Just like many skiers out there when I first saw these I thought perfect! I can run alpine bindings on the resort, keep my feet as close to the ski as possible and swap my dukes on slack or AT days. Or if I'm poor, run my 1 pair of bindings on all my skis! Also seen these used for multiple spots, say center mount and -4.
What I ordered: 250 inserts, mounting kit, multiple sets of screws for dukes, fks, axials.
What I got: 246 Inserts, mounting kit, multiple sets of screws -1 screw for dukes and screws that would later take 4+ hours to make them work for the other bindings (more on that later)
Lets start with the good:
- Decreases the chance of ripping a piece out (never had this problem in the first place but if your regularly ripping out heel pieces this is good for you or your shop isn't mounting you shit right)
- Fast easy binding swaps for changing either bindings or positions, and for tuning your skis.
- Lighter alpine bindings for resort days, and being able to use the same ski for AT days.
Now the fuck-around that was suppose to be easy installation and ready to use screws. NAWT! Living in Canada I've come to accept that it's going to take stupid amounts of time to ship stuff here so I'll leave the 3-4 week shipping out of it.
Inserts: No big deal on missing 4 but if I needed exactly 250 I would be pissed, that's another 3-4 weeks waiting. Inserts are inserts kind of hard to mess that up.
Installing the inserts: The mounting kit they sent me, waste of material and money except for the tap, crucial part. But why in the hell would you have a rubber o-ring on the insert tool. You're working with epoxy and after putting the first few in it's full of it and sticks to the insert that you want in the ski, and it's too long without it. So cue the trades experience. Ran to the hardware store bought a 10-32 bolt (I think), some nuts and put them in that way. (locking the nuts to the insert so you can screw it in then unlocking the nuts so you can thread the bolt out while keeping the insert in)
Screws: I didn't even have to take them out of the bag to realize that the sets for my axials and fks would not work and 1 screw for my dukes came as a blank (no threads). SO to get the RIGHT screws I had to ship them back THEN they would ship me the right ones. So that means 3-4 weeks back to the states, and 3-4 weeks back here + another duty charge. So my rage had 6 or more weeks to subside until they made it back to my door. Again without even opening the bag to the screws I kicked my door and threw them against the wall, ripped the bong and left it to another day. That other day came and went something like this:
- Cutting the screws to length, and still getting them to thread into the inserts
- Grinding down the screw heads to get them to fit in the bindings
- Lots of cursing at machine screws to get them just right.
Now this being said I'm lucky enough to have access to a bench grinder, tools and dremel or grinder, good luck to the fellow who doesn't. Another bummer was the phillips type head, be cautious because these strip easy. For multiple hundreds of dollars I expected an allen head or something a lot more durable. Also the heads aren't countersink ones like the stock bindings screws, they also have nothing in a way to 'lock' the screw in (its a smooth surface unlike other bindings screws have tiny ridges that reduce the chance of it coming loose+glue). I use lock-tite to combat this, another annoyance because I have to keep some with me at all times.
Conclusion: *Wants money back*
But seriously I planned to do this to several pairs of skis, after spending all that time on 1 pair I've said fuck-it to the others for the time being. I don't know about you guys but I don't pay someone to send me product that doesn't fit together and spend more of my own time and money to make it work. If I were to do this again I'd go to a local specialty bolt store and have everything ordered and made up from there for probably the same price if not cheaper, hell even if it was more expensive at least when I paid for it I would know what I was getting.
Seems like they spent all their money only on the inserts and on for part that actually holds you the the ski, the screws, they cheaped out hard.
Who else on here has these in their skis? What bindings are you using with them? and do/did your screws fit no problems?
