If you think this looks good, you should have seen the game of toy soldiers we ended up playing. Race 165, Guide, Yak, and J'Envoie Du Gros.
In honor of the French boys slaving away at their CNC machines.
Unpackaging these beauties was a treat! The CNC work on each binding is incredible. They would look just as good on a pair of skis as they would around your lady’s neck. Flavor Flav would approve.
– J’Envoie Du Gros for skis 105mm to 120mm
– Yak for skis 90mm to 105mm
– Guide for skis up to 90mm
– Race series for skis under 90mm.
Say what you will about plastic, there is something about machined aluminum that inspires confidence. Yeah, we know polymers can often do the same thing — sometimes stronger and with less weight. But still. Fun to see the venerable tech binding, hailing from 1982 and three decades later still showing it.
Plum Race 165 - One single wedge level, 2 different climbing positions. The plate has an adjustability of 20mm. Wedge level remains 36mm in all positions. 168 grams by Wildsnow.com
Plum Guide: Release range: DIN 5.5 to 12, combination of steel, aluminum, and polyvinyl, 30mm adjustment = 4 to 5 boot sizes. Mounting pattern is 100% identical to Dynafit Speed and Vertical series. Wildsnow.com verfied 340 grams.
Plum Yak: Numbered and limited to 300 pairs, DIN 5.5-12 Heel pad to reduce the boot rolling play and the stress on the pins. Wildsnow.com verified 476 grams.
Plum J'Envoie Du Gros: Tech bindings designed to be compatible with big mountain skis. DIN 5.5-12 Heel pad to reduce the boot rolling play and the stress on the pins. The plates on these bindings are massive! aka bad ass according to Plum. Wildsnow.com verified 502 grams.
View the whole line at Plum website (google it, the site loads so slow we don’t prefer to link to it). We’re interested in watching how this whole tech binding situation hashes out in the future. On the one hand, you’ve got Plum and probably more than a dozen other binding makers who are essentially making reworked versions of the basic 20+ year old tech binding design, without any worry about TUV certifications and other such nonsense. Then you’ve got major players placing their cards in sometimes funky design features primarily designed to get those elusive acronym stamps that mean little to nothing but might be attractive to mainstream retailers and less informed consumers. Which will prevail? The PLUM patrol or the TUV special forces? A truce, perhaps?
(Note: Ensure to Loctite each machine screw when installing the Yak and J’Envoie Du Gros binding on their respective baseplates.)
Options to buy Plum in the US are fairly limited but our friends at Bentgate Mountaineering have a few pairs.
Joseph Risi was raised on pasta and meatballs in the “backwoods” of Long Island before seeking higher education in the mountains of Vermont. Always looking for adventure, building treehouses, working too many odd jobs around the world he now lives in the Aspen area of Colorado.
