Tristan — WildSnow Reader Rides

Tristan T. (10 years old) and his dad showed up at the WildSnow mod shop after a productive internet shopping tour.

The snowmobile remains at WildSnow HQ, but Tristan was digging his first real ski touring setup.

We pulled one of the torsional release springs out of the Dynafit Comfort heel and set it to about 5 on the scale imprinted on the binding housing. We dialed the vertical (upward) release down to between 4 & 5 on the scale and made sure the heel gap was set to a “loose” 6 mm, resulting in the vertical release force being noticeably lower than with a tighter gap. Release checks with Tristan twisting out of the binding on the floor of the shop verified that it was all within range for Tristan’s size (70 lbs, 57 inches tall). Doing the ‘carpet’ testing had the added advantage of practice getting in and out of the binding.

The trick with this is to know you can’t really get a normal tech binding set to below a release value of around 3. Thus, they don’t work kids smaller than Tristan, who can probably be skiing at release value of approximately 4, or perhaps 5 if he’s aggressive. Indeed, once he gains some weight I recommend his dad puts the second spring back into the heel unit lateral release and do another test and tune.

The first test of a system like this should be for the kid to do some aggressive snowplowing and fooling around on moderate terrain at slow speeds, to see if he tends to come out of the bindings. Due to being conservative, it’s likely you’ll set them too low, thus increasing the likelihood of accidental release.

Tristan’s boots are a pair of Scarpa Velvet 22.5 acquired at deep discount from Sierra Trading Post. The Dynafit Comfort bindings came via Ebay. Skis were easy to acquire Volkl Mantra 128, with a pair of reconfigured pre-owned skins.