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What's the french for

 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
soft bindings?

Too late now but for future reference! I'm guessing fix doux is wrong.
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 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
fixations must be in there somewhere?
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 Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Fixations surf/snowboard. They sell so few alpine bindings that I imagine you'd have to ask for those specifically (which would be fixations pour surf alpin, I imagine - or if not, that would certainly do the job).
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Lizzard, no I need to specify as the board I'm looking at has only alpine binding attachments on it and I wanted to ask if he had the parts that meant I could attach my normal bindings or if I'd have to buy them myself, I went with fix doux in the end with an explanation that I was sorry but I didn't know the French word although it was soft in English and a link to a photo.

The reason I couldn't find it though is, as you say, all the shops just call them fix/fixations de surf.

and what is it with French websites and overuse of flash, sport2000 is horrendous.
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 Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Swirly, 'doux' usually means things like sweet or warm. Probably closer with 'flexible' or 'pliant'.
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Lizzard, that's what I get for learning a language from shampoo bottles.
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Swirly, Laughing
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After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
As mentioned above, the French now almost always use "fixations" (often shortened to just "fix") for bindings.

However, soft bindings are "coques" and plate bindings are "plaques" (plates).

All that said, all the plate bindings I've ever seen use exactly the same 4-hole mounting system as soft bindings (Burton weirdness notwithstanding!). What system is on the board you're after?
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stevomcd, it's a second hand voile splitboard.
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OK, I've got a splitty myself with Voilé fittings. Unless it's some really ancient old version (it's been the same as what I'm using for at least 8 or 9 years), you can fit any 4-hole binding to it.

The important bit of the split board system is two aluminium plates with holes on the top and at the ends, plus slots underneath. Your bindings fit onto the holes on the top, which are pretty much in the usual 4-hole pattern (I've got Burton Triads set up on mine using the 4-hole discs). The holes at the front are used to fit the pivots when in touring mode and the slots underneath are used to slide it onto the rubber blocks on the two "skis", thus joining your board back together.

To fit your bindings onto the plates, you just use normal binding hardware. The splitboard kit is supplied with a set of little washers/nuts (whatever you want to call them!) which go underneath the aluminium plates. Your normal binding mount screws therefore go through the normal washers, through your binding baseplate disc and through the alu plate, then screw into the Voilé-supplied washers. Only difference from normal might be that you could need longer screws.

If the 2nd hand board you're after has bindings fitted, then it should have everything you need to fit your own. If not, make sure the vendor finds the necessary wee washer/nut things for you. I guess you could probably order spares from Voilé.

Sorry if that's a really crap explanation, it would be a lot easier just to show you but my board is in France and I'm in Scotland at the moment!
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I think they're to make the British appear clean, polite, and modest.
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 And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
Sorry, I didn't read the rest of the first post.
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 So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
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Q: What's E.T. short for?


A: Because he's only got little legs.
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
stevomcd, it could be an old one given it's a swallowtail: I don't know when Voile last made them. Picture here: http://skipass.fr/photos/classifieds/31561/42787.jpg
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 Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Looks like you've got the 4x4 holes when together if you remove the metal plates and equally the binders should come off so the only question is will the lifter plates take a 4x4 binder for which answer should be yes.

Looks like the junk on it is similar to the Voile split kit though that board looks ancient.

http://www.voile-usa.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=1100&Category_Code=SB&Product_Count=2
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Swirly, looks like you will have a couple of extra shelves in Nendaz then wink
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fatbob, I considered trying to split one myself but the cost of a board plus the kit plus skins works out not much different to a new one, would be worth it if you had an old long board knocking about. The first question I asked was how old is it!

I think I've talked myself into getting one, cheapest option seems to be buying direct from Voile and paying the taxes: it's a lot cheaper than from telemark pyrenees who seem to be the only European shop selling splits. Unless I can find someone going to Whistler who could pick one up from the Prior factory for me.
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 Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Sierra Snowboards not got anything? Mountain Equipment Co-op used to have good prices on Voile in Canada but that's probably gone with near parity of can $

Telemark tips sometimes has splitboards in the classifieds IIRC. Better still man up and learn to ski real gud. wink
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Swirly, what about the atomic poacher? http://www.sportscheck.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/WFS/Sportscheck-SportscheckCh-Site/de_CH/-/CHF/DisplayProductInformation-ArticleNo;sid=htHxNm2G_MVtNiaHVOvs9DjWa5kglNFR6i7WLFZfDYzeLoD3hiPWLFZfyH8vJQ==?ArticleNo=263222&CategoryName=

1800 chf (I dare say you can find it cheaper) with skins.
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Jonny luv plums, sir you are a genius. I'd not even heard of this but possibly found it in the UK for half that price.

Seems a bit of an oddball: the only current split that doesn't use the voile system and you have to take parts off to switch mode which gives the possibility of losing them. Also you skin with it backwards which seems a bit screwed up! That said it is a partial swallow that is a big plus in my view.
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Swirly, I had a good look at it at the expo thing in march, it felt solid. Didnt get chance to demo it in feb as the rep said it was just like a snowboard, unless I wanted to skin up the piste on it.
There's also the burton s series but imo overpriced and without skins.

I was talking to ed leigh about his split board tour thing for ski sunday, he recommended skinning with the things backwards, something about more grip on traverses when the skis are backwards because of the side cuts.
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Swirly, so you must be intending a load of back country skinning this season ? seems like you are in the right place for it Very Happy
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After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
rayscoops, no I wanted it for the park.

