Report From SIA--
Day 2
The Official
Alpinization of AT Has Begun
Wednesday, January 24,
2007, Las Vegas, Nevada-- For
some time now we have had a pretty good hunch that the rapid
growth in AT (alpine touring) binding sales has been fuelled
primarily by "side-country" skiers, and so the beginning
of the alpinization of AT gear, as represented by Marker's new
"The Duke," comes as no big surprise. The Duke features
DIN settings up to DIN 16, and although Marker has not announced
the official production model weight ( 8 or 9 lbs maybe?), one
look and it's clear that The Duke is aimed primarily at those
who are far more interested in getting their steeze on out the
gate than those who want to get into actual backcountry skiing,
and/or ski mountaineering.
We think Marker will sell
boatloads of these things.
Longtime AT fans will likely
debate whether The Duke and current AT trends are a step forward
or backward for AT skiing, but to us there is exquisite irony
in The Duke's debut here at SIA, where it is sharing the innovation
spotlight this year with a New Telemark Norm binding system that
is close to half the weight, while offering the kind of features
AT
advocates have
been touting for years.
|
 |
 |
|
Above: The Duke in uphill mode,
and latched down for the descent (3rd photo). |
|
More...
We met with Rottefella's lead NTN designer,
the project manager and the president of the company today. They
showed us a second color NTN binding they plan to offer this
fall and explained that the plastic pieces will be molded out
of either clear or black plastic, rather than the white used
in the prototypes in the photos we have published on Telemarktips.
We also learned that the plastic piece which was breaking and
subsequently replaced with a metal part, was the part shown below.
The really good news is that this part was, until recently, made
out of metal, meaning that the change from slightly lighter weight
plastic back to metal represents a return to a fully tested
and proven design, rather than a new solution. |
 |
|
We also saw Crispi's EVO NTN boot and grabbed
a shot of the Scarpa Terminator X's Dynafit fitting on the heel
for those of you who noticed the lack of same on an earlier photo
of Scarpa's NTN offering. |
 |
The NTN endeavor was once known by its
participating partners as "Project 2000," in recognition
of the group's intention to have it on the market by that year.
Tomorrow we will ski the NTN binding at Alta, Utah, after writing
and reporting on the project for somewhere in the neighborhood
of 7 years. We are excited to finally have this opportunity and
look forward to sharing the experience with our site visitors.
Stay tuned for more. |
|