Do we need bindings that release?

[scotts.Scheinman]

twice, and both times it was rather inconvenient! A system like that would have to be VERY well thought out and like you said, both would have to go at the same time.

My binding accidentially released yesterday. I would rather not have a releseable binding. I dont think that after a fall seeing your board go down the run would be a pleasent sight.

[shane groshong]

I know this is redundant, but no way. I used to ride when all we had were the emery's and snowpro's and the bails would break a bunch, and have broke some new generations bindings. Going hard and having a foot come out at high speed is TROUBLE. If the releasable binding comes back there will be no sales at the Groshong household.

[bumpyride]

Non releaseable for sure.

As far as tree wells, dicey situations like falling into a creek or river, getting stuck at a cliff etc., I'm all for the Intecs. Here's a couple of pictures that I took on my set-up.

I find myself just stepping out of the rear binding just about anytime that I'm waiting for my friends, on a steep slope trying to figure out my lines,or for teaching. It beats the heck out of always sitting on the slope, not to mention alleviating the possibility getting plowed into by a skier or boarder while lying on the slope like a beached whale.

The set-up includes (all purchased from REI) for front and rear;

Two 5' lengths of military grade 5/8" webbing--$.25/ft,

Two 3/4" side release fastek male ends to slip into Intec handle (had to shave the center guide down to fit into the intec handle) $1.50

Four 3/4" ladder locks $.80

Two Black Diamond PLASTIC Wire Caribiners. This is a non load baring caribiner that will twist or pull under a heavier load. $2.50 each

Two 7/16" O-ring. (Home Depot) $1.59

The reason for the 5' lengths is so you can adjust the length to go through a 3-way zipper, over the waist, or even out a pit-zip.

I find it infinitely easier to reach down to my thigh, than to bend over, especially when coming into a lift line.

I've never been caught up in trees or brush.

[Buell]

I think you guys are stuck in the present. Obviously the system would need to release at the same time. We are not talking about the times that one of your bindings accidentally released or broke.

I would love to have a releasable system where both bindings would release at the same time. Possibly difficult to engineer, yes. Impossible, no. Seems like it could save a lot of tib/fibs in hardboots and ankles in softboots that result when the board comes to a sudden stop or slams into something and our bones break. A brake system would take care of the board hitting us after it releases concerns.

[skatha]

hells no! Non-release is the safest way to go, all the way. Skis need to release due to the fact that there is only one limb attached to them, making it easy for the lever (ski) to over-twist, and permanently destroy your ankle. We have a second limb attached, preventing the board from damaging our ankles in this way. As long as snowboards use non-release bindings, that will never be a problem for us.

skiing != snowboarding.

That would be true if both feet were always attached to the board. Everybody knows that you have to unclip your trailing foot to load on a lift. As for lever action of skis-they're nothing compared to a snowboard. I cannot tell you how bad hyperextending your ankle feels......

[EnisiWaya]

As an engineer who has been teaching skiing since 1965 and snowboard since 1985 I have some hardcore views on this subject.

Part 1:

No I do not want self releasing snowboard bindings. In 1995 at Mt Sunapee while teaching a clinic on blue ice in the back bowl I was hit from behind by an out of control skier. I was already moving quite fast and when I went down I just slid with no slowing down. At that point the trail had a double pitch and I slid a good 150 yards right off the side of the trail . It was all I could do to get the Burton PJ around from above me to below me on the trail. As I slid off into the woods I braced myself and hit the first big tree with one foot on each side of it. Even today I can't believe the PJ did not break. LOL

Part 2:

Soft boot setups. I switched to hard boots exclusively In 1994 after having had several nasty crashes from straps on soft boot bindings braking at the most inopportune times. Then when the Emory/OSin/Rossi SIS system came out I checked it out. the metal to metal contact and large center plate to distribute the forces all seemed to have good engineering and execution. Well, after 9 or 10 seasons of teaching I had to make the first repairs to my original SIS set of bindings. I ride hard in the crud and the trees so I finally pulled a couple of the t-nuts apart. I have collected sets of bindings and keep them in stock and have two pair of the boots. I still love them. They almost never have snow pack problems even in New England slush. The only problem is if you walk heel-toe you can trip yourself with the side pins LOL.

