New Dynafit-compatible binding from Trab

[timmaio]

Any speculation as to if Scarpa will make more boots with compatible fittings? It seems surprising that they didn't make the F1 Evo compatible.

[trogdortheburninator]

I don't think there is a straightforward way to make the f1 autolock mode work with the tr2 heel. A freedom sl on the other hand would be awesome!

[trogdortheburninator]

More updates: In addition to more generic powder skiing and ski touring, 2 more noteworthy data points:
(1) Skied from I70 to Butler Gulch TH via 5 descents. Basically classic ski touring terrain. Biggest complaint would be the raised flat mode when on rolling downhill terrain. By no means a deal breaker though. Everything else about the binding continues to impress. I initially thought the brakes were an awkward after thought, and I hadnt even deployed them yet with the soft snow. Turns out, they are actually simple yet effective, and add very little time to the transition. At skin to ski transition, I lock the heel, which removes tension from the brake holder. Brake holder then releases easily as I am going to pull my skin. At ski to skin transition, just stash the brake as you apply the skin. Bit clunkier that direction, but really no big deal. I think I used the brakes for 4/5 descents on the day. Will probably use them more in the future.

(2) First day of the year riding lifts = first day of TR2s on lifts. Bindings were super confidence inspiring skiing variable and slightly firm conditions at loveland yesterday. I initialy set out with some caution, but soon found myself skiing as if I were on my dukes. No releases or undesirable behavior. Great responsiveness. Small drops to firm landings. Some bumps. Easy in and out. Skis were a bit light for the job, but bindings made up for what may have otherwise been a pretty cautious resort set-up (voile vector).

[powtario]

Any others willing to chime in?

[cipherpunks]

I can only say that as soon as they'll fix the TR2 heel to be able to do proper boot-heel-flat-on-the-ski touring mode (a.k.a. "no heel lift", and add higher heel riser, I'll buy a couple of pairs.
No sooner than at least heel-flat-on-the-ski is possible.

Also Scarpa should change their Spirit RS boots to be compatible with both TR2 and Dynafits too, like 2015 La Sportiva boots are. This is really easy to do, but Scarpa management is known to be stubborn a.k.a stupid, which removes the chance of me buying TR2 (in the same way as I can't buy TX Comp w/o tech fittings - no Meidjo/TTS compatibility - bye bye Scarpa). After all, who wants to deliberately lock him/herself into single vendor-dependent binding option? Not me.

[VI]

More updates:

Thanks for your experiences on the TR2. I'm wondering if you are still running the TR2's on any of your setups? I ran them for the first time this season... and have been very happy. If you can shed some light on longer-term reliability, please do, as I feel motivated to remount another ski to it for next season.

Cheers

[LKM_skis]

I want to say I had seen these a long time ago but can't find them now.

Anyone know if there's a kit to modify a pair of Dynafit-compatible boots to have the TR2 heel insert? My Spirit RS's are on their last legs and I'm on the fence about the Spectre's.

[LC]

I want to say I had seen these a long time ago but can't find them now.

Anyone know if there's a kit to modify a pair of Dynafit-compatible boots to have the TR2 heel insert? My Spirit RS's are on their last legs and I'm on the fence about the Spectre's.

Can't answer this directly but I did see an Italian guy skiing modified Dobermann plugs with TR2s a couple of winters ago. Didn't speak to him, but this surely means that the heel kit exists.

[kid-kapow]

there a certified techs who can do it, but I would be very surprised if such a kit was made available after market from a liability point of view as the chance of some guy messing the modification up seems pretty high.

[LKM_skis]

there a certified techs who can do it, but I would be very surprised if such a kit was made available after market from a liability point of view as the chance of some guy messing the modification up seems pretty high.

Yeah I understand that completely. I reread some early articles and it sounded like sportiva had been doing authorized retrofits before they went and made their boots compatible. Now they are but scarpa's out so we're back to a one vendor situation.

Anyone in here on synchro's? I'm being tempted, feel like they would be a good fit to the TR2

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[VI]

I want to say I had seen these a long time ago but can't find them now.

Anyone know if there's a kit to modify a pair of Dynafit-compatible boots to have the TR2 heel insert? My Spirit RS's are on their last legs and I'm on the fence about the Spectre's.

There is an official Ski Trab heel adapter for the TR-2. Photo of my boots below:



Ski Trab will only sell the adapters/inserts to shops that have been trained to install them, all of which are in Europe. The easiest way I found being in North America was to send my gear to the Ski Trab factory/HQ in Italy, who will do the mod in house. E-mail adm@skitrab.com to start the process - I was provided with a FedEx label on their account, and turnaround was a few days. I think the whole process cost me somewhere between $100 and $150. It seems they use a jig and hot tools, because the result looks like it could be original to the boot.

