SNOWBOARD BINDINGS – TREND REPORT 2012/13

The binding market has been pretty static for a few years. Same old colour palettes, shapes, buckles, designs and theories. Fortunately, 12/13 sees some big investments and things are shaking up. Little companies doing big things. New materials, fresh colour codes and inspired baseplate ideas. Innovative approaches, more comprehensive lines, less filler. Cancel the order for the 200 pairs of cheap black bindings that you”ve already pencilled in and set fire to the order form, because the 2012/13 binders are more mouth-watering than ever before. Tom Wilson-North checks it out.

TWO KEY NEW COMPANIES

Two new companies are stealing the show with their much-hyped game-changers in binding design. JF Pelchat”s Now Snowboarding will be unveiled at the ISPO show, a project developed in his mad-scientist garage in Squamish over the last ten years. Now it”s ready; expect a binding heavily inspired by skateboard truck construction that”ll make riding “effortless, pain free and more fun”. Underfoot and torsionally, they”ll be forgiving, comfortable and plush; toe-to-heel they”re just as good as a traditional binding. In fact, the weight-transfer properties of this thing are so efficient that Pelchat had to reduce the size of the highback and incorporate a special hinge to make the things a little more easy-riding. Lasers? Skyhooks? Wait and see. All we know so far is that a whole bunch of respected pros including Devun Walsh & Jeremy Jones won”t ride anything else.

In the second carriage of the binding buzz train are Switchback – developed by innovative snowboarders Bataleon. The idea here is a funky tool-less component system using thousands of pre-set stiffness and colour options. It feels a bit like Nike ID trainers, or a made-to-measure suit, and everyone except our stock-control guy likes it. As Product Manager Cleay Perham puts it; “Back in the day we would make our own perfect frankenstein binding; highback from brand X, buckles from brand Y and baseplate from brand Z. That where the concept came from; now we”re offering the potential to create in-store a one-off binding that looks unique and is perfectly suited to your own riding”. They”ve also come up with a clever unique pillar-free highback to finish the thing off. It”s got us very curious and eager to see; we can”t wait to take plenty of sneaky iPhone pics up close and personal at ISPO.

NEW AESTHETICS

Bindings don”t just have to be revolutionary to sell. They”ve also got to look too good to pass up. 12/13 sees some clever ways that the industry is going help here. Forum play the nostalgia card with influences from American post-industrialism, using iron oxide (rust) in the Republic paintjob, and Factory Records -think Joy Division & New Order- on the Shaka.

Burton”s Hardgoods VP Scott Barbieri won”t stop talking about their graphics, specifically the Autumn colourway on the 12/13 Lexa & Lexa EST. “We”ve used about every trick in the book on this one”, he says with a proud grin. “Hydrographics, paint fades, multiple clear-coat finishes and more to make them one of the raddest looking women”s bindings we”ve ever made. And that”s just the tip of the iceberg”.

Flux”s 2012/13 line blows out their 20^th Anniversary candles, so expect some bold & vibrant looks. Want to go crazy with some of the sickest colours? Take a look at Ride”s Fanken colorways. And if all those hues are making your eyes go funny, never fear; there will be plenty of clean, monochrome tones. Some of our favourites are in the Roxy & K2 ranges, and all over the Drake line. “We really support the revival of the old-school palette and minimal, clean graphics”, says product manager Davide Smania of the low-key solid-colours. “The trend at the moment is to provide a clean look in order to match with as many snowboard decks as possible”.

MATCH OR MIS-MATCH?

Ahh, the matching look. That happy coincidence of random boards matching other companies” bindings that seems to quite co-incidentally happen year after year. Undoubtedly a lot of Pantone references get exchanged in hushed Skype calls during product development time. But if a company makes both the boards and bindings, they really ought to go together, right? Well, not always, according to Flow sales & marketing guy Jens Hartmann. “We always design our bindings so that they can go with boards in our range”, he says.“But we rarely do super-matchy stuff as it does look weird sometimes”. True, although big players Salomon, GNU, K2, Burton, Volkl & Head will be playing the go-together card so their bindings look like a genuine extension of their decks – which creates an easy complementary sale for us down on the shop floor.

