This fall, I bought a beautiful pair of Spruce 125 LE boards (now Spruce Raptor).
These will be mainly backcountry boards -- carving resorts up on my snowboard is too much fun to give up -- and my goal is going the distance, more than powering turns.
I needed a riser for my G3 Onyx bindings that preserves as much board flex as possible (like official Spruce risers), while staying low-profile for maximum crampon bite (like Bill's riser). Since the tray riser was experimental and not commercially available, I made my own.
I could choose between a (taller) offset riser with an air gap, or a (thinner) on-the-board powder plate. As the simplest iteration, I went with a 3/16" aluminum plate (6061, certified 40,000 psi yield strength) on top of a 1/4" polyurethane spacer (70A durometer). Both parts are 2.5" wide, and just long enough for me (~20").
I mounted the binding by drilling and tapping the Al plate with 5.3mm alpine screw tap (from SlideWright). The screws are the same length that came with the binding, and are perfect length to grip into the PU spacer without reaching the board topsheet. This way, only the six M6 screws in the middle are fixed to the board, and the spacer can slide as the board flexes.
The board flexes; so does the riser.
I also hollowed out the plastic spacer a bit, to reduce weight:
The crampon has plenty of bite depth (and I love the G3 crampon's ease of use!)
I'll keep the brakes on at first, since I'll be doing a lot of testing inbounds. Also, because taking them off exposes the heel unit too much, and I don't have replacement covers yet.
If the 3/16" plate fails (bends instead of flexing, etc.), I have a backup plan to replace it with a much beefier (and low-flex) milled-out aluminum C-channel -- much like Bill's.
For now, though, these risers are stylin'. We'll see how badly I mangle them after testing
-Andrei
[Edited 2014/01/30 -- I remembered how to attach photos inline, d'oh]
These will be mainly backcountry boards -- carving resorts up on my snowboard is too much fun to give up -- and my goal is going the distance, more than powering turns.
I needed a riser for my G3 Onyx bindings that preserves as much board flex as possible (like official Spruce risers), while staying low-profile for maximum crampon bite (like Bill's riser). Since the tray riser was experimental and not commercially available, I made my own.
I could choose between a (taller) offset riser with an air gap, or a (thinner) on-the-board powder plate. As the simplest iteration, I went with a 3/16" aluminum plate (6061, certified 40,000 psi yield strength) on top of a 1/4" polyurethane spacer (70A durometer). Both parts are 2.5" wide, and just long enough for me (~20").
I mounted the binding by drilling and tapping the Al plate with 5.3mm alpine screw tap (from SlideWright). The screws are the same length that came with the binding, and are perfect length to grip into the PU spacer without reaching the board topsheet. This way, only the six M6 screws in the middle are fixed to the board, and the spacer can slide as the board flexes.
The board flexes; so does the riser.
I also hollowed out the plastic spacer a bit, to reduce weight:
The crampon has plenty of bite depth (and I love the G3 crampon's ease of use!)
I'll keep the brakes on at first, since I'll be doing a lot of testing inbounds. Also, because taking them off exposes the heel unit too much, and I don't have replacement covers yet.
If the 3/16" plate fails (bends instead of flexing, etc.), I have a backup plan to replace it with a much beefier (and low-flex) milled-out aluminum C-channel -- much like Bill's.
For now, though, these risers are stylin'. We'll see how badly I mangle them after testing
-Andrei
[Edited 2014/01/30 -- I remembered how to attach photos inline, d'oh]
Comment