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What new thoughts and ideas emerge when you bring together in conversation makers of hybrid ski bindings and AT bindings and snowboard bindings and splitboard bindings? At Blister Summit 2025, I led a conversation along these lines with Will Ritter of Spark R&D; Royal White, from Burton; Andy Merriman, from ATK Bindings; and Cobey Nash, from the very new company, AlpenFlow Design. Enjoy, this is a great one.
RELATED LINKS:
Get Yourself Covered: BLISTER+
TOPICS & TIMES:
Exploring the Evolution of Bindings (3:11)
Customer Feedback in Product Development (5:47)
Design Principles of New Companies (08:50)
The Importance of User Experience (12:13)
Evolution of ATK Bindings (15:00)
The Future of Snowboard Bindings (18:02)
Challenges in Binding Production (21:02)
User Errors / Misuse of Bindings (23:58)
Understanding Binding Mechanics & Maintenance (34:03)
The Importance of Familiarity with Gear (37:10)
The Shift towards Lightweight Ski Gear (41:18)
Ethical Considerations in Product Development (46:54)
Bindings Compatibility (50:00)
The Cost of Backcountry Bindings Explained (54:03)
The Future of Binding Standards in Skiing (57:15)
CHECK OUT OUR OTHER PODCASTS (click each to learn more):
I have to admit that the AlpenFlow 89 confuses me a bit. I have FreeRaiders, Tectons, and Shifts on various skis, and I’ve ridden the Kingpin and Rotation.
I’ve come away from those experiences firmly convinced that side-to-side toe elasticity as found in the Tecton and Shift (and now the HyFree which I haven’t tried) provides a significant improvement in descending performance, especially when edging on firm snow. The AlpenFlow 89 appears to have toe rotation but not elasticity (similar to, well, the Rotation), and historically that doesn’t provide the same smoothness. It honestly strikes me as a (probably significantly) improved Kingpin, which would have been a market killer pre-Tecton/Shift but doesn’t seem as competitive now.
What am I missing here?
On the snowboard side, Burton’s approach of collaborating with other players to establish a compelling standard seems similar to what the alpine players ultimately did with ISO 23233/Gripwalk.
Apparently what I’m missing is that it _does_ have elasticity (a claimed 40 mm, which would considerably exceed the HyFree, Shift, and Tecton). I can’t immediately see how they managed that in combination with rotation from the website renderings, but it sounds really exciting.
As someone who was trained as a mechanical engineer I thought that Cobey’s answer about development process and testing ethics at 47:00 was fantastic. That’s exactly what we’re trained to do.
Another aspect to the cost question around 55:00 is the sheer mechanical complexity of modern AT bindings. While they consist of less material than alpine designs they typically have more parts that interact in more complex ways, and that drives design cost and manufacturing cost up. The number of critical (cam, bearing) surfaces is a key driver of machine time, because those are precision surfaces that have to be machined using shallow cuts (less material removed per cut) and slower feedrates (each cut takes longer).