Line Bindings

Billek

Billek

Active member
No, I dont want them or have them but I just want to talk about them. I seriously think what they had last year was a super good idea. You dont have to fuck around with getting them mounted at a shop and you can change where the bindings are on the ski. I like this idea and I wish some company made bindings that had a reasonable weight and quality with the cool features that were on the reactors.
 
I have them and love the idea. One of the main reasons it never took off was because of other companies' reluctance to get involved in a binding that can easily be changed from one ski to another. Of course, this applies particularly to ski companies who manufacture bindings as well (pretty much all the big ones). Why would salomon want to make it easy for you to only own one or two pairs of bindings when you have several sets of skis? For this reason I don't think that this ingenius idea will ever take off in the ski market. Fortunately for snowboarders this was never really an issue as self-mounted bindings were an option from the early days. The ski binding industry is too well established for this to ever happen in the ski market.
 
they should upgrade the idea, test them more, make them lighter and more durable and i think thwy would have more success
 
they were totally pimp, mine broke though... The problem was that it kinda hurt the flex of the ski, and they were hella lifted off the ski = bad for pipe and rails
 
you can kiss the reactor binding goodbye now that K2 owns Line. As a company that also owns one of the biggest binding companies, they would never agree to fund or even support a concept like the reactor binding.
 
good idea. and thats the only good thing about it. the idea. i have seen them break apart like nothing and when people are skiing switch, the breaks catch and throw them to the ground. i would support it if i saw some solid shit. but for the price that they were being sold for...they were not worth it.
 
What if the ski industry came up with a standardized bolt pattern for bindings... kinda like on snowboards and everyone built their bindings around that pattern. That way the ski companies could build their skis with inserts kinda like line did only they would work with any bindings. Then you would be free you use whatever bindings you wanted with whatever skis but you wouldnt have to go to a shop to get them mounted. I guess the only problem with that is that there would have ot be multiple inserts to accomidate all the different places people would want to mount their skis. Just a thought
 
I'd say im happy to see there is more then one kind of binding available in skiin gwhile there arent that much in snowboarding... at least for freestyle.
 
didn't your read what I wrote above? I can't see this ever happening, once again here's why:

Binding companies tend to be owned by ski manufacturers. Let's use K2, which owns Marker, as an example. Let's say you own three pairs of of K2 skis, one park, one all-mountain and one BC specific. You're going to need three pairs of bindings to mount onto those skis so let's say you buy 3 pairs of Marker bindings...that's some nice $$$ to K2's pockets. Now imagine that next year all ski companies adopt the 4x4 insert pattern that Line tried a few years back (I'm not going to mention the problem of keeping everyone happy with where to position the inserts on the ski). You buy your 3 new pairs of K2 skis but suddenly you only need one pair of bindings for all three skis. Binding sales drop an unbelievable amount because no one needs to own more than one pair, ever!!

Basically ski companies that own binding companies would be completely shooting themselves in the foot if they adopted an insert standard. If Line didn't realise this problem would occur then it was a massive oversight by the R&D guys.
 
Hey Rich, you are half right, but there is something important you forgot: If a company (lets use Line as an example) makes a binding you can move from ski to ski, you are right in that you will only buy one set of bindings. But, for that to work, you must buy ALL of your skis from the same manufacturer. So, when you buy the Reactor, Line ensures that the next set of skis you buy will also be Lines because you want to reuse the binding. Pretty good way to build brand loyalty.
 
the only way it would work if the majority of ski and binder companys could agree on standernd insetrs and bindings so for example u have line park skis armada pow skis with the smae insert pattern then u could get your look or line or marker... binder to be used for bolth. that way with all companys with there hats in the ring it could be possible.
 
This is coming from someone who spent a year and a half on (5 pairs) of reactors. They ride really nice, but fall apart too fucking easy. Good concept, bad design. Better for big mountain than park. The weightiness actually helps the ski stay stable at ridiculous speeds.
 
id be scared shitless going fast with those, id think they were going to self destruct. you have some balls haha
 
reactors blow ass. they fall apart in one season, pop out all the fucking time no matter what your din is set at, and the worst part they weigh about 10 lbs per binding

fuck em'

 
but sometimes where the inserts are do make a difference in the construction of the binding. Some companies market that they have more inserts for more contact with the ski. But it would definitely be better if they did standardized it so you wouldn't have to drill a ski more than once and it could retain its liveliness.
 
You make a fair point, but I disagree:

I don't know the specific economics of this kind of thing but after the amount that Line invested into the binding, it would have been suicide to make a binding that could only be used with their skis. It's such a small manufacturer that they would be instantly reducing their market to a very small percentile. Line (as someone mentioned above) got around this by creating the "freedom" plate.

To respond to that person's points disputing my arguments that Line had a bad perception of market needs regarding new binding by suggesting that the freedom plate enabled anyone to use the reactor:

Unfortunately the reactor was already close to being too heavy, and was also raised pretty high too. Considering that Line is focused on freeskiing these two factors alone immediately alienated many of their prospective consumers from the binding. The freedom plate added to the weight and height; how many freeskiers do you know who want a binding raised that high and weighing that much? Not many, which is another reason why the reactor failed to take off.

Obviously it's impossible to know, but personally I'm fairly sure that the Reactor would have sturggled to take off even if there hadn't been any quality issues.

P.S. I love LINE and haven't ridden any other company's skis for the last 6/7 years. I also own a pair of reactors.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top