I've been planning on doing a full write-up of my experience running Dynafit Vulcans on the TR-2 (overwhelmingly positive), including release testing I've done. I can relate to your desire to keep running them. Downhill-style lateral toe release, lighter than the Tecton or Shift, with much more metal and far less plastic. Shift-on-the-fly heel with a single pole press. Love em!

Saw an Italian ski flick, with skiers running Dalbello's/Nordica's/etc on the TR-2 slamming it in the park, then touring it in the mountains... led me down the rabbit hole... a few e-mails later I was getting set up and I haven't looked back.

[LKM_skis]

There is an official Ski Trab heel adapter for the TR-2. Photo of my boots below:



Ski Trab will only sell the adapters/inserts to shops that have been trained to install them, all of which are in Europe. The easiest way I found being in North America was to send my gear to the Ski Trab factory/HQ in Italy, who will do the mod in house. E-mail adm@skitrab.com to start the process - I was provided with a FedEx label on their account, and turnaround was a few days. I think the whole process cost me somewhere between $100 and $150. It seems they use a jig and hot tools, because the result looks like it could be original to the boot.

I've been planning on doing a full write-up of my experience running Dynafit Vulcans on the TR-2 (overwhelmingly positive), including release testing I've done. I can relate to your desire to keep running them. Downhill-style lateral toe release, lighter than the Tecton or Shift, with much more metal and far less plastic. Shift-on-the-fly heel with a single pole press. Love em!

Saw an Italian ski flick, with skiers running Dalbello's/Nordica's/etc on the TR-2 slamming it in the park, then touring it in the mountains... led me down the rabbit hole... a few e-mails later I was getting set up and I haven't looked back.

Thanks! This is exactly what I was looking for, the insert looks a little different but makes sense. I'll probably get one last season out of these but this opens up a huge range of possibilities. Should've emailed trab direct, they've been pretty helpful in the past.

One question though - did they modify the toe inserts also? Does it really matter? I'd be concerned about the release being different with "standard" Dynafit toe inserts.

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[JRainey]

I felt it was was going to be possible to do that.

It’s really great actually. If they can do it, other manufactures can start playing with different pin positions.

Shifts and tectons are great, but the 300g alpine binding is the future. It just needs the right interface.

[LKM_skis]

Thanks for your experiences on the TR2. I'm wondering if you are still running the TR2's on any of your setups? I ran them for the first time this season... and have been very happy. If you can shed some light on longer-term reliability, please do, as I feel motivated to remount another ski to it for next season.

Cheers

FWIW I bought Jason's old setup - two pairs of TR2 bindings and Spirit RSs. One set of bindings and the old Spirits have another nearly 2 seasons of 80/20 inbounds with no issues. I think they had 2+ seasons on them by them time I bought them and looked good. The Spirits are clapped out, cabrio hinges are almost dead, but the bindings are doing great. Some wear to the plastic levers where the poles go and very minor surface rust around the pins but the bindings themselves feel great. Second mount. Will be trying inserts for the third.

I'm looking for a new pair of 50/50 boots (trying to increase my BC percentage) and bumped this thread in response. Will most likely be getting a non-compatible pair of boots for the fit and sending them to Bormio for the mod.
€120 for the boot modification (€40) and heel swap (€80) to work with the wider heel piece that keeps pin-compatibility. Waiting for demo days next weekend to make the decision on boots.
Hope that helps, lemme know if you want pictures.

[rangerjake]

From VI's experience and some of his advice I embarked on my own modded TR2 boot project this fall. Here is my experience so far:

I had skied TR2s w/ Sportiva boots on a couple random occasions while working for Sportiva a few years back. Loved the binding, not so much the boots. I decided, after finding a screaming deal on 2 pairs of TR2s, to send my MTN Labs to Bormio. International shipping is a bit of a PITA, Sara at Ski Trab is really great to work with. She, and whoever else does this work there, do a lot to facilitate this process for customers looking to utilize the bindings outside of the licensed interface.

Subjective on-snow feel is certainly better than any tech binding I have ever skied on (paired with V Werks Mantra currently). I have skied a lot of tech bindings (though only the kingpin out of what I would consider the most comparable bindings currently on the market: Kingpin, Tecton, Shift). IIRC it is handily lighter than all of the above and considerably simpler in terms of understanding parts, function, etc should you choose to mod or field replace parts. It is a touch finnicky getting into and out of, having to actuate toes and heels, but on long tours on varied terrain I think I'd like the ease of on-the-fly mode switches in both directions. Sadly I really only intend to use this binding for mixed sidecountry stuff, as I have gotten too soft touring on TLT6/Superlite 2.0/Vapor and BMT line skis.

