I’m not sure how far down this response will be, or if anyone will ever see it - but I feel like I owe it to anyone even considering a knee binding to make this post.
It wasn’t my intent to make this a novel, but it’s a cautionary tale worth hearing for anyone considering buying these things - or perhaps somebody who is already on a set, and had the same existential anguish like me.
Before any of this happened to me, I had no clue how critical a ski binding can really be to ones performance.
Long story short (sort of, haha): Factastic Facts: had a Blizzard Bonafide with Rossignol FKS bindings purchased back in the 15/16 season. When those skis were shot after 200 days of abuse, I got a new set of Bonafides for the 18/19 season (same exact ski, just different graphics) – but this time with a knee binding CORE (3-12).
Earlier in the 20/21 season here I had the owner of a ski shop here in Flagstaff, AZ laugh when he saw my knee bindings, and mansplained to me why they sucked (Heavier than current competitor’s bindings, old technology (other than their “pure lateral” third release point] and way too high off the ski). I was feeling some serious buyer’s remorse, I did a web search, and found this forum – which as you might imagine only increased the negative resonance in my fragmented information echo chamber. I tried not to believe I’d made a terrible mistake buying these, and hoped for the best.
On a 2 week ski vacation in Colorado I couldn’t seem to rediscover the mojo I could channel in years past. In fact, my 60 year old father seemed to be getting through the bumps effortlessly, and I felt like I was just feeling painfully out of the rhythm, and off my game trying to keep up. I should have been warmed up for the season well before this point in time.
I ended up getting new boots (the ones I had were about 10 years old), which definitely helped put more energy and pop into my turns again, but something was still wasn’t congruent with how I remember a set of Blizzard Bonfides feeling. I felt like the skis couldn’t really flex into, and hold an edge onto groom – and on a Bonafide that doesn’t make sense (that’s where its suppose to excel!)
Either Blizzard was making a cheaper ski than a few years earlier, the knee binding was affecting my performance, or there was something different about me. Refusing to believe that I was regressing into a jerry, and that Blizzard would betray me – I deduced that the binding’s extra weight, weird forward tilting angle, and amount of distance off the ground was to blame.
In an act of pure desperation I decided to pull the trigger on a $385.68 experiment. I got a set of Look Pivots (same thing as an FKS) mounted to my Bonafides, and pray to the Sweet Baby Jesus it made a statistically significant difference.
Well, holy shit guys, heres what happened.
Same exact skis, boots, skier – and most importantly - same conditions, yet different bindings. The difference was night and day. There hadn’t been fresh snow on the ground there in about 10 days, but it essentially felt like a powder day for me. The bumps felt smoother, like I could smear, slide, and of course even carve through the bumps with incredible ease.
I remember the guy at the ski shop telling me that knee bindings were super heavy, but I didn’t think it really mattered that much because the weight was close to my feet. Surprisingly to me I could actually feel the difference, like a weight was lifted. There was such a thrill to having the edges of the skis sink into the hill like I remembered, and how swift edge to edge I could be once again.
Even clicking into the things felt completely different – the LOOK Pivot bindings had almost a gentle fashion of adhering to my boots, where as the KneeBinding required much more force to step down into, and had a sharp springing click.
My movements with both skis are much more “fluid”, and more enjoyable now that the knee binding is in the rearview mirror. I feel more confidence because the “platform” I create with both of my edges has a bigger sweet spot, because it feels like I can recruit more of the skis edge into the turn – almost like my big toe is extended halfway down the inside edge. Theres a flow I have through my transitions during the run that I really couldn’t achieve with that clunky old KneeBindings. The Pivots can do this effortless steezy little slide along the ski bases that I couldn’t seem replicate on the Kneebindings.
An additional bonus not to be overlooked is that now I can swap my skis back and forth to ski both edges once again, and these pivots just look super fly!
My thoughts: The knee binding is suppose to prevent “a slow backwards fall” from giving you a knee injury… that honestly sounds like some old fat guy jerry kind of maneuver. As long as you keep it in the front seat, you really shouldn’t require these clunky bindings. I’m not sure how much safer I really was in the knee bindings, but I’m willing to wager that whatever gains in safety I’ve waived have been far outweighed by the performance I’ve acquired in the Look Pivot binding.
Bottom line: If you’re an old, cautious skier, maybe they’re for you? But if you’re trying to get after it and rip the knar, get a set of FKS or Pivots and don’t go near these stupid things.
R-In short, there's nothing to convince me that I should use this binding over my usual FKS/Pivot binding. I don't really like how high the stand height is, they're heavy,and the benefit seems pretty minimal. Also, expensive. Knee Bibding is probably just another binding, comparable to the rest.
