Free-pivot Nordic touring??

[connyro]

You can get good kick with them as long as your boots/bellows/soles allow for some good flex so you can get the ball of the foot involved in the stride.

Good stuff as always Connyro- but I am not following you...how can you get your ball of foot involved when you are in free-pivot mode?

LC: The sole/bellows of the boot bends/flexes when you kick in tour mode or at least my setup does.

[connyro]

Descending in the 'tour' mode is a bit tricky to get used to but really forces you to center your balance! Breaking trail and climbing is good with the free pivot but again, I found I had to adjust my technique in order to keep the ski tips where I wanted them.

Why would you downhill ski in the "tour" mode? Isn't the "tour" mode free-pivot?

Well, generally you would not but sometimes I forget to switch to ski mode before taking off down. Sometimes while touring, you may come across small hills that are just not worth stopping and switching modes for a couple turns.

[lilcliffy]

You can get good kick with them as long as your boots/bellows/soles allow for some good flex so you can get the ball of the foot involved in the stride.

Good stuff as always Connyro- but I am not following you...how can you get your ball of foot involved when you are in free-pivot mode?

LC: The sole/bellows of the boot bends/flexes when you kick in tour mode or at least my setup does.

OK- cool-I apologize for my ignorance about these bindings. So- in tour/free-pivot mode, the boot is free to flex?

That clears it up to me...I was under the impression that in tour/free-pivot mode, the base of the binding becomes rigid, with the only point of movement being at the pivot joint (i.e. like an AT binding).

The fact that the free-pivot tele bindings still allow the boot to flex in tour mode certainly makes it more efficient at K&G than an AT boot/binding.

I understand what you mean about it being somewhere in between walking and true K&G.

I also understand what you meant about how strange it is to K&G without the binding resistance (i.e. like K&G with NNN-BC and no bumper). The control of the kick would come purely from the boot flex and the ball of your foot (i.e. nothing from the binding). If you over extend your stride, there is no binding resistance to transfer your motion into a downward "kick".


Would be cool if Voile designed a tour mode for a free-pivot tele binding, that had some resistance for K&G. Would be awesome to have 3 modes:
1) downhill (full resistance)
2) climb (free pivot)
3) tour (partial resistance for K&G)

[lilcliffy]

Descending in the 'tour' mode is a bit tricky to get used to but really forces you to center your balance! Breaking trail and climbing is good with the free pivot but again, I found I had to adjust my technique in order to keep the ski tips where I wanted them.

Why would you downhill ski in the "tour" mode? Isn't the "tour" mode free-pivot?

Well, generally you would not but sometimes I forget to switch to ski mode before taking off down. Sometimes while touring, you may come across small hills that are just not worth stopping and switching modes for a couple turns.

Cool- I get it.

Again- it would be cool if the free-pivot tele binding had a third, K&G mode that had similar resistance to a 3-pin. Then you could keep it in K&G mode most of the time, even for those small and moderate slopes. Switch to free-pivot for steep climbs, switch to full resistance for more extreme donwhills.

[dnt_upton]

OK- cool-I apologize for my ignorance about these bindings. So- in tour/free-pivot mode, the boot is free to flex?

That clears it up to me...I was under the impression that in tour/free-pivot mode, the base of the binding becomes rigid, with the only point of movement being at the pivot joint (i.e. like an AT binding).

-------

Would be cool if Voile designed a tour mode for a free-pivot tele binding, that had some resistance for K&G. Would be awesome to have 3 modes:
1) downhill (full resistance)
2) climb (free pivot)
3) tour (partial resistance for K&G)

In tour mode, the toe box is freed, so the pivot is like AT plate binding, but it's different because the cables themselves will rotate with a flexing toe / rising heel. So, your toes are able to flex, just as they can in ski mode. However, because there's resistance holding the toe box down in ski mode, you can get a more powerful kick and glide movement. It's not impossible in tour mode, but you'll get some movement in the toe box (shorten your stride, and you may minimize that).

Hold a Switchback binding up and flip the switch back and forth. You'll see some jaws come down and retract back forth. The jaws clamp a bar under the ball of the foot and then release that ball so the toe box can move. It's quite simple and effective. I'm not sure that a middle option would be that good. You could add a tour mode to the Hardwire, so the three pins would serve the function you suggest (and you'd have to lock the heel cable behind the heel riser), but that would also introduce pins into the equation which can be annoying (snow buildup, etc. that Connyro mentioned) and make the Hardwire heavier.

[lilcliffy]

This is great stuff!

It is a pain in the ass to have to put on and take off a cable for short downhill runs. The terrain and snow conditions out my back door sound very similar to the conditions you are skiing in Connyro. If I were to go out looking for sweet steep downhill runs (and there are lots of them really)- the ability to quickly switch between "tour" and "downhill" would be great.

Within the next few years my wife and I are considering some new equipment for skiing in the mountains of NB and QC. This setup would be focused on climbing and downhill performance. (We would of course continue our K&G long-distance tours on lighter equipment) I have been considering a free-pivot tele binding for tours with a climbing/turning focus...but have no experience with it.

The free-pivot has always confused me- from a K&G perspective.

My only real experience with a free-pivot binding is AT. Although I would never question the climbing and downhill performance of AT (I have skied down some slopes in the past on AT, that I don't know if I will ever have the skills to telemark on!)- a K&G touring technology, AT is NOT.

AT enthusiasts, that claim AT outperforms Nordic, as a touring setup, drive me nuts!

