Originally Posted by
MnO_____
What annoys me with the Shift are all the small issues that could have been so easily fixed if they just came out with a generation 2. Shift is impressive in terms of the overall engineering of the actual shift mechanism, but it is maybe the worst touring bidning I have ever tried when it comes to the little simple things. All engineering work seems to have gone into the much, much more complicated ski/walk shift and the simple details did not get the proper attention. The only opening for Marker to get a place in my quiver is if it can adress some of those annoying details.
The PT needs to
* Just have a normal working adjustable AFD and not the worst crap dito I have ever seen. The only reason for Shift beeing so embarrassingly bad in terms of the AFD must be some kind of patents blocking the way. Especially in alpine mode. I mean come on Salomon, what were you thinking? A penalty kick for Marker to make this better. Even if they try hard and put up a 1 million dollar reward to the employee that can come up with the most stupid AFD idea, they would probably still make a better AFD than Salomon.
* Not have a brake in walk mode that you can push down by really lightly step on it if you have just a little bit of snow stuffed under the stepping plate, while that stepping plate beeing designed so there is no chance what so ever to remove any snow. Also SUPER easy to improve this over the Shift. But Marker for sure fucked the break retention up in the Alpinist, so I have no high hopes in this regard.
* Not have a heel riser that is designed by a 7 year old that still uses diapers. Just give me some f-n kind of click, light lock or whatever that makes the riser not flip down as soon as you do some tracking in fresh snow. I'll even take magnets. If not, all they need to do is to make a heel riser that flips just a little bit longer so it doesn´t fall over.
Thats the easy points.
Then the more challenging stuff:
* Not break in normal use
* Keep me in as good as a Jester or Griffon. I personally find the Griffons to be the best 13 DIN binding out there on hardpack. If Marker can transfer that toe elasticity to the PT, I am interested. If they use the mechanics of the Squire/Tour however, I am not going near it. I cannot ski the Shifts without holding back slightly in pressured short turns on icy hardpack. Definately room for improvement in this regard.
* Have power transfer that makes it feel like a bombproof alpine binding. If they use the pins as the connector, it might work.
* Make a M-Works version of the PT that is 200 grams lighter.
IF Marker ticks all these boxes, I can live with the extra fiddle of a removable alpine toe piece.