What is the best ski tech innovation you've seen in last year or so?

A snowHead

Off topic, but What he just said. The Phantom Levers are game changers for me at least. Previous approaches - the basic idea is hardly new - were nothing like this. The key bit is the zero-friction pivot, located in precisely the correct place. The springs are easy after that, I think.

This shot on an Insta 360 x4 today, demonstrating what the boots are for.
Can't really say how good that technology is just yet, but it has more pixels than the x3. This is unprocessed straight out of the screeenshot tool.

Oh yeah, the snowboard is much better at spring snow than skis, if that counts as technology.

A snowHead

Sorry for continuing the thread drift re AT boots for splitboarding, but my recollection is the first dedicated hard snowboard boots (in the early 90s) were essentially ski touring boots, and then started getting snowboard-specific features, like the cut-off heel and toe. See example below. Add 30 years of AT boot innovation (most in the last 5 years), and the rear spring from hard snowboard boats, and the technology seems fairly obvious - the more interesting bit to me is that someone's considered it commercially viable (a point I'm about to repeat re the new TX-Pro telemark boot).

How does the binding work in downhill mode ? I notice the boot has the rear pin attachment, but I'd've thought a pin binding (with completely separate toe and heel pieces) wouldn't hold the two pieces of the board together. My initial though on having a pin-binding for the up would be that you'd only have the pin binding toe-piece mounted for each ski for the up (probably with a heel riser, but no heel attachment), and a completely separate binding when as a board in downhill mode, in which case there's no need for the rear pin attachment on the boot

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Re the upcoming new Scarpa TX-Pro, I'm very excited by it, and am about to pre-order a pair, but I'm not sure how much technical innovation there is. From what I've read (the telemark pyrenees review), it seems like the main benefits are to work out what of the recent advances in AT boots can be applied to a telemark boot. To me, the main advance is the commercial commitment to do this for a telemark boot

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@viv, a picture being worth a thousand words here’s my (shiny new) splitboard

Pin toes for the uphill and bindings that slide on to pucks for the downhill, stay in the pack uphill. No heel piece just a basic riser.

The boots are essentially modified atomic backlands so the heel hardware is just a hangover from that. Although I know someone who has mounted a heel piece to a splitboard for split skiing.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

@hang11, thanks, that's pretty much what I expected, so no need for the heel piece on the boot.

Re the boots, I do now recall reading about being able to buy the spring thingy (I guess it has a better name than that) for the Atomic Backland boot; glad to hear it's effective.

I'm trying to work out if the position of the uphill toe pieces and risers limit the position of the binding for downhill. I have fairly alpine binding angles (42 deg front, 30 deg rear) and it looks to me like that might overlap with the risers. That said, I rarely use risers when touring, so if I went for something like this I might just go for a fixed bit of plastic under the front part of the heel, with no moveable riser, to give more space for the binding in downhill mode

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You definitely need to be careful of the mounting angles and stance width. Usually the issue is on the toe pieces not the heel risers. You can move them round a fair bit and use phantom ones where both wires sit forward. My board has spark risers because it’s carbon and sparks are less likely to make it snap.

Worse boards tend to be set back stance/short tail - hovercraft sort of shapes.

The stance width on the board in the pic is at the minimum position for the front foot running a 30 degree angle.

The other issue is that with hard boots people tend to use a narrower stance width on canted pucks.

You can use a voile sts low tech toe which has no lever out the front so gives a fair bit more clearance.

Reducing angles is the usual solution however.

Never been an issue for me but I’m a giant so use a fairly wide stance relatively.

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

I read the title and came to say, while not in the last year, the overall advances in "hybrid" gear...

Many fortunate and frequent skiers are a bit cynical as they have access to all their gear, and all the terrain, so can justify a dedicated set for a piste day, or touring day etc.

For someone who has to travel to ski having a versatile all round setup is superb. For me this is Shifts, mid-wide hybrid skis (Faction Agent 3) and my Hawk Ultra XTD BOAs.

Last trip I skied piste with my family, skinned up a ridge, got fresh pow then booked a guide and did a short tour to access 800m vertical of untracked north face. All on the same gear.

Shifts - took it all on piste and were great for my uphill aspirations (short ski off the lift)

Boa - for me, game changer. Maybe not the boa specifically, could be the boot as a whole. First boots ever in 35 years that didn't pinch my instep and cut off blood to my toes. They really do feel like they wrap rather than clamp. I put them on a 8:30 and walked to the bus - was happily walking back through Cham at 18:30 after a crepe after a day of hard skiing. A first!

After all it is free

Help!!

What is the best ski tech innovation you've seen in last year or so?

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