Ever thought about skiing safety, and done an informal poll of what injuries you or your friends have had? If so, you may have noticed that wearing helmets on your knees might be more important than having one on your head. Indeed, it’s been amusing (and sad) to watch the ski gear industry pretty much ignore skiing’s biggest safety problem as they’ve exerted vast energy to making sure everyone gets on the helmet bandwagon. Sure, helmets are fine, but the big problem is knee injuries. Specifically ACL tears.
Enter KneeBinding. This Vermont company has been developing an ACL injury preventing binding for several years, and were recently awarded a patent for their innovation. With patent in hand, they’re planning on having the binding in shops for the 08/09 season. I’ll still use a helmet most of the time, but frankly I’m more interested in having a binding that protects my knees. Thus, this could be good.
Check out the KneeBinding website. Perhaps someday this type of safety release technology will be available in an AT binding. And can we put a Dynafit on their test machine (see the vids on their website)? Since Dynafits release torsionally at the heel, one has to wonder if they might provide a modicum of knee protection similar to what the KneeBinding is said to give.
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.
