CAST Binding/Green Mountain Freeride/ Lars Chickering-Ayers Binding is live

[skiingsamurai]

The CAST guys have been dealt a major blow today: the death of someone really close to us. Our dear friend Dave died at Brighton last night, so please be patient waiting for responses to questions. This man is family.


I just logged in to make it a point to say:

Please keep in mind, the CAST tech toe fitting is not intended to be skied with. It is just designed for going up.
The loads of going downhill are significantly higher and more unpredictable than climbing. To my knowledge, we do not have plans to make your boots able to ski DOWN with our tech toe.
just something to keep in mind.

We appreciate all the support, folks. Things are going to be a little rough in our family for while.

[arild]

Hypothetically yes, I agree. But BOTH systems need more public testing to be sure about reliability.

You guys sure complain alot for a system that does 99% of what most of us want.

Of course, reliability needs to be tested, but hypothetically, there is exactly one moving part of the Cast system, and that´s the plate going into a retainer on the skis. I may be an uneducated idiot in the enginerding world, but that´s a whole lot less than what´s on the Beast. Less=good, no? The turntable, solly driver, and tyrolia heels are proven to be good, so that shouldn´t be a worry.

I'm not sure. There is no such thing as "sidecountry" here and the touring mindset is pretty different.

My opinion is that Dynafit works fine for everything when skied appropriately, ie. don't jump off anything big onto hard snow, don't ski sketchy snow flat-out, and lock the toes occasionally while understanding the risk of doing so. I can live with that, and agree with DoWork above that carrying the extra weight up the hill (be it on the skis on in the backpack) compared to a Dynafit rig isn't worth the extra burl for the down (looks like 3.1 to 3.9kg extra weight if you count the weight of plug boots instead of stiff touring boots, but Salomon compatibility would change that). This isn't a "no compromise system", just a no compromise mechanism for the up and the down at the expense of weight and cost. Whether that's a worthwhile tradeoff is down to personal judgement.

Still, good luck to the CAST guys and well done for bringing a product to market which there seems to be somewhat of a demand for.

Yes, Dynafit works fine. They work fine, but I don´t think they ski very well, compared to a 916 or an FKS, even a PX12. Harsh is the word I´m looking for. I think the Dynafit toe is the engineering world´s great gift to ascenscion, but it stops there. I´m not an experienced touron. I have exactly ten days on my Radical FTs, and as far as I´m just ascending, I think they´re fucking brilliant. I have put them to use in lift accessed icy, windpacked hell, and guess what? That´s what much of the touring days we get up here consist of. I wouldn´t really be surprised if that´s the case in Cham, too. In my case, the fuckers prereleased twice before I thought "fuck it", and pulled the toe locks on. I didn´t really want to, but that in itself held me back mentally; If I skied with unlocked toes, I could go as fast as I liked, as I knew they´d release, but seeing how easily they released on me, I was sketched, and skied slower until the next run, when I locked them up, and went slower, in fear of what might happen to my knees and tib/fibs were I to fuck myself going really fast into a tumble.

I agree with your assessment as a whole, I just wanted to point out why I think Dynafits aren´t the end-all, be-all of touring. Marshal´s review of the Beast didn´t really suggest otherwise, either. For pure touring, yes, Dynafits are the end-all, be-all. For anything other than that, they aren´t. Simple.

For the market: If MFD sells, Cast will sell. I spoke for Norway. Sidecountry is most definitely a thing here, and Dukes/Guardians, etc, sell like crazy, whether the customer needs the walk mode or not. Those bindings may look burly due to the frame and all, I think they look like abortions, ski pretty well. The case for the Cast system is that the alpine bindings they accomodate are simply better on the descent than a Duke, Guardian, or Dynafit, and that´s hardly likely to change with 7mm of stand height. They are more elastic, stiffer and in general, better. For the ascent, though, nothing tops the Dynafit.

As a guinea pig of their first season post-Kickstarter production run, I hope to, at least, put their durability to the test. It´s CNCed cast aluminium, though, can´t really see them fail without lots of twisting, heat and other unrealistic stuff happen to them.

All this said, I don´t know jack shit about engineering, except drawing skis in CAD, which I´m quite good at, as long as noone asks me to draw it in 3D. Then I´m fucked.

[Lindahl]

Vibes to the CAST guys.

Adding the Solly Driver sold me (well timed with the STHs on SAC). Will be putting in tomorrow.

For long tours, full Dynafit makes a lot of sense. While it does mean less weight in your pack and on the ski, the real reason is actual touring boots. Using something like the TLT5 over a heavy duty AT boot thats Alpine compatible, or fuck me, an Alpine boot without a walk mode, is huge. Especially! when there's hiking or boot packing involved. Dynafit works great for me whenever there's consistent snow, non-mach speeds, and no big hucking. Thinking about the above, this is pretty much reality for EVERY uber steep line or couloir I ski (both terrain AND bootpacking) - thanks to a shitty CO snowpack.

That said, those adventures are rare in pow season and are just about all I do in corn season, so I'll happily swap everything off (including base plates) for total weight loss.

As an aside, stuffing the toe pieces in the pack is one thing (about the same size as skins), but alpine heels would be nowhere near the same size as radi toes.

