DIY Alpine Downhill + Tech Toe uphill touring binding

[Lindahl]

TLDR; Tour uphill on a tech toe with minimal on-ski weight, ski downhill on a full alpine binding.

Made from a Tyrolia AT Demo binding that has tool-less adjustment and removal, an ATK Trofeo toepiece and custom-made heel risers made from a black cutting board and Voile climbing bars.



There was some interest in this over in the quiver thread, so I figured I'd post a little something about it here. For touring with the wife, I wanted her to have a superlight uphill touring mode but still have full alpine for the downhill in the resort - all on one ski.

Superlight touring mode:


Bomber full alpine downhill mode:


Either of these are the binding that you want:
https://www.tyrolia.com/shop/us-US/a...1-at-demo.html
https://www.tyrolia.com/shop/us-US/a...3-at-demo.html

You can use any tech toe with minimal distance between the toe pins and the back of the toepiece (for better touring position on the ski). I mounted an ATK Trofeo toepiece with Quiverkillers to share with one of my other pairs of skis:
https://www.atkbindings.com/en/prodo...ofeo-145-gr-2/

I used these heel riser bars:
https://www.voile.com/voile-3-pin-ca...ing-wires.html

You'll need a hacksaw to cut off the front of the heelpiece plastic rails, and a grinder to cut off the toepiece metal rail back to the front screwholes and then grind off some of the back of the metal rails.

The trick is to be able to still slide the toepiece off backwards, with the risers mounted in place (you'll need to raise them first). This doesn't work if your BSL is much less than 280 or so. You'll have to mount the toepiece behind the line - how much so depends on your BSL - you want your boot center to land on your mount point when the toepiece barely covers the front screws. I used the BSL numbers on the toepiece rails to figure it out. I believe I mounted the heelpiece on the line, but you'll want to check if that works for your BSL.


You can either make the heel risers yourself, or buy some low-profile ones from CAST for $80:
https://casttouring.com/collections/freetour-parts

Creating the heel risers takes some time with a dremel tool to get the right shape. If you go slow, you can get there. Once you get the right width, the natural spring of the bars maintaining their shape causes them to stay in place. Rounding the plastic edges near each position allows them to snap into place. I played around with a tele binding to get an idea of how the mechanism works.


Make sure that when the bars are vertical, the plastic cutting board forces them to slant forward slightly, otherwise it won't work very well when you step down on them.




I also made a one-position high(er) riser for my skimo race bindings using a titanium rod. You only need one screw per riser position. Comes in about 15g per piece, which, when paired with a race binding, is the lightest binding with a functionally-high riser that I've been able to find (130g per). With the riser mounted to the ski, you get the benefit of being able to use the riser regardless of the heelpiece position (flat or not, downhill or uphill) which is a cool bonus.

[I've seen black diamonds!]

Nicely done.

[iriponsnow]

Sweet work!

[shroom]

thanks for posting! was definitely intrigued after seeing your recent quiver pic.

[SirVicSmasher]

Are you from Seattle? Is your Dad a fire chief?

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[Lindahl]

Are you from Seattle? Is your Dad a fire chief?

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Retired now, but yeah.

[retirwntm]

Are you from Seattle? Is your Dad a fire chief?

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You can tell all that from the video?

That’s very cool. I know we talked about this on a thread somewhere so interesting to see it as proof of concept (in Lou speak).


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[::: :::]

Impressive work...chapeau!

[El Kanone]

Very cool. Well done.


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[ACH]

Nice!

[duster13]

Curious how you can be sure binding is hitting the same spot every time it's slid back on without having to adjust forward pressure? I've never fiddled with these bindings so maybe I'm missing something very obvious.

Also, the cast freetour bales available separately look like the could be an easier solution to the riser situation.

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[margotron]

Fascinating. So tempted


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[mr_pretzel]

Also interested in how you decided to set the jig/ how you get perfect forward pressure

I love this idea!

[SirVicSmasher]

Retired now, but yeah.

I grew up with your brother... Nice binding mod.
Was hoping to ski with him last season but he blew his knee playing soccer.
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[Lindahl]

Also interested in how you decided to set the jig/ how you get perfect forward pressure

The heelpiece is still really adjustable. Just mount it without the risers, adjust so you have the correct forward pressure, mark the position, and the cut off the excess with a hacksaw.

[Lindahl]

Curious how you can be sure binding is hitting the same spot every time it's slid back on without having to adjust forward pressure? I've never fiddled with these bindings so maybe I'm missing something very obvious.

It has a latching mechanism with coarse-ish adjustments and the forward pressure spring takes up the slack. Its actually really easy. You’ll see if you play around with one.

[duster13]

What size bsl was this based around? Wondering if a larger boot might make the project more simple.

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[Lindahl]

What size bsl was this based around? Wondering if a larger boot might make the project more simple.

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285. A larger BSL would mean tolerances are less tight (less grinding the rear part of the metal rails). You might need to mount the heelpiece rearward though, if your BSL is super long.

[detrusor]

I’m so doing this w my GPO’s!


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[1000-oaks]

Considering doing this, have you been using this setup much Brian?

[Any]

cool. looking forward to hearing some updates on how it goes during the season.

interested to see how this deals with icing? and can you put all this back together with freezing fingers in strong wind?
ive been asking myself for a while why not also remove the heel piece to save more weight uphill. i just figured it was too fiddly or icing issues. pretty cool to see someone has tried it.

[sb]

I missed this first time around.

Well played Sir. CAST killer


BTW, most of your links do not work.

[sb]

https://www.tyrolia.com/shop/us-US/a...ption_id=24083

[Lindahl]

Yeah, manufacturers change their links from time to time.

I’m having a later start than normal this year. In the US for another week still. Plus my wife doesn’t tour much so who knows when it will actually be used. Will update when we do the first two or three days of using it.

[MMMSKI]

Interesting . . . "a cast killer" indeed