NEW CONSTRUCTION IDEAS

It”s not just colours that”ll sell a binding, though. Nidecker binding guru David Fernandez puts it brilliantly:“For me, the binding is like a car tyre, it”s here to transmit the energy from the user to the snowboard. Using bad bindings is like using a flat tyre, and you need to input much more energy to get the same result”. To make binders better, we”re seeing a couple of pretty cool new technologies. For example, there”s more widespread use of urethane. For years championed by the crafty Flux designers, and last year adopted by K2 on the Tweakback highback, Drake will now use urethane on their jibbier highbacks, taking advantage of the extreme flex that the material offers; it”s great for park riding.

Salomon introduce a new technology called ShadowFit. This redesigned, flexible heel loop will shave weight and helps to promote lots more lateral flex and a ton more board feel. Find it on their new high-end freestyle binder and, whilst you”re browsing their range at ISPO, make sure you sneak a peek at the all-new Airbed heel cushioning system they”ve got on the new Hologram.

Meanwhile, Flow are hinting at a completely new binding design, bringing comfort, easy of in/out and performance to “a completely new level”. Since their gear is pretty on-point already, we”re excited to see what product line manager Lucien Vink and his team have in store. All they”ve let slip so far is that there will be a new strap configuration and all-new buckle system.

Rome have used 12/13 to consolidate little construction features. Co-Founder and Product director Paul Maravetz: “The focus has been on improving performance and durability. For all our ankle straps we’ve developed new internal padding materials that feel better, return more energy and will maintain their integrity through multiple seasons, our buckle build and assembly tolerances have been tightened up and we’ve developed a new stitched open-toe design for our 390 and Mob series bindings.” The small stuff counts.

HIGHBACK UP & BUCKLE DOWN

Nothing screams “buy me” more than a cool-looking highback, puffy strap and clicky, strong-sounding buckles. There”s a new highback on the Forum Keeper, new plastic baseplate on the ROCK-it ROLL from Roxy, new buckles throughout the range at K2, a Thin Fit toestrap from GNU, new straps at Drake, new baseplates & micro buckles from SP and cool new asymmetric highbacks from Volkl.

Look out for new highbacks on Union”s updated Contact and women”s Milan model. On the subject of the Italian-American binding experts, they”ll be bringing out a new premium model in 12/13 called the Charger; as the name suggests, it”s the stiffest in the range and is for riders who“ride stiff, cambered boards and like to haul ass”, according to marketing guy George Kleckner .

Burton launch a new model called the Bootlegger, with a new Smackdown toe strap. This over-centre buckle & strap design promises to remove the “ratcheting down” part of the strap in process, saving time. There”s also a new highback called a KickBack Hammock; it”s a refinement of the Heel Hammock we saw last year, with a bit of suspension built in. Burton also trickle their Re:flex baseplates further down the range, putting them underneath the midrange Custom & Stiletto models.

BINDINGS WHICH SELL THEMSELVES

Whilst a shelf of great bindings with some cool-looking posters around them is a first step, it”s not always enough to make the things fly out of the store. Binding companies will be doing more and more behind-the-scenes to help them sell; K2, for example, are providing an entire in-store LCD display preloaded with videos explaining the features of their bindings. And when you open the Nidecker delivery you”ll find a pretty cool piece of POP – it”s a skateboard-sized mount to help extol the virtues of their Fastec system. And over at Flow there will be branded hang-tags in the box acting as “silent salesmen”.

CONCLUSION

Things are looking good. In spite of the usual grumblings over increased raw material prices, the established players continue to invest, develop and consolidate with some cool new ideas and upgrades. Then there are these potentially game-changing companies out there, both with pretty revolutionary new tech that”s bound to shake up the binding sector.

If anything, this hype we”re going to see will renew interest in bindings and cause customers to think about upgrading. Perhaps the lowly binding will resume its rightful place as a key piece of gear, a considered purchase selected on merits other than what the thing looks like and how cheap it is.

What does that mean for your order? Well, I”d say this year”s buy is looking like a balance between brand-new and already-existing; as we clamber warily out of a couple of tricky hardgoods years, perhaps it”s time to start taking some risks again.

Tom Wilson-North is a freelance journalist and buyer at Zero G, Chamonix.