When it comes to colors, life can be boring in the U.S., but check out what was front and center at the Dynafit booth!
After a fun wander through Munich with Manfred Barthel (“father” of the tech binding) we located my hotel on a sidestreet. After parking in the middle of the road a few times with our flashers on, I was impressed with how polite the Munich drivers are. Funny, the only guys who knew where the hotel was were a couple of cops. Makes you wonder. Just joking. Though we did get directions from some friendly guys in a police car.
Purported to be “classic Bavarian” this is indeed a nice place, in what to me looks like a fun part of Munich — though walking exploration will have to be undertaken to prove that out. They do serve prosecco and wurst for breakfast, so perhaps that’s proof of authenticity?
In any case, Manfred delivered me to ISPO in one piece (thanks Manfred!), so I had a fun afternoon checking out a few things I know are important to you, dear readers.
First things first. The recalled Scarpa F1 Evo has a fix, but the new versions won’t be available until next November. I’m not allowed to publish a photo hence the redacted image above. I can share the details verbally. As predicted, they’ll have a manually locking version of the boot. It looked super solid, with a locking machine similar to the Scarpa freeride boots such as Freedom SL and the new for next season monster freeride shoe Freedom RS (won ISPO award and does look tasty). They’ll also sell an F1 Evo version with the self actuating Tronic system, only having added thickness in the plate the pushes down on the binding pins and actuates the vertical slider rod. The Scarpa guys told me most problems with Tronic happen because of mal-adjusted bindings. Whatever the case, the thicker plate will prevent the itself from sliding down in front of the pins if the ski is aggressively decambered, which results in the cuff unlocking as well as the boot getting jammed in the binding.
Still on the “recall trail” I shouted yippe kyeee and headed over to Marker for a looksee. Their Kingpin fix indeed looks good. I’ve got a meeting with these guys to get more of their story, but for now the insider word is they indeed only sold about 3,000 bindings, and they’re possibly not all defective. Nonetheless, I’m still of the opinion that all of them should have the toe units replaced. Perhaps Marker can disabuse me of that opinion once we meet. Stay tuned.
I told the guys a Marker we call this an “Angelina” even though these guys had not yet reached for their cameras. It was a pretty hilarious scene. You could hear the snapping bindings from two booths away. At times there were 12 people all snapping at once. My take on all this binding stuff is that this year was one of refinement in the binding arena. Orders being taken now for autumn retail will tell the story, and what sells out of those orders next winter is going to be a fascinating apex of this ‘interesting time in ski bindings.’
There was also an ‘Angelina’ going on at the Dynafit booth, as the European touring majority were focusing on that little green machine known as the TLT Superlight 2.0
La Sportiva does not mess around either when it comes to colors.
Tradition is Dynafit holds their rock and roll party the first evening. After last year’s beer riot it looked like they’d been made to tone it down a bit by having the band and booze inside the booth instead of in the hallway. A bit crowded, but interesting seeing the band with TLT6 boots as a prop.
Ear to the ground: Industry insiders are tired of tech binding problems in first retail releases.
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.
