Why use AT gear for touring if you can tele?

[BanditXXX]

Cross referencing my other thread:

Sunday I spent my first day on tele gear skiing Sunnyside, the bunny hill at Alta. I was using a pair of Garmont SynerG's and K2 World Pistes. Other than burning quads at the bottom of each run, I had an absolute riot. I am now questioning all the AT gear I've bought (and haven't used) this year. I'm thinking why, if I get proficient at telemarketing, wouldn't I tour on tele gear. The boots were comfy and the whole set-up is a feather compared to all but maybe Trackhead's AT rig.

On a sidenote: It was only the third day on his tele gear and Mini-Gadget was running circles around me. It was pretty cool watching my eleven year old making turns like it was old-hat.

To some degree, while the title of this thread may be rhetorical, I'm curious to know what you think.

Tele vs. AT . . . . please discuss.

Lock em down tight. Ever try to ski The Fuhrer Finger with frozen chicken heads and blue balls all over? You'd wished you'd have those heels down tight my brother. Now pray to God you won't side slip all the way down that ice chute

[Dr. Crash]

What is going to be interested is when NTN gear will show up next year. I just bought some Garmont Mega Ride yesterday but if I had been willing to wait another year (probably a bit more) I would love to see someone come up with a NTN tele / Dynafit compatible boot. Market's probably too small to justify the extra $80/boot for Dynafit inserts.

But this norm will remove a lot of telemark's disadvantages at ski mountaineering (for touring easier stuff it's good enough now, even though the springs don't help the stride).

Edit: also, for backcountry, non-releasable bindings are iffy, avalanche-wise. (Some bindings do release; and some also tour well, 7tm tour for example).

BanditXXX, the Fuhrer Fingers is something I want to ski (and one of the reasons I am ditching the Trekkers for a lighter AT setup for the uphill). Want to make another trip up there?

drC

[Lynx]

FWIW, i've spoken with a girl who used to rip hard on tele's but after getting caught in a slide has switched to alpine. It may not have been the whole reason but she said a large part of getting caught was because she was on tele's and not alpine.

[Yossarian]

Cletus <-- 1/3 alpine resort, 1/3 tele resort, 1/3 AT b/c.

1) I want true releasability in the backcountry, and my preferred Tele binding(s) don't have it
2) I want a nuetral tour, no return spring or tension; this is not provided by my preferred binding, and further, I don't want to have to mess around with pivot points and whatnot just to have a neutral touring tele binding.

Basically, I tele when conditions inbounds are Bad to Fair (ie, groomers to corn to 6" of fresh), I alpine inbounds when conditions are Fair to Epic (ie, 6"+), and I tour anytime I want to avoid the inbounds scene, conditions, crowd, cost, and so on.

If I'm on tele, I don't like to go in avalanche terrain.
If I'm on AT, I don't like to huck.
If I'm on alpine gear, I have to deal with other people, and have my fucking heels fixed down.

So basically, I'm choosing any given day between the lesser of the evils.
Or, maybe, to put it more positively, on any given day I'm choosing the best ride for the environment I want to be in.

I'm even almost down to 4 pairs of skis. And the only reason I won't get to three pair - one in each "discipline" - is that I keep a second, lighter AT touring setup around for the spring and summer. Putting that aside, I could happily ski for a long time in all conditions and locations with my:

183 Teledaddys with R-8s
183 Teledaddys with Fritchis
193 Big Daddies with Looks

For what little it's worth.

[frorider]

There are quite a few disadvantages to touring on tele:

- it is a less efficient walking movement than AT (unless you get a heavy, expensive binder with walk mode)
- the gear is less reliable
- heel bars on tele bindings hardly ever work right
- crampons on tele boots are a pain in the ass (you need a wide model, even then you have tiny front points because of the duckbill sticking out)
- for most people it is less secure for steep stuff
- it is much harder to ski variable snow (ie breakable) on tele that you often find in the bc
- forget about ski crampons for most binders
- if you log big vertical the fatigue of tele turns will get to you eventually

I don't tour on tele gear much any more - 1 time this season compared to 7 or 8 on AT gear.

FWIW I don't see where hucking comes into the touring debate. It's not really somethinG you do when touring/on touring gear...

HOP is rad.

since you're a little out of the loop when it comes to tele, apparently, i'll do us all a favor and correct your post line by line.

- many of us have rigged up a touring mode for a regular pair of, say, cobra R8 bindings that gives a free-and-easy stride. ttips has some pics of this (e.g. using G3 tour throw).

- several tele bindings on the market (read: NOT G3) that very rarely, if ever, break. meanwhile my fritschi-using acquaintances have broken bindings. hmmmm.

- several heel elevators on the market that work well. UTB, Voile, HH...just to name 3. so this is a non issue.

- crampon fit can be an issue. i prefer a crampon that sits relatively far back on the duckbill; since I usually grind down the toe of my boots on a disc grinder, overhang near the front points is not an issue. but i agree, finding the right crampons can take some effort.

- security on steeps--yeah well i guess that varies depending on the skier in question. :shrug:

- ski crampons for tele. B&D designs has a couple of sizes, including a 100 mm pivoting crampon (attaches like a dynafit crampon) that works very well with most tele bindings. so this is a non issue.

- big vert and tele turn fatigue. well the big ugly secret of tele gear is that with beefy boots and a decent binding (read: NOT G3), you can pretty much parallel turn all you like in nearly all conditions. on a big day of BC i prolly do a mix of tele and parallel turns. depends on the snow conditions. dropping a knee in schweet pow is kinda why i'm in the BC in the first place.

just thought i'd throw some facts into the discussion. nothing wrong with AT; i just wanted to set the record straight about some of the myths about tele.