Just spoke to someone at Fillarinskis, they stocked the poacher last year and it sold pretty well they're getting the 164s in again but he's going to see about getting me a 171 snowHead
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Swirly, i was meaning heading out for a few days at the time maybe and staying out over night in a mountain hut, a bit like some of Parlor's reports with his mate on a split board (but not sure if they stayed out). But the park might be fun .....
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rayscoops, http://snowheads.com/ski-forum/viewtopic.php?p=942398&highlight=tour#942398

Yeah things like that and similar, it seems like quite a good area for it from the map. Accessible summits that don't have long traverses on the approach.
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Swirly, yip that was the one and it looked seriously good. Your trips now seem to cast a long shaddow over a typical week or so in Morzine. I am quite envious of you ! maybe next season for me ....
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 And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
The Atomic poacher hasn't had great reviews, although I like the theory and I haven't tried one myself.

That swallowtail one pictured above will take normal 4x4 bindings, no problem. No extra bits required.

As far as skinning "backwards" goes, it's not "backwards", more like "inside-out". You swap the "skis" over so that the curved edges are on the inside instead of the straight ones. Makes sense if you think about it.

Mine is a custom-made Never Summer one by the way. You won't find any info on them on the NS site or in any of their catalogues, but there's a guy who works for Never Summer's custom-shop who basically makes them to order on his own time. He can split any board in the NS range. It's a really proper job not a bandsaw affair! Edges on both sides, mounts custom drilled to suit your stance, etc. I spent a long time looking around and eventually went for that one after taking advice from some experienced splitboarders. Never Summer's are well-known for being somewhat over-built, but this is a plus when it comes to splitting them as splits tend to be a bit flexier than the solid boards they're based on. Can dig out the email address if you want. Mine came to a little under £1000 in the end, with board, kit, skins, crampons, shipping & import taxes. It was my "I've been made redundant and I'm moving to the Alps" present to myself!

I've been pretty happy with it overall. Soooooooooooooooo much better than snowshoes. Still not as good as a ski touring setup and the changeover is a bit of a faff, but overall pretty good. Rides well when reassembled, although it'll always feel a little heavy and clunky due to the weight of the split kit and being raised up on the binding platforms.
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 So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
stevomcd, there's a bit of info on the US neversummer site it's a NS board with the voile kit added, other than Atomic all split boards are made with this kit as Voile have the patent on it. They inlay extra edges making it a fair bit better than a home job they also have the experience of doing it a few times and wouldn't send you a board if they cocked it up, there's a guy in the US who'll do this for any board you send him (Monk from the splitboard.com forum, his site is customsplitboards.com or something similar).

Anyway I sourced an Atomic Poacher in the UK and got it today, it was quite a bit cheaper than any of the other kit out there. I know what you mean about the reviews and although I can't comment through experience here's my take on the issues people have with it. It's also worth noting those who demoed it were a lot less critical.

(1) parts to lose: I can see how this could be an issue but it's not as bad as it seems. Firstly the "tool" is one of the crampons so you are as likely to drop it as you are a crampon: not very and even if you dropped them both you could use a ski pole to do the job. You'd be more likely and in more trouble if you dropped a heel lifter as they are the parts also used to hold the tips and tails together but you wouldn't be putting them down at any point when they aren't locked in position and they aren't likely to fall off between being unlocked and taken off. Maybe you could drop a binding but you'd have to be a special sort of idiot to do that and it would be relatively simple to come up with some sort of idiot strap style device for all these parts with a sling and karabiner which would be in your glacier kit anyway.

(2) complicated transition method: Can't compare to the Voile system but it took me less than 5 minutes, not including skin faff on my first attempt, admittedly in the lounge rather than a mountainside but like I said first ever attempt.

(3) can't change the stance: you can, you just need a screwdriver, admittedly there's less scope for specific angles than with regular bindings with 5 degree steps rather than 3 degrees. It's unlikely you'd change this on the mountainside anyway.

(4) climbing bar hits the top sheet: true I imagine over time it will scuff it, my solution is the extremely technical application of a bit of gaffer tape under the bar.

On the board you skin using the snowboard tails as the ski tips, sounds odd but makes sense when you look at the shape, the small swallow tail (which I will from now on refer to as a camel toe) makes the board tail look like ski tips when in split mode. The theory is this makes them track in the skin track better and possibly hold a traverse better, how true this is in practice I will have to let you know although reports from testers suggest it's a good concept. Another advantage to this system is it is lighter than the other one and as the binding used with it is specific to the board it sits directly on the board rather than on a platform. My initial impression is that the bindings are well made although harder to adjust: stance angle and forward lean are taken care of by 1 and 4 screws per binding respectively so you can only do this at home but I'd imagine anyone riding a splitboard knows what they want already. That said the spark splitboard bindings have an easily adjustable forward lean to change between skinning and riding, I don't know how much of a change this makes, if it's a big issue I might try and Macgyver up something, with some ingenuity it might even be possible to use the Atomic binding attachments with modified normal bindings although it would take some thinking as to how to mount them for the uphill.

Anyway that's the thoughts on having it out the box and a 30 minute play in the living room. I'll let you know how it turns out once I get to Nendaz and get on it. It's nice to know I'm not the only one on here with one though snowHead
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
Cool, interested to hear how you get on with it. A few of us here in Sainte Foy were looking at trying to get a group deal or something on them. There were some crazy cheap prices going on them last season.
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 Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
wow somebody buys a board based on something I said Shocked that's worrying. Even more worrying is its almost skis Shocked
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Jonny luv plums, yeah but only one you wouldn't ride, this has got 4 edges while your boards tend to have none Laughing

I also got some software on your recommendation!
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
sweet, how you getting on with it?
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 Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
OK, I went for acid pro 7 on the basis it would be easier to learn. The main thing I learnt was I have no skillz for this stuff, having a bot of fun with it though.
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sweet, if you want I'll zip up an acd file and you can see what I do with it and play with some things.
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 Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
yeah that'd be cool, my email's swirly1981 at gmail.com
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