[MikeK]

The second guy, lets call him tour, seems to love the free pivot for trail breaking. This seems to be his primary use for these. My guess is it provides him the same advantage that you get while climbing, the ski tip floats right to the top of the surface upon glide. He's using light boots, Alaska 75mm to be precise, so he doesn't have much resistance there. I'm assuming all the resistance he gets is from the snow. I'm not sure how often he locks them down, but I'm guessing for any serious descent he is, although that's not his primary focus in skiing.

This is what doesn't make any sense to me.

When you are climbing a steep slope, the mechanical advantages of a free-picot are clear (both range of motion and tip-rise).

But K&G touring? The resistance of a traditional Nordic binding compresses the camber underfoot. On the flats, IMO/IME, whether the tip rises out of the pow is based on ski design- not binding resistance. In other words, a ski with rocker in the tip is going to have early tip rise on the flats- a stiff-tipped xcountry ski is not. A xcountry ski with traditional camber under foot, and rocker in the tip (e.g. S-Bounds, E-109, Madshus XCDs, etc.), is going to have early tip rise, regardless of binding resistance.

Even a trad backcountry-xcountry ski with very stiff-double camber (e.g Glittertind) has early tip rise during the glide phase, because of its soft tip. If one finds a ski like the Glitt sinking to the bottom, this is because it is narrow- not because of binding resistance.

When K&G touring on the flats- the resistance in a trad Nordic binding is only going to drive the tip down, if the tip is stiff and has no rocker.

Perhaps- your guy, "Tour", is using the first-generation BC-110 with the stiff tip? The new one is supposedly rockered in the tip.

All I know is that I get plenty of early-tip rise- in K&G touring- with a trad Nordic binding, as long as the ski is wide enough, and the tip is soft/rockered.

The only true experience I have with a free-pivot binding is touring in AT- which I find to be a form of walking at best- nothing like true Nordic K&G.

I have lost the bumper off NNN-BC bindings before (making them "free-pivot")- that is a weird experience. Not only can I not get an efficient "kick"- I also feel like my trailing leg is constantly falling as the ball of my foot, and toes flex beyond the point of no return. I always take a couple of extra bumpers on a long tour on NNN-BC.

I think he's using the newest version of the Rossis as far as I can tell from the graphics. I'm not sure about their stiffness characteristics as I've never skied either the old or the new.

I see what you are saying about the release on your kick. I could see how you could compress the camber if you kept weight on the ball of your foot, but then once you really extended you'd lose any kind of force to move you forward.

Here, my guess is he isn't extending that much, or just dealing with the loss of force there. You could still get a reasonable lunge keeping the ball of the foot flat for as long as possible before you extend and lose any resistance. It's probably more of a shuffle than a lunge.

Personally, having some time with the NNN BC Manuals with good boots I would never go back to anything else for touring. I've been so happy with them I'd question using pins on anything less than 60-65 mm underfoot. You just don't get enough turning benefit to make it worth it IMO. On wider skis, sure, pins are still needed to give the leverage. Still if it's primarily a touring ski, I think you could probably push that a little bit.

[Johnny]

To me NNN BC is A LOT more powerful than pins on the downhill... It offers much more stability, leverage and control. Lateral stiffness is way better than pins... I just don't understand pinners saying they can't ski it. It's much easier. I can't believe I didn't switch before... The only bad thing is that they are about 60g heavier... ; )

Hey, I just sold 3 pairs of Voile 3pc and bought 4 pairs of NNNBC...

Speaking of NNNBC, do you guys use different rubber plugs with different density? Is there such a thing to play with resistance?

[MikeK]

The only bad thing is that they are about 60g heavier... ; )

Did you measure the difference in your boots to see if 60g disappeared from the NNN BC Alaska?

Hey, I just sold 3 pairs of Voile 3pc and bought 4 pairs of NNNBC...

So are you going to scientifically prove to us what is the limit for using those bindings?

Speaking of NNNBC, do you guys use different rubber plugs with different density? Is there such a thing to play with resistance?

I've read about them, but I've never seen them.

[connyro]

This is great stuff!

It is a pain in the ass to have to put on and take off a cable for short downhill runs. The terrain and snow conditions out my back door sound very similar to the conditions you are skiing in Connyro. If I were to go out looking for sweet steep downhill runs (and there are lots of them really)- the ability to quickly switch between "tour" and "downhill" would be great.

Within the next few years my wife and I are considering some new equipment for skiing in the mountains of NB and QC. This setup would be focused on climbing and downhill performance. (We would of course continue our K&G long-distance tours on lighter equipment) I have been considering a free-pivot tele binding for tours with a climbing/turning focus...but have no experience with it.

The free-pivot has always confused me- from a K&G perspective.

My only real experience with a free-pivot binding is AT. Although I would never question the climbing and downhill performance of AT (I have skied down some slopes in the past on AT, that I don't know if I will ever have the skills to telemark on!)- a K&G touring technology, AT is NOT.

AT enthusiasts, that claim AT outperforms Nordic, as a touring setup, drive me nuts!

Free-pivot works well for doing laps up and down and are OK for K+G if you need to tour out to said up and down. But there's still the fiddle-factor of switching between modes. If you are interested in free-pivot bindings, I would urge you to demo them though because they are really weird when touring if you are used to the resistance from 3-pins or even NNN. Another option that I've been looking long and hard at is the TeleBulldog Spike 3-pin. (http://www.shop.burntmtn.com/SPIKE-3-pin-007.htm) It seems to be much heavier-duty than regular Voile 3-pins (6 hole mounting pattern) and a rather large toe box that some say gives much more resistance than a regular 3-pin. I would like to try them with Excursion-class boots. But I wonder how they tour...anyone have info on these bindings?