Objective release information is a little more tempered enthusiasm. I was able to test my modded MTN Labs/TR2s on a Wintersteiger tester. I did it on the Alpine binding setting, since the binding releases laterally at the toe and not at the heel like other tech bindings (Wintersteiger machines have different settings for release testing alpine and tech bindings). The test results on my setup were kind of off the reservation relative to my "chart" RV. Starting at 10, my lateral twist test showed a consistently very high Nm force required for release. And I mean very high. I eventually got them to just release a bit higher than the acceptable range by dialing down the lateral release to around an 8.5-9. The forward release at the heel was actually Very low relative to the starting 10 RV. So to get those to an acceptable spot they were dialed up to 11. The heel release was much closer initially to the acceptable Nm range of a 10 than the twist test. I won't surmise causation from correlation here, but I have to allow the possibility that the non-TR2 standardized toe fittings may have something to do with the more drastic discrepancy of the twist release. Frankly I am not extra concerned about it. I didn't want, and don't want, these bindings to release per se, but I did want the gained elasticity/shock absorption (minimal) of the spring-set toe rather than the static standard tech toe.

All things considered I am mostly happy with this setup and the end result of this process. I owe VI a big debt of gratitude for all of his insight and help navigating the interactions with SkiTrab, and sharing his positive experiences with the setup. I really do love skiing this setup and am stoked to have something that rails as hard as it does on the frontside and can still tour enjoyably without the soul crushing experience of a framed AT binding.

I am happy to share photos, answer questions, provide more thoughts or whatever. To me this binding, and this process, is one of the more fascinating, under-the-radar things in the overhyped ski touring world.

[rod9301]

From VI's experience and some of his advice I embarked on my own modded TR2 boot project this fall. Here is my experience so far:

I had skied TR2s w/ Sportiva boots on a couple random occasions while working for Sportiva a few years back. Loved the binding, not so much the boots. I decided, after finding a screaming deal on 2 pairs of TR2s, to send my MTN Labs to Bormio. International shipping is a bit of a PITA, Sara at Ski Trab is really great to work with. She, and whoever else does this work there, do a lot to facilitate this process for customers looking to utilize the bindings outside of the licensed interface.

Subjective on-snow feel is certainly better than any tech binding I have ever skied on (paired with V Werks Mantra currently). I have skied a lot of tech bindings (though only the kingpin out of what I would consider the most comparable bindings currently on the market: Kingpin, Tecton, Shift). IIRC it is handily lighter than all of the above and considerably simpler in terms of understanding parts, function, etc should you choose to mod or field replace parts. It is a touch finnicky getting into and out of, having to actuate toes and heels, but on long tours on varied terrain I think I'd like the ease of on-the-fly mode switches in both directions. Sadly I really only intend to use this binding for mixed sidecountry stuff, as I have gotten too soft touring on TLT6/Superlite 2.0/Vapor and BMT line skis.

Objective release information is a little more tempered enthusiasm. I was able to test my modded MTN Labs/TR2s on a Wintersteiger tester. I did it on the Alpine binding setting, since the binding releases laterally at the toe and not at the heel like other tech bindings (Wintersteiger machines have different settings for release testing alpine and tech bindings). The test results on my setup were kind of off the reservation relative to my "chart" RV. Starting at 10, my lateral twist test showed a consistently very high Nm force required for release. And I mean very high. I eventually got them to just release a bit higher than the acceptable range by dialing down the lateral release to around an 8.5-9. The forward release at the heel was actually Very low relative to the starting 10 RV. So to get those to an acceptable spot they were dialed up to 11. The heel release was much closer initially to the acceptable Nm range of a 10 than the twist test. I won't surmise causation from correlation here, but I have to allow the possibility that the non-TR2 standardized toe fittings may have something to do with the more drastic discrepancy of the twist release. Frankly I am not extra concerned about it. I didn't want, and don't want, these bindings to release per se, but I did want the gained elasticity/shock absorption (minimal) of the spring-set toe rather than the static standard tech toe.

All things considered I am mostly happy with this setup and the end result of this process. I owe VI a big debt of gratitude for all of his insight and help navigating the interactions with SkiTrab, and sharing his positive experiences with the setup. I really do love skiing this setup and am stoked to have something that rails as hard as it does on the frontside and can still tour enjoyably without the soul crushing experience of a framed AT binding.

I am happy to share photos, answer questions, provide more thoughts or whatever. To me this binding, and this process, is one of the more fascinating, under-the-radar things in the overhyped ski touring world.

I would like to see some photos

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[rangerjake]

[rangerjake]

If anyone is thinking about going this TR2 route I have 2 bindings for retrofitted boots, one new one lightly used, that I'll part with real cheap. My MTN Lab hasn't been working for me well and decided it's just too much to ship new boots out to Bormio to put a new heel fitting on.