Comments on: Silvretta Take on Broken Pure Freeride Binding — with WildSnow analytics

By: Lou

Lou — Sat, 27 May 2006 20:59:08 +0000

Josh, perhaps I could have been more clear, but the fact remains that “enough force to snap off the heel piece” was generated by a stroll around our campsite, and it was extremely surprising and alarming when it happened. The guy wasn’t even wearing his pack or really “skiing.” My poor choice of verbiage doesn’t change this. Look at it this way, if you were at a snow camp and walked around a bit on your bindings, and while freeing a ski tip from a pile of snow (a common enough thing while walking on touring skis) your binding flew apart and sailed over your head, how would you feel? I was there and I’m certain the guy didn’t do anything radical — just normal day-to-day use of a touring binding — use that all our other bindings stood up to fine.

P.S., I do agree with Reiner that this type of breakage is rare. And the fact that it happens while touring rather than downhill skiing is a plus, as it won’t cause a fall while skiing steep terrain.

By: Josh

Josh — Sat, 27 May 2006 15:43:25 +0000

Thanks for posting this additional piece on the Pure. I’m relatively pleased with my Pures. I bought a used pair from a local guide so that I could use my Scarpa Denalis with mid-fat skis for longer tours. The bindings are “tight”-they don’t work well with snowy boots. Once I started to scrape the toe and heel ledges of my boots and clean the soles carefully, I stopped walking out in tour mode. When you click out, the binding wants the boot heel to exit strait up. My boot hangs up on the heelpiece if it’s rotated even a little to one side. I can’t say I trust the Pures as much as my Dynafits or even Fritschis. But, they actually do what Silvretta claims-tour well.

That said, I think your first post on this issue was misleading. First you posted that your friend was just walking around camp in skis. Fair enough, but now it seems that he actually buried his ski tip and was kicking his ski back and forth to free it. Your friend managed to lever the front of the binding against the riser with enough force to snap off the heel piece. That’s a little different scenario. Not quite as sensational, and less unfair to a decent binding.

Now that I’ve got that off my chest, I’d like to add that Silvretta is not blameless here. The Pure manual is not detailed enough. It should warn people against doing what Mike did. Ideally, it would include clearer adjustment and use instructions. Maybe you could put some Pure tips on Wildsnow.

By: Dexter

Dexter — Fri, 26 May 2006 02:21:09 +0000

Interesting Pure thoughts. I lasted about three weeks on my Pure Freerides before going back to my dynafits. Why? The’re heavier, snow clogs up easily in the heel lock down unit when in tour mode, small things. On to bigger, when the toe height is adjusted correctly there is substantial lateral play, with the din set correctly for myself (7) and the forward pressure set correctly I “walk” out of the binding in tour mode. As I take a forward step when climbing (post up on first setting) there is not enough forward pressure to hold my boot against the toe peice, the heel unit slides backwards and my toe pops out. The forward pressure and release mechanism I would think are related, since forward pressure will affect the release value. I had to crank the din up to about 10 to rectify this problem.

Years ago I bought a pair of Easy Go because the step in feature was enticing The heel unit broke several times, never in the same place. I started calling them the “Easy Go No Where” Should of learned my leason back then.

SIlvretta makes OK products but IMO they need to think outside the box. All of their binding over the years are based on the same design principals, ie… fixed toe and a heel peice that does the rest.

I would be interested to hear what Reiner has to say.

By: Alan Irving

Alan Irving — Wed, 24 May 2006 07:40:17 +0000

Looks like the riser plate on the Pure Freeride doesn’t help the situation; my Pures and Pure X-Mountains (no riser plate) can get up to a bigger angle before the toe contacts the ski. Perhaps with the Freeride you could cut a bit out of the forward riser plate to give the toe more room, or dispense with it altogether, thus increasing ramp angle, which would be a help for boots with ‘alpine’ toe lugs like the Tornado.

By: Bryan Preston

Bryan Preston — Sun, 21 May 2006 16:58:01 +0000

I’ve seen a number of broken Fritschi bindings from a version of ‘knee fall’.
Usually, it involves a large skier ‘spinning out’ and falling forward while skinning uphill or going over the handlebars in tour mode while going through a compression in rolling terrain. The metal portion of the touring hinge breaks near one of the screws. Sometimes some plastic pieces are also broken secondary to the original metal failure. This is probably the second most common type of Fritschi failure next to heel lift cracks.