We’ve got a pair of Fritschi Vipec here, destined for… Our plan, hit the new binding with the full WildSnow treatment. I’ll make this an ongoing blog post. Today, a link for our own mounting template as well as a few more thoughts about the binding.
Vipec with our new paper template. Home mounting is next.
Interestingly, our Vipecs don’t have the “green” indicator dot that Fritschi is said to now be including on the outside of the adjustable binding pin, to indicate it’s been thread locked at the factory. Ours do check out with visible Loctite as well as apparently being adjusted to fit most tech fittings (I tested with a few boots we have lying around.) Rubber band keeps things from coming apart before the mount.
Main question here is how do you determine distance between toe and heel units without the OEM mounting jig or templates? Simple, dry mount the toe unit first in position so boot falls on the ski where you want it. Next, be sure heel unit is in downhill mode, adjust fore/aft position midway on the mounting plate, set heel unit on ski behind boot and slide pins into boot heel so you approximate where the heel unit will end up when mounted. Mark where a pair of screw holes goes then match up with the paper template. I’ll update this post with some mounting photos to make it all clear.
Meanwhile, if you need a Vipec mounting template you can download ours here (be sure to match up with your bindings to make sure it’s printed to scale as well as not being off due to mistakes on my part, as this is a beta version of the template).
Also, we have quite a few Vipc blog posts with a ton of information.
Weight of retail Vipec we have here in our hot little hands:
Total single binding with brake and screws, 595 grams.
Toe unit with screws, 254 grams.
Heel with brake and screws, 340 grams.
Heel with screws and without brake, 268 grams.
Brake, 71 grams.
Toe screws, 14 grams.
Heel screws, 8 grams.
(Slight discrepancies in total weight are due to rounding of single grams by the scale.)
WildSnow.com publisher emeritus and founder Lou (Louis Dawson) has a 50+ years career in climbing, backcountry skiing and ski mountaineering. He was the first person in history to ski down all 54 Colorado 14,000-foot peaks, has authored numerous books about about backcountry skiing, and has skied from the summit of Denali in Alaska, North America’s highest mountain.
