Intec... to step in or not?

[Mr.E]

But you still drive your car...

[Guest Tim Tuthill]

Ben: You are right on!!! How about the kids on a trike with full pads and helmet. Good god people, lets push the envelope and see where our nose gets hit???

[John K]

Good enough....... I will order a new set of heels (faulty or not) since mine are on year 4. I will keep my eyes open for the bomber heels with titanium pins and I will enjoy carving hard and not think about the "what ifs".

JK

[Gecko]

Manufacture of aftermarket heels would be great however I think that the only way it would be cost effective would be if Bomber and Catek did it jointly. Though I may be wrong I don't think there are enough orders of Intec heels to warrent one company funding the whole project...and we know that F2 isn't gonna change anything like that it wouldn't be cost effective for them either

[Steve Dold]

I think the only problem with the intec system is the tremendous leverage that is trying to shear the pins and break the plastic. I'm guessing the original Intec binding system had more flex in the bindings and didn't put as much stress on the heel and pins.

Is there anything wrong with developing a binding or heel with a slight lateral flex to limit the shear loads on the heel pins? Not sloppy flex, nothing as flexy as a Race Plate - just enough to allow some movement instead of the heel failing.

I realize that during a smooth carve the load on the pins would be the same with flex or without, but I'm thinking high instantaneous loads are what are most likely to break the heels, like when setting the edge, landing a jump, crashing, etc.

[Gecko]

there is a Japanese Step-in that is built the exact opposite of intec (like the fast system only all metal). The heels are solid...no little plastic moving parts...It could be built better than this but the system is more inherently stong than Intec just in design

[Jack M]

Is there anything wrong with developing a binding or heel with a slight lateral flex to limit the shear loads on the heel pins? Not sloppy flex, nothing as flexy as a Race Plate - just enough to allow some movement instead of the heel failing.

Umm, TD2? Soft E-rings?

[ARCrider]

winter weight ~200lbs

I've fractured Burton raceplates, fractured the heel ledge on raichle 600s.

and at SES05 I managed to break a Catek toe bail at the highlands and a heel bail at Copper.

extremely lucky with all these incidents. no injuries

I'm on TD2 step ins now. thanks Fin!

[Steve Dold]

Umm, TD2? Soft E-rings?

I bet they help, but their range of motion is pretty small. I wouldn't say the soft rings add much lateral flex.

If I flex my boot really hard to the side, something will break, probably a heel pin, the heel, the screws or the boot. All I'm saying is that I'd rather have something bend than break. Maybe there isn't a good way to design that into the binding, but it's worth a look.

It's interesting to look at the back of the boot and see how close together the left and right heel pins are, and imagine the leverage and shear loads involved. They do hold together pretty good, considering all that.

[bobdea]

a whole bunch of flex to the binding, even with the red rings the TD2 is allot gushier than a TD1

kind of like tightening the springs on you boots you still have the same range its just on a softer setting its easier to get it fully loaded

I think that your boot (and how well it fits the intec system) could have allot to do with heels blowing out.

the UPZ boots scare me a little in that respect because the toe does not play nice with most bindings, won't even fit in my intec TD1s due to the toe box being so wide.

the deeluxe stuff pairs up well with intec but the pads under the toe do compress and this makes for some slop same as the burton stuff does.

the UPZ has no pads so that is not a issue but may increase on stress on the heel, I am no engineer though.

[pm_wizard]

Gecko,

You might be thinking of Mark Fawcett... he's a bit bigger that Jasey Jay...

John

[Steve Dold]

Bob, the yellow e-rings do feel different, but they add softer flex to the same range of motion, which isn't what I'm suggesting. I'm suggesting a stiff flex with a larger range of motion, not a soft flex with minimal motion, which is what the Yellow E-ring is.

Since the heel is so rigid, the toe bail interface has little effect on the shear force on the pins. The toe bail in the intec stepin system mostly keeps the toe from lifting. It's so much more flexy than the heel, that it wouldn't do much unless the heel had failed.

[NateW]

I just want parts that are stronger than my bones. If I fall hard enough to break my body, then so be it. That's my fault, I'll take that risk. But if the equiment breaks before I do, the equiment isn't strong enough. Maybe that sounds morbid but that's how I see it. The equipment has to be stronger than me. Getting hurt because somebody else fcked up just ain't fair. Plus I worry far more about the kinds of injuries that come from a broken binding than about the kind that come from just plain falling. If both feet stay attached, odds of blowing knee or ankle are pretty low. If one foot comes out... yuck, I hate to even think about it.

I had a design in my head long ago for a two-piece binding where the upper part (like the top half of a TD1 or TD2) would be attached to the lower part with a hinge - run a single strong pin from my heel to my toe, and use it to attach the top and bottom of the binding with maybe 15 degrees of tilt in either direction, cushioned with elastomer. That would give lateral flex, with the boot providing fore/aft flex. I think it would be kinda tall though, and heavy. But it's an idea. From back when I was riding softies and wanted hard boots but was afraid of give up too much lateral flexibility. But frankly I think the boots have plenty of flex already, I see no need to add more, even with TD1s and hard bumpers there's still plenty of movement IMO.

FWIW, I weigh 185-190ish and I ride hard enough to have broken a lot of bindings (soft and hard) before I found Bombers (and Cateks).

[CarvCanada]

Side note - what would a safer standard bail set-up, one that is fairly easy to close and only takes a swift motion from one hand to close, or setting the bails tight, taking 2 hands and levering with your palms to close the bail (this flexes the boot a bit)?

Thanks for opinions. Mine is set-up so that it takes both hands, but isn't too hard to lever with your palm to shut them, it feels really solid. It does flex the boot (mainly downwards, compressing the rubber pads) a bit but I'm sure this is good, keeping the toeclips pushing down on the top of the boot.

I ask since I notice most racers, when unclipping, they just need to slap their toeclips with 2 fingers and they're off. This is odd, since I would really think that with bails that aren't really pushing down on the boot, any real bump would compress the bottom rubber pads of the boot and leave maybe enough room for the bails to disengage. Tight is good , no!?

I'm guessing most standard bail releases come from twisting force along two axes : rotating your foot (in the axis that would change your binding angles) while simultaneously pulling up on the heel and pushing down on the toe (or pushing on heel and pulling up on toeside)