Part 3:

Heck, the side pin design may even be the fore runner of the Intec heel system. Since burton and K2 destroyed the step in market with plastic contact parts that always break at the wrong time the SIS are no longer made either. Fin, I wonder if the manufacturing rights are available. the boots can be done by anyone and can be soft or even a hybrid(my choice), THe binding itself would be similar to manufacture as your hard boot bindings but would be great for those deep powder and back country or in my case trees days. On my original OSin pair even the release lever is all metal. I'll send some pics if you are interested. It might even be a possible hard boot step in design that could be stronger than the Intec system.

Part 4:

Many of us ride both soft and hard boots. The thing is if you ride hard boots and really carve it up even in soft boots there are few new bindings that can handle the stress. Last year I broke a new pair of burton strap ins on the first run testing out a RIde longboard in the day after a snowstorm afternoon haystacks. Yes burton is un-capitalized intentionally. If we had some carving soft boot bindings and even maybe hybrid boots like ones from the past maybe we could get more riders interested in moving up to some serious carving.

Grandpa Wolf.:lol:

[EnisiWaya]

P.S. what kind of cookies Doc?

[Gleb]

I'd say no because when skis release, they have the brake that comes down to keep them from taking someone out. It would be hard to make something like that for a snowboard.

Having a leashed board that could come off seems dangerous because the bindings release and now the board could somehow swing around and take you out. After you get a ptc tune, the last thing I want is a facefull of razors.

It might only make sense for Super-G racing where the speeds are incredibly high and riders are able to really push their gear to its limits. Otherwise, non-release is where its at.

[Civ]

anyone see the crash from the DH event this weekend. Skier hits the gate, goes flying and only one ski comes off, the other basically spins his lower leg over 180 degrees....destroyed his lower leg. He got knocked out too.

I know its kinda unrelated, but it shows that even ski systems are unpredictable...

So this skier I mentioned just had his lower leg AMPUTATED! Incredibly scary stuff.

[crucible]

I had a rear binding release five years ago when I was boarding with my wife and brother-in-law at Whistler. I was trenching through a heel side turn on the way down to Creekside when the rear toe bail sheared off of its cradle.

Big crash into the bushes. I wobble back onto the run, take one look at the

F2 and realize that it's SOL, and try to make it back down to the chairlift on only one binding.

My wife and brother-in-law were waiting for me at the lift- they were wondering what was taking me so long, since I'm usually so much faster.

Then my wife says,"That looks like George by his jacket, but it can't be- because whoever that is can't snowboard worth and damn".

DEFINITELY no realeasy on my bindees.

[Rob Stevens]

An Intec-style, step-in, simultaneously releaseable softboot binding with a "rip cord" for backcountry.

When the avalanche hits, pull the handle and the board is off.

No getting dragged to the bottom of the snowpack with that anchor on your feet.

Otherwise, no.

Or Noboard.

[Cuban Carving Gooding]

I'm against binding release. A Ski binding has the break on it. We don't and cant on account of the angle of the binding in relation to the board. So we would have A board strapped to our leg hitting us with A sharp edge until we stop.

[Helmut Karvlow]

Hey Cuban just do what I do.......don't fall:D:D

[John Gilmour]

In 1985 I taught Wade Taeko Shimoda (a fellow from Hawaii who went to MIT) to snowboard.

We rode old Sims 1500 FE Pros with no highbacks. I would take old soccer shin guards, shoe goo 2 pairs together to make them stiff and bolt them onto the old binding foot plates with skateboard hardware and used a truck spacer block to adjust forward lean.That was for my soft booted friends.. (and yes they folded so they could fit into ski racks- there were no snowboard racks....other than the flat thule racks- and Few had SUV's back then)..

I had already switched over to Koflach Valluga 4000 Lites which I had to import myself (Tom Sims advised me on this). Later while talking with Jeff Grell- of Sims, he would design a high back for production (unfortunately not as strong as the soccer shin guards) which would be implemented in the SIMS and FLITE lines. Jeff and I talked a lot on the phone about how East Coasters needed more support for the harder snow.

Later that same year I launched the first Snowboard Camp in Tignes Val D'Isere and I would have full run of the grooming machines to make a snow park Jeff and I talked about making the worlds first machine made snowboard half pipe... and I still saved the drawings of the first design for one which featured a wide mouth at the top gradually steepening walls and narrowing with less flat bottom and in the end blowing out into a bowl (The half pipe into a bowl I wanted because it mimicked Campo Grande Skateboard Park in Brazil which I rode in the late 1970's.

