Okay so 12/12/08 was my first day out of the 2008-2009 season and it felt incredible. I will say this about Boston Mills, I have ridden opening day a few times but have never been so happy with the snow as I was this day. Granted it was all man made but it was nice’n fast all the while. Back to the bindings though. I had my binding’s DIN set by Spruce when I bought them. I rode them all day with only one strange release. this occurred on the landing of the rail which caused me to stop, standing straight up with one board on it’s tip with the other foot planted in the ground and the other still on the other board. I don’t think that I clicked in to the binding when I had put it back on after the last time that I took a hard fall. I rode the whole day with less than five releases and when they did release, I found that I only noticed it because I was laying on the ground looking at my foot saying, “Wow, these SOBs are amazing!” These are possibly the smoothest releasing bindings I have ever seen. Not even my Rossignol 100 FDX, which are the exact same toe piece with a slightly different heel piece design were this smooth.
I am still absolutely amazed at how these preformed on the slopes. I had no problem getting on edge or jumping because of the weight or height. I don’t know why but these bindings just made me feel like I could do anything, my knowledge of my experience on the other hand told me that I couldn’t. I only had two problems and both can be attributed to user error. You know about the strange release so I won’t go into that again. The other problem was that the screws came loose when I was riding. A problem that can be resolved easily with a small amount of Loctite. Thank you Jeff and Jack at Spruce for making such a great product. Final thing I can say is that everybody needs to be looking at this binding system if they are in the weight range because they are absolutely amazing.
I have not ridden these in powder so that is why I don’t have a rating for that catagory or for all mountain.
Rider – Dennis Evans – Intermediate Skiboarder
