The Official Salomon S/Lab SHIFT MNC Thread -AMA

[Huskier]

First day shift-ing: Tour beautifully, but fully expect heel riser to be the first point of failure, a-la floppy Duke wire-loop heel risers. Downhill mode feels like a full-on alpine binder. Testing release, can confirm it will definitely dump you when required\.

[LiveLarger]

I had two days inbound skiing with shift clamps. I can't tell any difference between these and my Look or Marker when skiing inbounds. I also crashed pretty hard, and they came off without any issue.

[Cocximus]

Does the shift use a Teflon pad on top of the afd?

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[Spyderjon]

Does the shift use a Teflon pad on top of the afd?

Yep

[hardkorps]

Been skiing these in bounds at Alta for the last week. Blown away at how well a “touring binding” feels. Took them up the other side of the road yesterday and did a side by side with same qst118’s with Dynafits. I have zero complaints the weight difference was negligible but could see it stack up on longer tours. Get over the riser height people! The Wasatch is full of stupidly steep skinners and the riser was in a very usable middle ground compared to my tlt risers. And skiing down with a true alpine binding just made my year. I am so excited to get these things all over the place here. Great work Cody and team much respect to all the work you put in on this product

[kalisto]

^ Pretty much the same here. So far, everything has been awesome. Minimal issues with the brakes coming down while skinning. Happened once when I really smacked my skis together yesterday. Also running 100mm brakes on a 109 ski, so a little narrower brake than normal.

Assuming they hold up durability wise, arguably no reason to go anything else when considering a hybrid setup (not touring specific).

Riser height is a non-issue unless for the steepest of skin-tracks. Not a deal break, especially given what I am using these skis for (inbounds/slackcountry laps).

[j0z77]

I've ordered ones with 110mm breaks and received them in the box written 100mm.
The measured internal width is 108mm.
Can anyone tell me it's the 100mm brakes or 110mm?


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[Spyderjon]

I've ordered ones with 110mm breaks and received them in the box written 100mm.
The measured internal width is 108mm.
Can anyone tell me it's the 100mm brakes or 110mm?

You've got the 100mm width brakes. The 110mm brakes measure 118mm internally.

[el hefe]

I've ordered ones with 110mm breaks and received them in the box written 100mm.
The measured internal width is 108mm.
Can anyone tell me it's the 100mm brakes or 110mm?


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I will trade ya for some 110's

[Angle Parking]

I had two days inbound skiing with shift clamps. I can't tell any difference between these and my Look or Marker when skiing inbounds. I also crashed pretty hard, and they came off without any issue.

Yep, that's the thing i come back too. Sure they are a bit heavier and the single heal riser is at times a bummer, and I have had issues with my breaks engaging when in walk mode. But really, they ski so f@cking well it's easy to overlook at all that stuff. And nearly 50 days in, no signs of significant failure or breakage or anything of that nature.

And they ski so damn well!!!!!!

[Huskier]

I have had issues with my breaks engaging when in walk mode

So, I was having that problem too, and I think I might've solved it by engaging the heel clamp after "locking" the brake down with the walk/ski lever. Dunno how they interact or if that's how it's supposed to work but it hasn't happened since. Also, since the issue appears to be caused by the strength of the brake spring overwhelming the ski/walk lever catch, and since repeated retraction/deployment cycles would seem to exert wear on the spring over time, I can see this being less of an issue as a binding sees more days.

[j0z77]

You've got the 100mm width brakes. The 110mm brakes measure 118mm internally.

Thank you for your quick reply!

I will trade ya for some 110's

Thanks but I'm in Japan...

[lazyasian]

I will trade ya for some 110's

Might be interested in this since j0z is out. Sent you a PM.

[XavierD]

Tour’d up a groomer and skied down just fine on my production pair. Didn’t experience the brakes deploying in tour mode like they did on sample pair last spring. If durability doesn’t become an issue these may start to replace alpine bindings on my soft snow resort skis.

[burrito]

So I mounted my shifts last night, seemingly without issue. I noticed this morning that I can see a sliver of light under the front part of the toes as if the front screw post thing wasn't in tight enough. The post is flush with the ski (i.e. no light is creeping underneath the post allowing me to see the silhouette of the screw), and I cranked those suckers pretty tight (but not so much as to spin the screws at the bottom) when mounting. Has anyone else noticed this?

[Alkasquawlik]

So I mounted my shifts last night, seemingly without issue. I noticed this morning that I can see a sliver of light under the front part of the toes as if the front screw post thing wasn't in tight enough. The post is flush with the ski (i.e. no light is creeping underneath the post allowing me to see the silhouette of the screw), and I cranked those suckers pretty tight (but not so much as to spin the screws at the bottom) when mounting. Has anyone else noticed this?