Wade and I were concerned with release at the time because as boards got longer (we thought it was inevitable) we figured it would have to be needed. When Highbacks came out and the ABS stamped plastic began to break within a day or so of hard riding of East Coast Ice- Wade and I would struggle to drill out the old highbacks (locktited in- hard to drill it out without melting the plastic) and convert bindings over to hard boots.

Aside...

Funny today I just saw Doug Dryer at Buttermilk with what looked to be about a 8 foot long snowboard with a enormous tinkler top sheet and those odd dampening rods. If that thing went into the trees-- you can bet you would want it to release.

I've flown into trees several times and wished I was on releasable bindings while airborne. I've also hit snow making equipment at 50 mph and at about 35 mph- again I wished I could have released.. likely it would have reduced my injuries greatly.

So Wade... needed a topic for his thesis. I was the first Sims and Winterstick rep on the East coast and his best friend. So he asked me to consult on a releasable binding.

So we went through several iterations... played with different methods of release.

In biology they say.(I was a Biology/biophysics major).. if you want to study something in particular... there is an IDEAL animal in which to study it. Wanna study kidneys- use the Marine toad, Bufo Marinus, the animal with the largest kidneys for its size. Want to study the optic nerve... go for the giant squid- with the biggest optic nerve.

Want to study release? Look at ski bindings... which is exactly what we did.

The first design was pretty simple.

We looked at ski bindings that had cam style releases. Press down on a lever and the binding popped open. So using the spring of the ski brake as the force we attached a bike brake cable and ran that cable between the bindings to a pulley that rested under the other bindings release lever.

Now when one binding released -the binding ski brake rose, pulling on the cable- and fired you out of the other binding. Not exactly simulatneous release but sequential release to within a few milliseconds.

Our issues were icing of the cable and friction. We even considered a liquid system coupling filled with anti freeze as the fluid. to replace the brake cable. Also at the point of the pulley the cable would have been vunerable to ice and water corrosion.. but later I came up with the idea of an enclosed "boot" to protect it all.

Wade came up with another idea. This one was based on Miller and spademan type bindings. The Ball in socket type binding...which I must agree was lightweight and elegantly simple as a ski binding. My idea was to shape the socket so it was not merely a dimple (like on ski bindings) that the spring loaded ball pressed into to keep you attached.. but to shape it such that certain falls would be easy to release from and others (more common types of non injury producing falls) would not release the binding. By shaping the socket with deeper side walls for instance a lateral release would be less likely than say an upward release.

We never got that far...(biased socket).. we figured we had the design competition won anyhow without needing to complicate things and perhaps risking getting debated on this cooler feature.

Anyhow- so with this ball in socket design we placed the spring loaded balls at the ends longitudinally on the board's centerline. The bindings were mounted on discs (low profile) and the balls pushed into sockets on the discs (you could also pop out of the disc and rotate your foot forward and click in for pushing).

There was a coupling strip that went between both bindings with double ended sockets that the spring loaded balls fit into.

Now... if you released on one leg- no pressure was left on the other as the slider was now free and since the slider maintained the pressure to lock your feet into the bindings.... when the pressure was released from one foot it was released on both. Thus it was impossible to NOT simultaneously release- and it was mechanically safe from icing or corrosion.

My only issue was in cases of extreme longitudinal flexing or deflexing of the board that the coupling strips binding release threshold might be affected- and that the coupling strip would have to be shaped carefully to reduce this effect. (again we chose not to include that feature (not to get debated by judges) and figured that it might get overlooked by the judges..which it luckily did)

Wade won the MIT Engineering Prize in 1987 and gave me credit in this thesis. We split the prize money on an expensive dinner. I still have a copy of the thesis- squirreled away with every issue of Absolutely Radical Magazine which later became ISM (International Snowbarder Magazine... the worlds first snowboard Mag.)

I still talk to Wade who I hope will be helping me with my renewable energy project as he has worked on both HECO (Hawaii's energy company) and on a cold weather Electric company in the North East.

The releasable bindings worked with both hard and soft boots.

MIT had the Patent rights to it... though it has been over 17 years so now this is publicly available for development.

I do believe at a certain skill level releasable bindings are a really good idea.

