able to ream in a channel? But all that aside, I am thinking it would be an interesting experiment as far as free-ride, flat board to deck stance. And the main premise would be that the advantages of less flex in the flatboard in terms of force dynamics may outweigh the above drawbacks.

Once again, this is mainly for free-ride applications, flat on board and with a hard-boot that has less lean than the standard hard-boot...maybe like the buckled, climbing hard-shell boots, but stiffer in the lateral areas. I think lateral force in the free-ride realm is less than that found in the carving realm, as some of the carve dynamics are the same as I am used to from racing. Sure, the leg muscles would need to toughen up. I've got a bunch of old discs, and can get a hold of used climbing hard-shells for testing...extruding the channels and T-track I-beams would be more intricate.

I guess my main thought was trying to come up with a more direct human to deck interface with less dynamic loss than present free-ride bindings and maybe more efficient power transfer and board feel. I think it could change the dynamics involved to good effect if some of the above problems were figured out.

Thought is free....will is sometimes taxed. GCB :)

[bjvircks]

Yep... this can never work. Don't waste your time.

Business experts said the idea that became FedEx wouldn't work, either.

Perhaps portions of your new concept could be combined with traditional technology to arrive at a new hybrid that fits a nitch we don't know about yet.

Nah..... go have a beer with the rest of the sheep.

[Alaskan Rover]

....Nah..... go have a beer with the rest of the sheep.

Ummm....Naahhhh! Ha ha. Don't like beer all that much, and sheep get pretty smelly, especially right before sheering season! ;) But I must admit that one of the best beers I have ever had, happened to be consumed in a field in England's "Lake's" region, that was at the time full of meandering sheep!! So it's funny you should say that...Ha ha. The beer was actually a local, pub-brewed ale...warm, but oh, boy...so good!!

I'll keep working on this idea...but have now switched over to thinking about it as a way of facilitating a cleaner energy transfer for flat-deck, free-ride, NON-carving applications previously taken by soft boots/soft bindings. Even from a scientific aspect alone, I am now intrigued by the possiblity of new dynamics that a "hard interface" boot-to-board system might beget for non-carve free-ride, so I'll keep fiddling for that reason alone. Baahh...bahhhhhhhh...baaahh. :)

Ideas are free...will is sometimes taxed.

[kjl]

Business experts said the idea that became FedEx wouldn't work, either.

Perhaps portions of your new concept could be combined with traditional technology to arrive at a new hybrid that fits a nitch we don't know about yet.

Nah..... go have a beer with the rest of the sheep.

It's not that innovation can't happen. But the people who started up FedEx probably used the postal service or UPS at least once in their lives, and were therefore able to find an area or two or five that they could improve on. If you go in completely blind, how can you possibly hope to make a device that is even half as good by any measure as the one put out by Fin, who is a techie nerd with a CNC machine, is an excellent snowboarder, has been getting testing and feedback from world class snowboarders, and has been iterating on and perfecting a product for at least 10 years that I know of? It really is a waste of time.

I'm all for the entrepreneurial spirit, but the goal should not be "do something different for the sake of being different" - at that point you're blindly chucking darts at a dartboard. If I want to design a better mousetrap - first step: investigate existing mousetraps, and decide if there is anything wrong with current mousetraps, and if so, what?

Case in point:

Those are the bad points of loss of flex...so I am wondering, as a "thought exercise": would there be ANY good points to loss of flex in a free-ride, non-carve mode? I am thinking that if the boot to deck interface was more direct, one may be able to transfer needed moment to the board in a more efficient manner. That's why I started thinking about a track/channel system. I think there would be less dynamic loss. Granted, the extrusions would have to be SUPER-strong. And there would need to be either HDPE or rubber underneath the T-track where it overhangs the disc that is the same thickness of the disc to contact the board.

I'll save you some time: Pick up old, used Bomber TD1s for probably $20. Super stiff connection with no flex, complete with urethane bumpers under the plate where it overhangs the disk like you are imagining under your T-track. Put them on a freeride board and ride them at low angles. That is clearly your first step. Actually, that might be your second step, after you ask around to see if anybody else has already tried that. Which I have. Old soft Raichle 423's on TD1s at 39/21 on a 161 Never Summer Premier. And it sucks. It's the worst, and that was with inward canting to make it at least moderately tolerable.

[bjvircks]

kjl... I'd make the guess that you've never been a tinkerer. Inventers and tinkerers are a different breed. Often we play at these things not because of an entreprenurial goal ($$$) but because we have an idea and it is fun to play with it. Thinking outside the box has done great things for our world. I'd like to avoid taking someone who is willing to be a bit outside the box and beat him into being just another sheep.

