Freeride spacers have been a project of mine last couple of years. I have the ATK integrated spacers on my Raiders, and I bought the Universal ATK sliding spacer last year since I heard they were discontinued.
For anyone with a boot quiver the spacers are a pain in the ass, since net heel thickness varies so widely among boots. My 107 mm skis get used with my Skorpius II and Zero G TP boots so I’ll be leaving the heel spacer height optimized for the ZGTP and just live with the 4 mm gap that makes em useless with the Skorps.
In practice the heel spacer needs to be about the width of the boot sole or it really doesn’t improve edging power / torsional support enough to be worth it.
If you raid an old binding bin at a shop, the Salomon Warden sliding AFD unit is small and light (28 g), as light as the ATK universal. But you’ll need a thin plastic shim under it to get to right height.
The ATK universal does not adjust down low enough to work with low delta bindings like the Marker Alpinist, so a DIY solution is essential.
For a high delta bindings (which I avoid anyway), a heel spacer will suck for skinning flats. But on a binding like the Alpinist I find it’s barely noticeable on flat approaches.
Personally with the compromised release characteristics of tech bindings, I’m focusing on sliding AFD heel spacers that mimic the ATK integrated spacer performance.
Know of a pair of Fischer Ranger 107Ti 189s (new or used) for sale? PM me.
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