Today we filmed some full 360 carves and on one carve at very high speed I got stuck in the back seat and was dragged around on a heelside carve for over 40 feet as the board just continued to carve dragging me with it... luckily I did not blow out an ACL or get injured as I managed to stay with the board. I have never had this happen to me in my life... but again.. I think I would have liked to have released out of both bindings for that one...

We did get two 360 carves on camera. One at high speed and another at low speed. I'll post those up in a day or so.

I wish could have gotten footage of me getting stuck on the tail,.... to show HOW NOT TO DO a 360 Carve.

As for Earl.....

He got ski bindings to go from non releasing to releasing by developing his binding and then showing that stores knew his binding existed and could have sold customers a releasable binding but instead chose to sell a non releasable binding.. so Earl represented victims in lawsuits against binding manufacturers and the stores that sold them.

Stores did begin to carry releasable bindings and the rest is history... though interestingly the industry as a whole did not adopt Earl's design of the ball and socket ...which might have been one of the better designs. At SIA there were a lot of people that were upset with Earl's method of getting people to adopt releasable bindings- though in the end the consumers did benefit with safer bindings. I also wonder if ski shops did not select Earl's binding design because of political reasons...which I think is too bad because I liked Earl's design and feel designs should not necessarily be linked to politics.

Earl's snowboard binding was a monstrosity- bulky and extremely high, inelegant, and also its physical dimensions were simply silly. If he had done a version 3.0... he might have had something... but the fact that it was not simultaneous release scared everyone off. I would talk to him at SIA from time to time to try and get him to improve his design... but I think he was making more from consulting on lawsuits as an "Expert" than he was from improving on his design- thus he had little motivation. I would always get a store owner coming up to me after talking to Earl explaining the lawsuit issues and telling me to stay away... but again.. I feel all designs should stand on their own merit and not be linked to politics.

________

Buy vaporizers

[NateW]

The two-socket idea sounds pretty cool. Keeping it consistent while the board flexes seems tricky, but solvable. You could have the rear binding on a track like some of the higher-end ski bindings, so the distance between bindings would always be constant while the board flexes.

The brake problem doesn't seem like a showstopper to me at all. There's a couple ways you could do it, especially if the crash release mechanism is separate from the toe-lever/intec release mechanism. You could have the brake levers fold out sideways, so when the binding crash-releases you'd have four metal rods/plates sticking straight down on either side of the bindings. Runaways shouldn't be a problem.

I feel safe enough with TDs and Cateks that I'm not clamoring for a release mechanism, but if a reliable one was invented, I'd certainly use it. Fear of forward falls is the thing that keeps me from getting a 190 or longer board - less leverage this way. Simultaneous release is an absolute requirement though. any system that doesn't have it would be worse than non-releasing bindings.

[snowghost]

To: John Gilmour. Like you, I have been around a long time. In the late 1980's and early 1990's speed racing in windsurfing and snowboarding was a big thing. We would be at Hood in the morning, and racing on the river in the afternoon. Since I was already 35+, "speed" was the only area where I could still compete with the "kids" that trained with "Cross M" and Rob Roy.

Everyone who set the world speed record in snowboarding did it on releasible bindings.

We could not get the releasable bindings that the Euros used in the late 1980's, so we created our own version out of ski bindings. (See pic). The over-hang was not important because p-tex is always faster than steel, and we rode a flat board, but we rode these (garage bindings) to over 70 mph in 1989 on a "pre-consumer" release version of the original PJ. The bindings released sequentially, with a Nano-second delay, like the plate bindings from the "Hot Dog" - "Wayne Wong " skier days, and never failed. I miss Bob Barci. Best regards - "ghost"

[rwmaron]

Live and board in Minnesota; no recent avalanches, haven't seen enough powder to bury a log in years and just what is a 'tree well'?

I've had one foot release from a plate binding and feel way more secure now with those big Intec pins firmly anchoring me to my F2s.

thanks anyways!

[JK moscraciun]

To: John Gilmour. Like you, I have been around a long time. In the late 1980's and early 1990's speed racing in windsurfing and snowboarding was a big thing. We would be at Hood in the morning, and racing on the river in the afternoon. Since I was already 35+, "speed" was the only area where I could still compete with the "kids" that trained with "Cross M" and Rob Roy.

Everyone who set the world speed record in snowboarding did it on releasible bindings.