[emorris]

kjl... I'd make the guess that you've never been a tinkerer. Inventors and tinkerers are a different breed. Often we play at these things not because of an entrepreneurial goal ($$$) but because we have an idea and it is fun to play with it. Thinking outside the box has done great things for our world. I'd like to avoid taking someone who is willing to be a bit outside the box and beat him into being just another sheep.

And some times the idea grabs us and will not let go. So you cannot sleep or do anything until the idea is completely worked out. I am lucky enough to have a factory (my wife owns it) and engineers working for me (actually, her). Sometimes I just need to see the thing through to an actual working prototype and its out of my system. Sometimes just a model in CAD. But I can get the concept down, hand it to my engineer and have him work out the details. At least for products. I don't think my wife would appreciate seeing her CNC running binding parts instead of door knobs.

[kjl]

kjl... I'd make the guess that you've never been a tinkerer. Inventers and tinkerers are a different breed. Often we play at these things not because of an entreprenurial goal ($$$) but because we have an idea and it is fun to play with it. Thinking outside the box has done great things for our world. I'd like to avoid taking someone who is willing to be a bit outside the box and beat him into being just another sheep.

I concede your last sentence. He can do whatever he wants with his spare time. I think ARover got off on the wrong foot on these forums and I am carrying some bias into this thread. But I would contend that there is some weirdness with designing a new hardboot snowboard binding, having never ridden hardboots, and asking for feedback. Would you expect to get any reasonable responses in a food connoisseur forum if you asked for help with your lasagna recipe if you've never tasted a lasagna before, and you've got serious, basic, obvious mistakes all throughout your idea (like you don't pre cook your meat and noodles and expect them to steam themselves in the oven)? You don't get kudos for being innovative; you just failed to do your homework first.

But I do understand the tinkering spirit. I have spent my fair share of time at home with a soldering iron and a microcontroller programmer trying to make super basic robots, or writing code on my computer for an ultimately worthless but fun project. If his ultimate goal is the tinkering and learning process itself, of running into stumbling blocks, figuring out ways around them, and doing creative problem solving, then what he's doing is perfect for that. But if his goal is to create a better snowboarding experience, he is doing it wrong. I mean, you have to admit, even as a tinkerer (especially as a tinkerer?) that designing a hardboot interface, crazy innovative mechanism or not, without ever having ridden on one is kind of weird. He's not going to know if his idea is even new or not.

[NateW]

Ignoring anything else, put on a hardboot or a ski boot and try and slide it forwards while keeping the sole perfectly flat, it's hard enough to get a boot flat on a standard binding sometimes!

That was my concern as well. Getting in and out sounds hard. Making it easier sounds fragile (rollers) or sloppy (tolerances).

Also, this is profound:

...you're giving yourself a negative decade head start.

Intec has worked really well for me. I've had one failure in about 15 years. The only recurring problem has been snow clogging, but compared to time spent closing toe levers (and scraping snow off of toe/heel blocks), I think I've still come out ahead.

For me to switch from Intec I'd need to believe that the snow clogging issue is greatly improved, and I only see that getting worse with a channel in the bottom of the boot.

[bjvircks]

NateW and kjl I'll agree that ARs design approach has significant issues and that intec is the bee's knee's of hardboot attachment to a board. If I didn't switch back and forth between skis and board so much I would be 100% intec. But I'm not convinced there is nothing that can be done to come up with something different which may do certain things better. Sure, there have been many flops. But all it takes is for a couple of things to come together well and viola... something new and great occurrs. Then everyone stands around and says 'gee, that is so simple... how come we didn't think of this sooner?'

Often during the early conceptualization phase of development we will take a given approach and turn the elements 'inside out' and consider the pros and cons. Or rotate one element's relationship to the rest of the system and see what happens. Sometimes we bring in an outsider who has no familiarity with what can and can't be done.

[Jack M]

bj... of course. You are right in the big picture sense. But this particular idea is going absolutely nowhere.

[Buell]

bj... of course. You are right in the big picture sense. But this particular idea is going absolutely nowhere.

+1

I also agree completely with what kjl has been saying.

We see stuff like this on a periodic basis on BOL. Maybe this one is different, but it is always talk, no action. The ideas are almost always too far fetched, not needed, and not practical giving the surrounding hardware infrastructure. This one is even more interesting because the proponent has never hardbooted and does not understand hardboot / binding basics.

