Allright, looks like someone needs to step in and clear this all up.
For next season, the Axial2 line from Rossignol, and the Px line from Look, have been redesigned. Its all for the better guys, and here’s why:
Lets start with the toepiece, which seems to be the least of everyone’s concerns. The new toepiece has been beefened up to reinforce the high stress areas. The actual design of the toepiece is still the same though. 45mm of elastic travel, and din settings of 3.5-12 and 5-14 you will still see in this toepiece. So summing up the toepiece: BURLIER, but same same as previous models.
Now we move to the heelpiece. Major shit has been done here, and its all for the better. The new heelpiece is loaded with features, and once I explain why, you will all be stoked to get a set. First, you will notice that yes indeed the turntable has been eliminated, but, there are reasons why. With the previous binding heelpiece, forward pressure was always an issue. The binding was designed way back when 220cm skis were in use, and no one was butting onto rails. So, with the new heelpiece, you will see an increase of forward pressure around 30%. Whats that mean you may ask yourself? Well, with an increase of forward pressure, you will have a much better boot/binding interface, which allows for a setup that will be more responsive, and have less prerelease. Now, at this point, your prolly like “fuck, there just clamps, hows this going to make any sort of a difference.� Well, with the redesigned heel, it will actually livin up the entire ski, which will snap you out of the turn better, and actually, give you a little bit more ollie factor.
So, lets move onto another bonus point about the binding. The screw pattern has been lengthed up, which resultes in way less pull out, something all us jibbers saw with the previous bindings.
NOW, here is what all of the jibbers in the world should be concerned about. YES there is no turntable, but the ELASTIC TRAVEL in the binding has stayed the same. Elastic Travel, what the fuck is that? Well, elastic travel in the heel is the amount the boot can pull up, and still pop back in. If there were no elastic travel in a binding, as soon as you hit a decent sized bump cruzing down the trail, you would pop out. So our heelpiece has 25mm of elastic travel, the most in the industry. THAT’S WHY OUR BINDING IS HANDS DOWN THE BEST OUT THERE FOR JIBBING. You land switch, your boot needs to be able to pull out a few mm’s, and with the axial bindings having 25mm to work with, you will prerelease less.
OK, shit just gets better, and here is the best part. Pricing is much more aggressive for next season. Your going to see Scratch Composite 120’s (3.5-12 Din) for about $169 bucks (that’s about 80 bucks less then this season) and you will see Scratch Titanium 140s (5-14 din) for about $249 bucks. Who’s going to bitch about that?
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S.M.I.T.H