[Lindahl]

A couple questions:

1) What is the weight of the individual pieces of the system? Plastic plate + heel elevators? Front plate? Each toe binding plate?
2) What are the heel elevator angles modeled on? How do they compare to the Duke angles and Dynafit angles? (the ones I'm familiar with)

[alTAos]

A couple questions:

1) What is the weight of the individual pieces of the system? Plastic plate + heel elevators? Front plate? Each toe binding plate?
2) What are the heel elevator angles modeled on? How do they compare to the Duke angles and Dynafit angles? (the ones I'm familiar with)

These are all rough numbers from lars, he didn't have the actual numbers, going from memory, but they seem close. 250 grams for added weight, this says 230...so not exact.

Base plates: 100 grams
Alpine slider: 60 grams
tech slider: 30 grams
heel lifter and all: 70 grams

The angles available: 7,10,14 based on a 300 mm bsl. you get to pick 2 i guess.

I believe older small dukes are 11 degrees with the standard bail and around 15 with the extended. small/medium MFD's are 14.

[Lindahl]

Thanks, rough numbers are fine. Is that per ski weight or per pair weight?

Dug around a little:
Salomon Guardian, 2/13 degrees
Marker Duke, 5/10 degrees
Marker Duke, large bail, 7/15 degrees
Marker Duke EPF, 7/13 degrees
Tyrolia Adrenaline, 7/13 degrees
MFD, 6/14 degrees
Fristschi, 3/?/9/13 degrees

Can't seem to find the numbers for Dynafit, but I'll measure tomorrow (Radical). Sounds like they're right in line with the industry consensus with a 7/14 option.

[alTAos]

Thanks, rough numbers are fine. Is that per ski weight or per pair weight?

per ski.

[Gone Skiing]

Bummmppppp! I know more people need this. With a Jester it weighs 300g per pair less than Dukes and tours way better. From experience switch-over time is at least as fast as a Duke, and there are far fewer things for you to break.

[arild]

Page top, bitches.

[skiingsamurai]

Halfway there bump

Im back on the grid for a little while, so Ill attempt to answer your outstanding questions soon


keep the love, and money, coming
you guys rock

[bsavery]

Halfway there bump

Im back on the grid for a little while, so Ill attempt to answer your outstanding questions soon


keep the love, and money, coming
you guys rock

Just to be clear. If we want the marker/salomon binding we just back at the appropriate level and when the order goes through we can specify? For those of us who want to back this but want the marker option.

Thanks!

[skiingsamurai]

Just to be clear. If we want the marker/salomon binding we just back at the appropriate level and when the order goes through we can specify? For those of us who want to back this but want the marker option.

Thanks!

Correct
1234

[arild]

Pledged the $1000 option myself, but told Lars I wanted to wait for the Sally driver version.

Samurai: I can´t remember if I asked Lars, but will the Sally/Marker/Tyrolia versions allow the use of a brake? The first iterations of the Tyrolia version had a stomp pad of sorts in place of the brake, to work with the heel lifter, but it seems you have found a solution. Have you?

[Judo Chop!]

yeah, looks like brakes will work... hence all the chat about strapping them up for the climb.

[Lindahl]

I assume that the Salomon purchase will include a base plate that matches the Salomon mount pattern? (and not FKS)

As in, I won't have to drill additional holes for an existing ski with Salomons?

[Gone Skiing]

Correct B, each binding system's housing will mount into the existing holes for that binding.

[Skeeze]

If you want this, don't wait until the end to commit!

It doesn't cost you any more to pledge your money now, and more people are likely to join if they see the project has a good chance of succeeding.

[Rufus Sr.]

With respect to the heal slider idea, will this even work with the current set up? Doesn't the dynafit toe slider push the boot forward so you can't step into the heal piece?

I like the idea but either way, I think this set up is the answer for me. Once I confirm my RX 130's can be moded, I'm in!

[skiingsamurai]

Im pretty sure Lars has already installed the tech fittings in a set of RX130's. Shoot them an email to confirm, but Im pretty sure youre good to go.

The CAST toe can be installed in any boot that does not have remoavable toe/heels. Those like the Factors or cochise are more tricky. The RX boots appear to be a standard DIN toe

[Rufus Sr.]

Thanks! I did talk to Lars. He said he thinks he has the RX boots figured out but has to play with them a bit more.

[arild]

Only a bit over 20.000 to go! Also, 20 days. Please make this work.

[skiingsamurai]

back to the first page

[arild]

Just over 14000 to go! Hell yeah!

[DoWork]

Just over 14000 to go! Hell yeah!

I seriously refresh that page about 4x a day just to see where it is. Glad to see it's steadily moving along and hasn't gotten stagnant. I think the closer it gets the more people will be likely to back it too which is also good.

[jesski]

First off, +++ vibes to you guys at CAST.

Secondly, and a bit of a thread drift for when there's a bit more time to answer questions (and sorry if this was covered already, but I couldn't find it): will you be able to modify--at some point in the future, even--a standard alpine boot for tech inserts in both the toe and the heel? Is that on the radar at some point?

I know kind of a niche market, but I think there might be some interest among people who would be willing to climb in their alpine boot to compensate for fit issues with existing, available tech boots. Thanks.