We could not get the releasable bindings that the Euros used in the late 1980's, so we created our own version out of ski bindings. (See pic). The over-hang was not important because p-tex is always faster than steel, and we rode a flat board, but we rode these (garage bindings) to over 70 mph in 1989 on a "pre-consumer" release version of the original PJ. The bindings released sequentially, with a Nano-second delay, like the plate bindings from the "Hot Dog" - "Wayne Wong " skier days, and never failed. I miss Bob Barci. Best regards - "ghost"

I think this is currently the w speed record

201.9 km/h (126.4m.p.h) Les Arcs, France.1999

http://www.worldsfastestsnowboarder.com/

on a POGO board with nonreleasible bindings

.

[Arc2Arc]

I am facinated by this kinda stuff. Great idea to start some open dialog about an interesting subject. It seems to me that a question that we might need to be asking/disscussing is how to improve on the occurance of upper body injuries in snowboarding? Are there a set of common forces that come into play in falls that result in wrist/sholder injuries, and can they be tied to the binding systems. The ussa (dose that still exist) used to have a guy who went around and gave a great presentation on ACL injuries and the common factors contributing to them. The upward adn diagonal releasable toe piece binding i think was developed as a result. The presentation to ski school directors was that if you ever found yourself in a backward twisting fall to stay down and not try to recover because the act of trying to recover back to the standing position was where the injury occured with the knee flexed and sightly twisted. See Donna Weinbrecks fall in training for Lillihammer games 9 mo prior to games. (I belive this is an acurate account and I think she became part of the study.)

If a releasable binding were developed for snowboards I think it could incorperate a brake system similar to the ski brake if the bindings were mounted on a plate type riser system and the break could fold up and under the toe/ heel of the boot like a modern ski brake.

If the forces that result in wrist injuries always happen when a particular set of forces occurs to the snowboard ie. the plate binding relative to the edges. Could that fraction of a second release action result in less impact on the wrist??

Could a din type system be incorperated with different plates for different levels of riders and different styles of riding. like a recreational, vs race.

The simplest and most common thing I can say is edges are not good at moving perpindicular to their longitudinal side. When a down hill edge bites in, they bite in and stop in a hurry. If that force could result in an outward fall instead of a downward one perhaps that would reduce the injuries.

[www.oldsnowboards.com]

I wonder if Brian's tib/fib would have broken at SES if he had a releasable binding.

I have not kept up with the BOL thread's lately, however, I have wondered the same. Numerous issues to consider for sure. I have always defended the non-release bindings largely due to the lack of any safe viable alternative. Broken bones, surgery, recovery, loss of riding, financial impact is nothing to take lightly. I still can't get over how fast it can happen. Life was good , then , bang! Everything changes in an instant. I am equally impressed by the fine people that have come out in support. THANK YOU!!

Bryan

I will hobble out to the vault and see if I can provide some photos of Earl's binding for this thread.

[snowghost]

To Bryan: I have the Miller plates and soft boot bindings here at the house. If you can't find yours, I can pull mine out and take pics. Hope you are healing. - "ghost"

[mackDan]

I've thought about this, and I've been asked about it, and my answer is exactly what Fin started with.

The lower body and the board make a pretty strong triangle (the strongest basic shape for structures). Now the knees and the hips introduce some weak joints that could fail in twisting motions, but in general I believe that the boots solidly mounted to the board are the best defense against injury.

With that said, I injured my rear (left) knee skiing 20 years ago. I have re-injured it (twisting) twice while snowboarding. But those were not induced by the binding and only one might have been averted by a release binding, maybe.

I have also come completely out of the rear binding of Burton race plates. Moving fast at the bottom of the run (backside at N*), rain/wet snow at the bottom of the hill, I went out right slightly onto un-skied flat snow and must have suctioned the board into the snow. The board stopped and I pounded my head in the ground about 15 feet forward. I got lucky, as the board, on my front foot, came with me, only a headache (Stars!). It could have been much worse twisting the front leg on the exit or spinning and twisting the knee up.

And that's the fall that I think would be seen more if there were release-able bindings, cause one binding failed to release at the same time (nearly the same time). Get some snow, ice, other FOD into the mechanism, not enough lubrication, bad adjustment all recipes for massive knee and leg injuries.

This is a really good example of

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it",

and

KISS (keep it simple stupid).