[marshalolson]

183 Teledaddys with R-8s
183 Teledaddys with Fritchis
193 Big Daddies with Looks

For what little it's worth.

so you got those BD's mounted up all purty then? sweet...

[Mulletizer]

since you're a little out of the loop when it comes to tele, apparently, i'll do us all a favor and correct your post line by line.

Since you're a little out of the loop when it comes to me I suggest you don't patronise me. You are wrong you are in your ideas about me.

Your response seems pretty typical of someone who's getting defensive because they think their sport is being dissed. I am not saying telemark sucks, I am just saying that lots of things about AT are better when it comes to touring - ie that there are diadvantages to tele compared to AT gear for touring. I was responding to the question in the first post.

If you are going to be a patronising prick it would be good if you don't miss the point of the post you're responding to.

[MT]

........

[vtdownhiller]

you forgot the meaning of radonne?......It's french for "can't tele"

[hemas]

MT seems to have the same sticker as I have. Mine can be seen just above the TelemarkTips-sticker

[Mulletizer]

Hehe. My alpine shells are transparent. At one point I had a message inside them: "My other boots have duckbills". Oh, the laughs.

[p.blz]

IMO, The most important features in a touring binder (AT or Tele) are:

1. Safety (releasability)

2. Durability

3. Weight

4. Free pivot

At this point in time, AT binders (particularly Dynafit) offer the best combination of these features.

Until such time that the manufacturers come up with a tele rig that out-performs the AT setups in those 4 categories, the only real reason to tele in the BC is that its soulful and sexy.

My $.02

[frorider]

Since you're a little out of the loop when it comes to me I suggest you don't patronise me. You are wrong you are in your ideas about me.

Your response seems pretty typical of someone who's getting defensive because they think their sport is being dissed. I am not saying telemark sucks, I am just saying that lots of things about AT are better when it comes to touring - ie that there are diadvantages to tele compared to AT gear for touring. I was responding to the question in the first post.

If you are going to be a patronising prick it would be good if you don't miss the point of the post you're responding to.

no, trust me, i ain't defensive on this topic. bemused yes, defensive no.

there are plenty of relatively experienced telemarkers who do not know which heel elevators work well and which ones don't, and have never even tried ski crampons and are not aware of how to mount Dynafit or B&D ski crampons. so posts like yours reinforce common misperceptions (this has nothing to do with whether you prefer AT or tele). some of your statements are factually incorrect (e.g. "forget about ski crampons for most binders"---actually you can rig up ski crampons for G3s, Hardwires, CRBs, Cobras, UTBs, Hammerheads...i.e. essentially tele bindings, other than 7tm. Pretty sure I could set up some on Linkens and O2s).

There are some real differences, I'm sure you and I agree. For example, although tele gear can be light, AT has the advantage when it comes to combining releasability and light weight. Also for serious mountaineering, a rigid AT boot crampons better. OTOH, tele boots hike better (F1 being an exception I guess).

Sorry if you were offended bro.

[XtrPickels]

I believe this video hits all the finer points of the tele vs AT debate

AtAnonymous from TTips
http://www.tahoebackcountry.net/vide.../atanon786.wmv

[addict]

[QUOTE=Mulletizer]FWIW I don't see where hucking comes into the touring debate. It's not really somethinG you do when touring/on touring gear...QUOTE]


Are you trolling? Are you on crack? I pretty much only huck when touring.

[frorider]

I believe this video hits all the finer points of the tele vs AT debate

AtAnonymous from TTips
http://www.tahoebackcountry.net/vide.../atanon786.wmv

to add to the irony of the situation, the maker of that vid has been on his tele skis lately.

[InspectorGadget]

Thanks for all the input, the ideas and opinions posted were about what I expected. When the dust settled, I found that I could really relate to Cletus' post below:

Cletus <-- 1/3 alpine resort, 1/3 tele resort, 1/3 AT b/c.

1) I want true releasability in the backcountry, and my preferred Tele binding(s) don't have it
2) I want a neutral tour, no return spring or tension; this is not provided by my preferred binding, and further, I don't want to have to mess around with pivot points and whatnot just to have a neutral touring tele binding.

Basically, I tele when conditions inbounds are Bad to Fair (ie, groomers to corn to 6" of fresh), I alpine inbounds when conditions are Fair to Epic (ie, 6"+), and I tour anytime I want to avoid the inbounds scene, conditions, crowd, cost, and so on.

If I'm on tele, I don't like to go in avalanche terrain.

If I'm on AT, I don't like to huck.

If I'm on alpine gear, I have to deal with other people, and have my heels fixed down.

So basically, I'm choosing any given day between the lesser of the evils.
Or, maybe, to put it more positively, on any given day I'm choosing the best ride for the environment I want to be in.

Thanks Cletus



P.S. Irrespective of what gear is on my feet, I don't huck.

[Greydon Clark]

to add to the irony of the situation, the maker of that vid has been on his tele skis lately.

Good. If not, he’d have to take the “Free Heel Tahoe” sticker off his VW bus.

[Arty50]

Tele. I don't think he skied one day of alpine at home last year, these days he only does that when we get him in trouble over here. Besides his alpine slippers are yellow and it does look like he's wearing red in the pic. Hop is one guy who doesn't seem to mind flying off stuff on tele gear (though when you're planning on landing assfirst the gear issue becomes rather irrelevant I guess )

I'll second this. Hop is pretty much the honorary president of the Kirkwood Airforce and he's always on teles.