Duke as alpine binder confessions.

Alright people,

There has to be some of you mags who have ended up skiing your dukes far more alpine this year than you originally intended. How have they held up to abuse inside the ropes? Would you use them as a 95% alpine 5% slackcountry? I'm really jonesen for a pair but I rarely get outside of the ropes currently. Needing something that'll handle the 20ft to flats that Vail is famous for (insert N. Rim here)etc... Fess up. They would be going on a pair of 138's so obviously not much mogul duty, just pow and chop with random drops and minimal touring.

So since i missed the last storm at tahoe, I have been riding my dukes on Wailer 105s at tahoe. I've managed about 5 days skied on weekends so far. Once at kirkwood on icy steeps and moguls, and the other times at alphine and heavenly, also on mixed ice and heavy deep crud (read: backside bowls of alpine meadows).

They rail just like an alpine binding, and haven't blown up on the jumps yet. There is a click/1mm-slop when I rotate the binding against the ski. This has only happened to one of the bindings so far.

They have held up fine, but I tend to find excuses for not going off jumps.

I have 7 alpine skiing days on the duke on a mantra. ski east hard and soft conditions din 8+ no pre-release. fingers crosed knock on wood no center screw problums. anyone seen any more on plate repair? from missing thread. also WTB salomon 997/977. thanks

Love mine in bounds and it the future I'll prob put them on all my skis.

The only negative I see so far is I do need to run them at a slightly higher din than I would my p18's.

Ive put about 30 days of inbounds on mine, and have been happy so far. Only one release that I thought shouldnt have happened, but it was a really strange akward impact. I keep dins at 13 and almost never come out. As far as durability and staying on your feet I think theyll be fine, my only problem is how high the stack is.

I think I have 5 days on my praxis and dukes, so far no problems, not even a release. They feel pretty solid, seem to handle the torque from 136 underfoot with no problem.

Only 2 days inbounds on them. Deep Tahoe snow a few weeks back. Seem fine on drops to around 15 feet. Did not go much bigger.

my Dukes ski better than my alpine binders in-bounds, but my alpine binders are old and crappy so you shouldn't listen to me.

toured the Dukes today, anyone else have the climbing bar down and have it unexpectedly flip all the way forward on them? not sure how it happened or if it's really even supposed to rotate that far..

edit: okay I went and had a look and there is much less resistance flipping the climbing bar into the (useless) low-position on one of the bindings as compared to the other. hmm