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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Sep 2010
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    Golden, Colorado
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    DIY Alpine Downhill + Tech Toe uphill touring binding

    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:
    Click image for larger version. 

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    Bomber full alpine downhill mode:
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    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.
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    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.
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    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.
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    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.
    Last edited by Lindahl; 07-08-2021 at 12:14 AM.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Location
    Not Brooklyn
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    8,477
    Nicely done.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Oct 2004
    Location
    in the shadow of the white rocks
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    3,460
    Sweet work!

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Oct 2009
    Location
    seatown
    Posts
    4,172
    thanks for posting! was definitely intrigued after seeing your recent quiver pic.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Sep 2018
    Posts
    2,735
    Are you from Seattle? Is your Dad a fire chief?

    Sent from my H3223 using Tapatalk

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Sep 2010
    Location
    Golden, Colorado
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    Quote Originally Posted by SirVicSmasher View Post
    Are you from Seattle? Is your Dad a fire chief?

    Sent from my H3223 using Tapatalk
    Retired now, but yeah.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Jul 2005
    Posts
    3,230
    Quote Originally Posted by SirVicSmasher View Post
    Are you from Seattle? Is your Dad a fire chief?

    Sent from my H3223 using Tapatalk
    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).


    Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

  8. #8
    Join Date
    May 2009
    Location
    inpdx
    Posts
    20,917
    Impressive work...chapeau!

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
    Location
    Rosebud Lake BC
    Posts
    754
    Very cool. Well done.


    Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Location
    In a parallel universe
    Posts
    4,759
    Nice!

  11. #11
    Join Date
    May 2012
    Posts
    70
    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.

    Sent from my LM-G710 using Tapatalk

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Oct 2014
    Location
    Tahoe>Missoula>Fort Collins
    Posts
    1,799
    Fascinating. So tempted


    Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums


  13. #13
    Join Date
    Feb 2011
    Location
    BC
    Posts
    2,002
    Also interested in how you decided to set the jig/ how you get perfect forward pressure

    I love this idea!

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Sep 2018
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    2,735
    Quote Originally Posted by Lindahl View Post
    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.
    Sent from my H3223 using Tapatalk

  15. #15
    Join Date
    Sep 2010
    Location
    Golden, Colorado
    Posts
    5,874

    DIY Alpine Downhill + Tech Toe uphill touring binding

    Quote Originally Posted by mr_pretzel View Post
    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.

  16. #16
    Join Date
    Sep 2010
    Location
    Golden, Colorado
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    5,874
    Quote Originally Posted by duster13 View Post
    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.

  17. #17
    Join Date
    May 2012
    Posts
    70
    What size bsl was this based around? Wondering if a larger boot might make the project more simple.

    Sent from my LM-G710 using Tapatalk

  18. #18
    Join Date
    Sep 2010
    Location
    Golden, Colorado
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    5,874
    Quote Originally Posted by duster13 View Post
    What size bsl was this based around? Wondering if a larger boot might make the project more simple.

    Sent from my LM-G710 using Tapatalk
    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.

  19. #19
    Join Date
    Jan 2009
    Location
    Park City
    Posts
    5,105
    I’m so doing this w my GPO’s!


    Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums
    I rip the groomed on tele gear

  20. #20
    Join Date
    Dec 2004
    Location
    SoCal
    Posts
    6,765
    Considering doing this, have you been using this setup much Brian?

  21. #21
    Join Date
    Oct 2015
    Location
    Hokkaido Japan, or Hotham Australia
    Posts
    165
    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.

  22. #22
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Location
    here and there
    Posts
    18,789
    I missed this first time around.

    Well played Sir. CAST killer


    BTW, most of your links do not work.
    watch out for snakes

  23. #23
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
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    here and there
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  24. #24
    Join Date
    Sep 2010
    Location
    Golden, Colorado
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    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.

  25. #25
    Join Date
    Mar 2015
    Posts
    384
    Interesting . . . "a cast killer" indeed

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