Alaskan, if you do get far enough and actually try and test this idea, be incredibly careful. A failure could lead to significant injury.

[dano]

Determining speed is most important for accurate bragging.

The trolling pedal can be used with soft boots!

[tex1230]

Ignoring the design flaws/challenges for a moment,

Why on earth are you even here? You hate hardboots and everything about them, and you are trying to design a system that ignores two of the most basic demands of the average hardboot rider - canting and ease of entry/exit. Stop cluttering the forum with your mindless drivel.

[Alaskan Rover]

Thanks, everyone, for yours ideas and input. I think ANY input, be it positive or negative is worthy of consideration. I think, perhaps, that input and ideas are like bricks...good for building a wall OR building a bridge...it all depends how you use them.

Thank you especially, Bjvircks and EMorris, for understanding the TRUE spirit of invention...that it must continue...for no other purpose than to harness the power of possiblity...even in the face of contravention.

Kjl: I think you may misunderstand my reasoning in this endeavor. I seek not to put the cart before the horse and struggle futilily against constructs that I do not fathom, nor do I seek to conjure an operation I know not, but rather to look upon the horizon and ask a simple question: "This is how it is done, but can it be done better?" That is all I seek. And if, by slightest chance, the answer is yes, or even maybe...then that subsequent idea, given birth in that moment, becomes my charge...to nourish it and give it the chance to grow. I suppose, perhaps,that makes me weird. Indeed, I fully admit to being weird...and wacky...and sometimes, at the oddest hours, wise.

So carry on I shall, with this little thought experiment, and endeavor to make it a working test-bed for other ideas, as they come, by and by.

Knowing full well my lack of knowledge of Alpine boarding, I am limiting my scope to what I DO know: freeriding. While my first avocation has always been theoretical physics and astronomy, and my vocation bacterial research, I have enough of a groundwork in newtonian physics to understand the principles of the forces at play in the boot to deck interface. I have started thinking, of late, about a hybrid, composite type of interface that may use the principles of harmonic damping in conjunction with a direct boot to deck interface.

The softboot industry has been seeing many advancements in boot technology over the years, yet the bindings, while lighter and stiffer, are basically the same. What is the point of having a good, comfortatable, stiff and tight boot if the strap binding allows so much energy loss due to it's own design? Granted you want SOME energy to be lost...you want shock energy dissipated before it is absorbed by the foot, for instance, but other forces you want to conserve. I realize that there are positive attributes to flex in a system, as it can initiate dynamic forces not otherwise allowed. I would like to study the positive change in dynamic force transfer caused by having a more direct boot to deck interface, without limiting the benefits of flex. What about a damping system? Or plastics with alternative energy absorbtive qualities? Every question leads to other problems, sure, but also other solutions. It's just like those bricks...all depends how you put them together.

I've got an uncle that is a retired head metallurgical scientist from Alcoa that now has his own shop that does custom extrusions. And another friend that has a shop filled with CNC equipment, and I am adept with AutoCAD.

I've got a bunch of spare rotating discs, and I can experiment with various used AT hardboots including my own. The first thing I am going to do is to autoCAD out a channel, and a couple variations of compatible T-track...and my uncle will come up with the proper strong alloy for them and extrude some samples for material cost only (almost nothing). That's a start...then I'll ponder recessing the channel into the boot. Sure, the end result might be sh--ty, but that's the point...it's NOT the end result..merely the beginning of an experiment.

Discovery is an organic, trial and error process and the fulcrum of life. If one merely pads quietly around the room of life, content only to sit in a chair that has already been built and deemed safe, and never desires to open any of the myriad doors surrounding him...is that really life, or just existing?

[BlueB]

While my first avocation has always been theoretical physics and astronomy, and my vocation bacterial research, I have enough of a groundwork in newtonian physics...

Ah, I thought literature...

I've got a bunch of spare rotating discs,...

I notoiced that you keep refering to "rotating disks". You do realise that the disks are the only NON-ROTATING part of the binding, right? They are fixed to the board and it is the binding that rotates. So, you would still need to use the binding base and cut off the upper parts. Then your channel would be fixed to the base over the disk. Obvious problem is that the channel would, at certain angles, cover the disk mounting screws. Ohter problem is that re-introduction of the base would deny the concept of the boot directly on the board.

[www.oldsnowboards.com]

I'll save you some time: Pick up old, used Bomber TD1s for probably $20.

I will take every pair of TD1s you can find for 20$

PS. I know of allot of riders that do quite well and enjoy the TD1. It is not my preferred bindings, however, I still see it as a burly work horse of a binding.