Tweet
Hi all!
After getting into skiboarding in 2017, I have started to look more and more at the offpiste and the last years I have also been very tempted to try touring with my skiboards. This year I finally saved up enough to be able to afford a touring setup. It will be a different kind of setup than mostly seen here, so I thought it would be nice to share the journey with you!
The idea
After doing a lot of searching on the forums, I found a few different ways to use skiboards for touring. I was specifically looking for a release setup, so at first I was thinking of getting frame bindings and trying to let those work with skiboards. However, as these are very heavy and have a very high stack height, this seemed not ideal to me. It would have the advantage of not having to buy new boots, but since my old boots could either be comfortable or have a lot of control if I buckled them tighter (not both unfortunately), I decided to pull the trigger and buy some new atomic hawx prime touring boots with pin inserts. After doing some further research on the forum, I found some topics about using HDPE risers on skiboards, most notably this project from Bad Wolf. After learning some more about bindings (how elasticity works and such), I decided that this could be a good option to mount some touring bindings on. Up next was the decision which bindings to use. As I don't live close to any mountains (the Netherlands is very flat, has a few days of snow per year, but nothing skiable in any way), I decided that I do not need the lightest bindings, as I won't have so many days on snow where I will do big trips. In my case it will mostly be lift-assited touring: take the lift to get up to a nice starting spot and go on tours from there. As I also would like to learn drop some cliffs and have a pretty agressive/hard riding skiboard style, I thought it would also be a good idea to have a binding that has maximum safety (release when it should, stay on when I'm skiboarding hard). This comes at the expense of weight of course, but that is worth it in my opinion.
Gear choices
I have had a minor injury on my knee already, which luckily was not bad enough to do permanent damage, so I would like to keep them that way
. After these considerations, I ended up with the choice between the Dynafit Rotation or the Fritschi Tecton. Both would be good for this way of touring and skiboarding, but I had heard that the Fritschi is a bit more user-friendly, and the elasticity and lateral release at the toe seemed a bit safer than the Dynafit for my use, so I decided to get some Tectons.
Then along came the problem of getting some ski crampons and also a touring skiboard. As I only had a set of DLP's, it would also be nice to have a pair of more powder oriented skiboards, so I was looking at the Playmakers or Spliffs (other brands than RVL8 were a bit out my budget, as they are very expensive to get in Europe). However, since the brakes of the Tectons are only 120 in size (in reality they are a bit wider though, so I don't think it will be problematic) and I could not get wide crampons for the Tecton, I chose to go with the Spliffs. I think they will be very good in all the conditions we encounter in the Alps, and since I'm not that heavy (74 kg at the time of writing, 163 lbs for the Americans
), I don't think the extra float will be that much needed. The DLP's are already quite good in steep and deep powder, so I think the Spliffs will be superb at not-so-steep powder for me. After making this decision, I found some G3 Ion/Zed crampons, that could be mounted as an aftermarket crampon. You can fix these directly to a ski (or a riser in this case), and they come in a 130 mm wide size, which is perfect for the Spliff.
Getting some skins was the last hurdle, but after some more research, I found out about the Contour Hybrid skins, which also come in a size that is length trimmable and 135mm wide. They seemed perfect for the Spliffs, so after getting those, my gear was complete!
Mounting
Since I had never worked with HDPE before, and I still had some Tyrolia Attack Demo bindings lying around from a previous pair of Eman Uprise skiboards (my first skiboards, with inserts for these bindings, unfortunately I snapped the boards...). I also thought about mounting them also to a pair of HDPE sheets, so that I could use them as loaners. Since I now have two pairs of skiboards, might as well try to get some other people into the sport! I already have a skiing buddy who would very much like to try them, so they will be of good use. I started off with making a drawing of the pattern, and quickly found out that the binding rails would interfere with the 4x10 pattern. As I use this pattern regularly for setback on the DLP's in powdery conditions (and I will be on the Spliffs as well), I decided to move the rails a bit forwards and backwards. This would decrease the ability for very small ski boots to fit in the bindings (I lose the first two options), but that's just a tradeoff I have to make. For these bindings, I did not have the correct mounting screws and the big hardware store also did not have screws that were so short, yet thick enough to hold a binding. Therefore, I chose to make an insert in the bottom of the riser and just use a rvs metal bolt with a half-high nut for every binding screw. Using a dremel, I could create the notch required to keep the bolt. This worked beautifully.
Some pictures of the final result and during the mounting are below. It doesn't look the prettiest, but I think it'll work well.
After writing this, I am going to mount the Tectons to the HDPE riser. These of course come with the screws that you normally should use while mounting them on skis, so I won't need to make insets there. I will post soon about the mounting process and I might do some test on my local indoor slope (the only permanent snow we have over here...). Of course I will also keep this topic updated during my first real test in the Alps in february. To be continued...
After getting into skiboarding in 2017, I have started to look more and more at the offpiste and the last years I have also been very tempted to try touring with my skiboards. This year I finally saved up enough to be able to afford a touring setup. It will be a different kind of setup than mostly seen here, so I thought it would be nice to share the journey with you!
