Author Topic: Raising the Front Binding.  (Read 2270 times)

ToddW

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Re: Raising the Front Binding.
« Reply #45 on: March 28, 2012, 09:08:43 pm »
Svend,

Someone mentioned a 2mm temporary shim under the toepiece.  That exceeds the DIN tolerance (toe height 19mm +/-1mm) for boots and could cause troubles.

warning: long-winded response

Since you asked, my fore-aft alignment has always been done by highly trained alignment specialists.  I've gotten to the point where I can say in the shop what lateral alignment will end up right after on-snow tests as the result of getting aligned in several boots.  But I don't have that feel for ramp and forward lean and probably won't ever.  It's something of a black art.

In my current Heads, I have a 4mm external toe lift and a very small heel lift.  The heel lift is because of the way my foot fits inside the boot during big fore-aft recentering movements, not because of limited dorsiflexion.  It's a very tiny (and recent) tweak to maintain full contact when I flex deeply or just wind up "back there."  To give you an idea how small, it was originally a few plies from a paper napkin grabbed from the Black Mountain Lodge at A-Basin.

By contrast, the same alignment process wound up putting 1.5mm toe lifts inside my old Nordicas and spoilers behind the cuffs.  The difference is due to quirks of anatomy and boot design.  (I also had a 0.5* and 0.25* change in lateral alignment switching to the Heads.  Quirky interaction of boot design and anatomy again.)

Without the toe lift, I get the feeling that my feet want to slide down to where my toes are.  Since I'm in tight, foamed plug boots no actual sliding happens but the sensation still occurs.  Imagine standing facing down a handicap access ramp in loose sneakers.  Up to some pitch, you wouldn't notice much.  And then there would be a huge difference between trying to take weight on the ball of your foot, under the arch, (or under the heel.) It loosely coincides with the onset of the sliding feeling.
 
In boots, the "natural response" to too much ramp is to either plantar flex (baaad stuff) or to seek the back seat, which doesn't do much to alter that sensation, i.e. it doesn't fix a thing and just makes matters worse.

My alignment guy suspected I needed the toe lift based on my previous alignment and on how I stood in the boots on flat ground.  We took out short demo skis (160cm) to accentuate fore-aft sensitivity.  They had the same bindings as my main ski, but shimmed 4mm under the toe binding.  We skied together for about 3 hours from flat to steepish (1st week of November; limited terrain), with and without shimmed bindings, and with a variety of turn sizes before finalizing the fore-aft alignment.

My body shape (short legs, long torso, extra weight up top) has a lot to do with needing the gas pedal.  Even so, if I had bindings with a low delta/"ramp angle" I might not need this fix.  But my beloved Supershapes by default come with Freeflex 14 which have a very aggressive nominal 7 degree ramp angle (the real racing freeflex bindings are 5).  To limit variability, the other bindings in my quiver have 5 degrees of ramp.  Switching skis midday, this 2 degrees is a very noticeable difference.  The powerrail 11 bindings that came with my Icon TT 80s have a nominal 3 degree ramp angle.  One day I may try them out of curiosity, but for now I switched to powerrail 12 with 5 degrees to limit fore-aft variability.

« Last Edit: March 28, 2012, 11:27:35 pm by ToddW »