Hellbents mounted wrong.... again

hmmm thats a toughy.

Yeah they were banging on about screw problems and how theer was a part missing from the bindings. My French wasn't good enough to fully understand so I asked them to get the required part and mount them up. Came back three days laetr and found they had stuck on the plates.

Ive ridden them quite a bit with the bindings as they are and loved them. Im just not sure whether to get the plates removed before this season.

Its obviously not ideal, but if you've ridden them and love them, then I don't see any reason to put a 3rd set of holes in your skis.

i agree with twig i thought you hadnt skied them yet.

why don't you get shorter hardwear and take off the riser plates?

this would still add a new set of holes.

This, plus helicoils in the existing holes. If the first mount was done well, this shouldn't be a problem.

And before you decide to freak out on me, I've skied numerous skis after removing bindings and then putting them back into the same (helicoiled) holes.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

I'll have to have a look at the skis themselves to determine whether the plate is mounted with seperate holes to the bindings.

Im not sure how much benefit there would be in taking the plates out.

Is it just that generally people dont bother buying bindings with a riser for powder skis or is it better to have a lower centre of mass or something?

Also does anyone have an experience of sking the same ski with and without plates?

You don't even need helicoils, just put them back in the same holes. I did this on some original Line Skogens (1999 or 2000, so absolutely horrible quality) and they held fine.

Lifter plates were developed by racers. The idea is a lever--the higher you are away from the fulcrum, the more torque you can generate. It's a simple mechanical advantage. If you are leaning over and need to push your skis down or edge as hard as you can to carve around a gate, then it makes a lot of sense. FIS actually limits the height of such risers so that the playing field is equal.

So what does this mean for freestyle skiing and ripping pow? Every wobble of your legs is accentuated when you land. If things are a little sketchy, the increased leverage might steer you a little more out of track when trying to put down that rodeo 5 or bouncing out of the end of chute through chop.

Also, it means that you are set just a little higher on the ski, which does affect your balance. Not much, but a little. like to stay as low to my skis as possible, hence no plates on my binders (all STH 16s or 916s at this point) and bindings with a lower stack height than, say, a Jester.

As far as I know, the PX or FKS are some of the lowest to the ski, but they don't have adjustable toepiece height, which I need for my worn bootsoles.

With the Hellbents, you lose quite a bit of mechanical advantage because the edge of the ski is removed from your boot because of the width that you want to shred pow. Plates will mitigate this distance and might give you more control on hardpack.

Overall, I'd say that your decision is based on how much you care about 1 cm of height. This will determine the time and money you want to put in to changing it.

your not going to notice any difference

Thanks for all advice. Especially ON3PO for the concise explanation. I reckon I will leave it as I can't really see 1cm making a huge difference to my pow riding.

Nah man, just take out the plates, get shorter screws and you're totally good to go, doesn't need any helicoils or anything else.

Wow, I forgot that NS can actually be useful for real ski gear advice.