It was the last run of the first day of my holiday to Laax, Switzerland that I was happily doing my thing when my riding partner shouted at me to stop, and then told me that my bindings were broken. Both sides of the hinge point for the heel cup had snapped, and the lower half had also broken away from the main base plate. Strange, but I hadn't even noticed.
This first picture shows the breakage, as I'm lifting up the heel cup and the heel strap.
So we carried on down the run towards the village, and when I stopped next, something made me check out the other binding. Unbelievably it was broken also, but just not so bad. The thing hadn't broken away from the base plate so it was still being held in place.
Very strange that both bindings should break at practically the same time. As I recall, I hadn't taken any hard slams, and the only stress I was applying was a bit of gentle carving, and the occasional 180.
This picture is the same as the one above, but has been digitally enhanced by a bit of red to indicate, in case it's not obvious :-| where the broken bits should actually be... and indeed would be in this photo, had I not been pulling gently on the heel strap.
So, alas, 6 years on, and my old Burton Freestyle bindings bite the dust. Perhaps they didn't enjoy the -20C temperatures. I wonder how long my new Salomon SP5's will last? [Update 2004 - answer "Not long enough"]
