Let me first off give a huge thanks to those of you who have respect for and faith in a product and a company that is not trying to follow the status quo. Our only intention with the binding project is to bring a product to the market that offers a skier something new. A choice in release technology, the mounting system, and ski binding design overall. For the record, ski binding release technology at its root has not changed in over 20 years. Lateral release at the toe, vertical release at the heel.
Knee injuries among skiers has gone up since the late 70's while skier participation numbers have declined in total. Further, we've been drilling holes in skis since the 19th century to attach our feet. Snowsports bastard child snowboarding figured out years ago that its stronger, affords the rider more options, allows the rider the freedom to own more than one board w/o having more than one set of bindings, and is just plain smarter to have inserts than wood screws.
I'm the first to admit that our product isn't the best it will ever be right now. Of course we'll learn over the years how to make it better, lighter, stronger, cheaper, but for now at least we're trying.
For the record, our binding doesn't fall apart when you look at it. To the contrary, the numbers to date are quite impressive. With over 4,000 pairs of bindings out ther right now, we've seen less than 200 individual bindings reported with a breakage/warranty issue. That means we have less than 2% failure rate right now. I'm sure some people have had problems with their binding stripping out...that's what over 40% of our returns are right now. If that's the case, we know why that's happening and we're already taking steps to improve upon it. Additionally, we're working with DuPont (world's leader in plastics) to ensure that our molding parameters and actual plastic mix are the absolute best they can be.
With regards to height, I seem to recall a few years back baseless snowboard bindings were all the rage. Every shredder that was worth anything claimed that they needed to feel the snow under their feet. Where are baseless bindings now? They've been replaced with bindings with built in rise, toe and heel ramps, all for more powerful riding and leverage. Of course there's a limit to how high you can go, but a little lift isn't bad.
With regards to weight, if you'd never skied and I handed you a ski boot you'd laugh at me and call me crazy for suggesting you ski in a such an archaic, heavy, piece of equipment. However, as we all know, the weight is under your foot and you don't feel it. Same with our binding. The real issue regarding freestyle ski peformance is swing weight. Luckily, Line builds skis with full length macro-block wood cores. That means we have no plastic tip fill in the ends of skis to slow down your spins. Instead you have ultra light wood.
All in all, I'm totally stoked with the way the first year of the binding has been going. What I'm struggling with is why people on this website have such a hard time accepting that the current bindings are the market are the end-all diety of ski binding design. I wonder how some of you would have reacted eight years ago when people started making skis with a turned up tail on the end for going backwards. Perhaps you would have said skis are fine how they are, these companies making twin tips are crazy...or maybe not.
Peace,
Jordan Judd
Product & Team Manager
Line Skis