The idea
After doing a lot of searching on the forums, I found a few different ways to use skiboards for touring. I was specifically looking for a release setup, so at first I was thinking of getting frame bindings and trying to let those work with skiboards. However, as these are very heavy and have a very high stack height, this seemed not ideal to me. It would have the advantage of not having to buy new boots, but since my old boots could either be comfortable or have a lot of control if I buckled them tighter (not both unfortunately), I decided to pull the trigger and buy some new atomic hawx prime touring boots with pin inserts. After doing some further research on the forum, I found some topics about using HDPE risers on skiboards, most notably this project from Bad Wolf. After learning some more about bindings (how elasticity works and such), I decided that this could be a good option to mount some touring bindings on. Up next was the decision which bindings to use. As I don't live close to any mountains (the Netherlands is very flat, has a few days of snow per year, but nothing skiable in any way), I decided that I do not need the lightest bindings, as I won't have so many days on snow where I will do big trips. In my case it will mostly be lift-assited touring: take the lift to get up to a nice starting spot and go on tours from there. As I also would like to learn drop some cliffs and have a pretty agressive/hard riding skiboard style, I thought it would also be a good idea to have a binding that has maximum safety (release when it should, stay on when I'm skiboarding hard). This comes at the expense of weight of course, but that is worth it in my opinion.
Gear choices
I have had a minor injury on my knee already, which luckily was not bad enough to do permanent damage, so I would like to keep them that way
. After these considerations, I ended up with the choice between the Dynafit Rotation or the Fritschi Tecton. Both would be good for this way of touring and skiboarding, but I had heard that the Fritschi is a bit more user-friendly, and the elasticity and lateral release at the toe seemed a bit safer than the Dynafit for my use, so I decided to get some Tectons.Then along came the problem of getting some ski crampons and also a touring skiboard. As I only had a set of DLP's, it would also be nice to have a pair of more powder oriented skiboards, so I was looking at the Playmakers or Spliffs (other brands than RVL8 were a bit out my budget, as they are very expensive to get in Europe). However, since the brakes of the Tectons are only 120 in size (in reality they are a bit wider though, so I don't think it will be problematic) and I could not get wide crampons for the Tecton, I chose to go with the Spliffs. I think they will be very good in all the conditions we encounter in the Alps, and since I'm not that heavy (74 kg at the time of writing, 163 lbs for the Americans
), I don't think the extra float will be that much needed. The DLP's are already quite good in steep and deep powder, so I think the Spliffs will be superb at not-so-steep powder for me. After making this decision, I found some G3 Ion/Zed crampons, that could be mounted as an aftermarket crampon. You can fix these directly to a ski (or a riser in this case), and they come in a 130 mm wide size, which is perfect for the Spliff.Getting some skins was the last hurdle, but after some more research, I found out about the Contour Hybrid skins, which also come in a size that is length trimmable and 135mm wide. They seemed perfect for the Spliffs, so after getting those, my gear was complete!
Mounting
Since I had never worked with HDPE before, and I still had some Tyrolia Attack Demo bindings lying around from a previous pair of Eman Uprise skiboards (my first skiboards, with inserts for these bindings, unfortunately I snapped the boards...). I also thought about mounting them also to a pair of HDPE sheets, so that I could use them as loaners. Since I now have two pairs of skiboards, might as well try to get some other people into the sport! I already have a skiing buddy who would very much like to try them, so they will be of good use. I started off with making a drawing of the pattern, and quickly found out that the binding rails would interfere with the 4x10 pattern. As I use this pattern regularly for setback on the DLP's in powdery conditions (and I will be on the Spliffs as well), I decided to move the rails a bit forwards and backwards. This would decrease the ability for very small ski boots to fit in the bindings (I lose the first two options), but that's just a tradeoff I have to make. For these bindings, I did not have the correct mounting screws and the big hardware store also did not have screws that were so short, yet thick enough to hold a binding. Therefore, I chose to make an insert in the bottom of the riser and just use a rvs metal bolt with a half-high nut for every binding screw. Using a dremel, I could create the notch required to keep the bolt. This worked beautifully.
Some pictures of the final result and during the mounting are below. It doesn't look the prettiest, but I think it'll work well.
After writing this, I am going to mount the Tectons to the HDPE riser. These of course come with the screws that you normally should use while mounting them on skis, so I won't need to make insets there. I will post soon about the mounting process and I might do some test on my local indoor slope (the only permanent snow we have over here...). Of course I will also keep this topic updated during my first real test in the Alps in february. To be continued...
. Normally I pop a bit more from the tails with my DLP's, but with the Spliffs they just simply flexed away, so I had a nice hip landing. Getting used to the touring binding system was a bit tricky in the beginning, but the last switch was already quite a bit faster than the first one. Walking went super smooth. I had not put on the crampon receptors yet, but the slope is really mellow (11 degrees on average, a bit more incline at the top), so those weren't necessary. This assembly was also a bit easier than the previous one, because I didn't need to cut out holes on the bottom to accomodate the nuts for the bolts. Screwing in the HDPE I pre-drilled with a small drill (less diameter than you would do for direct drilling, can't remember exactly which one, but somewhere between 2-3 mm). This was to prevent the screw from choosing its own direction and place where to go into the HDPE. This setup uses a 10mm HDPE sheet, which is a bit on the thinner side. While adjusting the bindings or getting the heel pieces into touring mode, I can slightly bend the HDPE. Time will tell how it will hold, but it might be a bit safer to go with just a few mm thicker. Below are some pictures of the setup (complete with crampons and skins) and a small video of me walking up the indoor hill. In the last picture you see the very tight margins between the toe piece and the 4x10 mounting option. This was a very marginal fit, but I can use this option now, so that is a big win (and yes, that fits).
Comment