That's actually exactly how it should look. Mine when mounted properly on a flat top sheeted QST 118 have about a 1mm to less than 1mm gap towards the tip of the toe piece. I had some guy Instagram DM'ing me, threatening me and saying this was some major flaw that was gonna cause a recall, the bindings to break in droves and he knows better than the 200+ people that tested it and the engineers that spent 7 years developing it because it worked as an insurance agent once...yeah, it was a fun conversation. Talking to the engineers about it this past week as it's something I noticed but never worried about, it's just a byproduct of the mounting pattern. Which brings me to another point that I'll want to see if you SHIFT owners can corroborate. When I really started pushing this binding I noticed that my skis felt as if they had more energy. As if the bindings were giving the ski more life. Having tested tons of skis over time, Salomon's generally have a lot of pop and life in them so I originally thought it was just me or the skis. Then my wife started skiing them and her first feedback was that she felt like the skis were skiing better with those bindings. I never could figure it out until I started inspecting the bindings more and thinking about that little gap and the mount pattern. And here is my theory, I think because of that forward mount screw being a free floating mount point on a gasket, the ski flexes further back towards your toe and produces more energy into the ski. Essentially the dead point in a ski because of a mount is minimized. I talked to one of the senior French binding engineers...well the guy that invented the Pivot toe....and he confirmed my thoughts. So yeah, interesting by product of the mount point that they probably thought about cause they're smart.

So long story short, I wouldn't worry about that gap one bit if it's around 1mm and in fact, think it positively effects the performance of the ski.

[burrito]

...So long story short, I wouldn't worry about that gap one bit if it's around 1mm and in fact, think it positively effects the performance of the ski.

That exact thing popped into my head as I was looking at them. The toepiece is so long compared with a traditional binding I really do think it would affect the ski's flex pattern if it was fixed all the way to the end. A short mounting zone attracted me to the Marker Jesters (my favorite alpine binding to date) back in the day, and I actually mounted the heels of my Shifts 10mm forward of the paper templates to give me an extra 10mm of tail flex.

[jackstraw]

The boot will create the dead spot in the flex of the ski along with the binder? Everything is giving a little, but it would be something to notice the difference of a mm or 2, no?

And btw, this is why old school tele skiers ripped...full flex and fully free!

[Alkasquawlik]

The boot will create the dead spot in the flex of the ski along with the binder? Everything is giving a little, but it would be something to notice the difference of a mm or 2, no?

And btw, this is why old school tele skiers ripped...full flex and fully free!

Yeah, the boot can create a dead spot in ski flex and yeah, you can notice it. Hence why I noticed and my wife noticed our skis having more energy in the ski with the SHIFT set up. This is often why so many skiers look for a short binding footprint. So although the SHIFT looks long, the floating collar interface in the front and the four other screws being under toe and right near the main torque points of the toe, the binding has a short footprint in reality.

[rod9301]

Yeah, the boot can create a dead spot in ski flex and yeah, you can notice it. Hence why I noticed and my wife noticed our skis having more energy in the ski with the SHIFT set up. This is often why so many skiers look for a short binding footprint. So although the SHIFT looks long, the floating collar interface in the front and the four other screws being under toe and right near the main torque points of the toe, the binding has a short footprint in reality.

Or, get a stiff ski, and the binding won't make a difference.

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[Spyderjon]

I've been doing a couple of Shift mounts this morning and had to dodge some existing heels holes.

The Shifts overall heel length adjustment is 30mm but the jig doesn't position the heel in the middle of this adjustment. If you use your boot in the jig to set its length then when the forward pressure is spot on you'll have 12mm rearward adjustment left on the track or you can go forward 18mm.

[galibier_numero_un]

... If you use your boot in the jig to set its length then when the forward pressure is spot on you'll have 12mm rearward adjustment left on the track or you can go forward 18mm.

Great observation, and worth taking note of (test mount) if one is using the printed template.

... Thom

[burrito]

I've been doing a couple of Shift mounts this morning and had to dodge some existing heels holes.

The Shifts overall heel length adjustment is 30mm but the jig doesn't position the heel in the middle of this adjustment. If you use your boot in the jig to set its length then when the forward pressure is spot on you'll have 12mm rearward adjustment left on the track or you can go forward 18mm.

Good on Salomon for this. In my experience, mainly with Look and Marker, their jigs do the opposite, and it drives me nuts. They always have noticeably more rearward adjustment, and it makes their mounting patterns significantly longer than they need to be.

I understand that strategy for junior and entry price point bindings where you’re liable to move up to bigger boots as your feet grow, but how many adults have ever bought new boots with a significantly longer BSL? Maybe if you simultaneously switch brands and move up a shell size you’re adding 20mm, but more often than not any change in boot will change your BSL by less than 10mm. I’d rather have a shorter mount than be covered for an odd situation that rarely occurs.

[burrito]

Great observation, and worth taking note of (test mount) if one is using the printed template.

... Thom

The paper template, by all accounts here, puts the heel pretty close to the center of the 30mm track. I moved the heel drilling points on my mount 10mm forward of the template, which put the heel slightly forward of the second to last mark on the track without a boot engaged and just behind that mark with. I’m super happy with that placement, especially because my current boots are on the long side of BSLs (307mm for size 26.5)

[tuco]

Shit, pembyguy said his buddy broke both shift heels in the g3 failure thread. Waiting for pics