Preventing freerides from insta-tele mode ???

[corn dog]

Anyone tried to make some kind of garage mods to their freerides to stop them popping into freeheel mode at inopportune moments? I don't think I'll be skinning them much, so it wouldn't have to be convenient. I'll have to pore over them tonight but if anyone else has tried it I'd be interested in hearing about it.

[assgasorgrass]

Cotter pin and an appropriate size drill bit.

[iggyskier]

Naxo Nx21

[cj001f]

Making sure they are mounted correctly. A metal (or plastic) extension to either the bar or heel retension/elevator mechanism - wouldn't have to be much.

[corn dog]

I was thinking of both the cotter pin type solution, and nx21, former would probably be cheaper Does the hole pattern for nx21 clash with freeride holes?

[Vinman]

also make sure the rubber bumpers under the heel piece are not contacting the ski.

[cj001f]

I was thinking of both the cotter pin type solution

want your bindings to break ASAP?

[iggyskier]

I was thinking of both the cotter pin type solution, and nx21, former would probably be cheaper Does the hole pattern for nx21 clash with freeride holes?

I just remounted my Gotamas w/ naxo, previously mounted with freerides, and there was no hole conflict.

Haven't skied the naxo yet, just pick the skis up yesterday, but the nx21 feels pretty beefy.

[corn dog]

also make sure the rubber bumpers under the heel piece are not contacting the ski.

Now I'm confused. I thought people complained about the legs not contacting the skis as being a cause of slop in these bindings. They are not supposed to contact the ski, at least while flat?

Yeah I'm not going to drill holes in binding itself. Was thinking more of adding a big chunk of cutting board underneath the heel piece and some kind of device to put through the existing gaps in the heel piece to secure it all down.

[Vinman]

They should be in contact but just make sure they are really pressing down too heavily on the top skin.

This problem is prolly isolated to my set up as I had to do some epoxing of the core on my skis. This left a bump directly under the rubber feet and caused the lock down to not work properly.

[corn dog]

So how about this possibility. If you look at the plastic piece on the tail of the main bar, the thing that the heel-piece actually grabs on to, there are some arch-like features on the top. You can slide something a bit narrower than a pencil through these, right on front of the face of the heel-piece. Such an item would block forward movement of the heel-piece. The only problem i see is breakage of the plastic arches if too much force was applied. So basically slide a not-too-stiff piece of plastic through, hold it in place with chewing gum or something, and you've got some defence against popping into freeheel mode!
Whaddayareckon?

[AltaPowderDaze]

corn dog,

the only free heel problems i've seen w/ fr's have been the result of either poor mounting, soft skis, worn gear, poor skiing or not clearing the snow away. i trust the binding but not my own user error. i haven't had real issues with tele mode but i have popped out 3-4 times over 300 days on them. each time it was from what should have been a predictable problem.

[upallnight]

Anyone tried to make some kind of garage mods to their freerides to stop them popping into freeheel mode at inopportune moments? I don't think I'll be skinning them much, so it wouldn't have to be convenient. I'll have to pore over them tonight but if anyone else has tried it I'd be interested in hearing about it.

Corn dog...are you doing this because you've experienced the problem often? The only reason I ask is that this has never happened on the two pairs of Freerides I currently own (over 300 days on them, combined, both in- and out-of-bounds). I've only had the "tele" mode occur on a Diamir Titanal II, and it was over 6 years ago on very soft skis which bowed in a concave spot in a couloir.

I've probably had close to 700 days on Fritschis (titanal II, titanal 3, freeride).

[MTT]

My 2Cents

I now have around 15 days on Soft Bro's with Free Rides. I have been sking steeps, bump's Railing groomers and some light terrain park jumping. The binding have not gone into Tele mode and I do not belive they are ever going to. Unless you are planning to do some ski bending sick shit!! It just aint gonna happen.

[fez]

i've done it a few times on my fischer big stix 106. mostly landing small drops at speed. of course i cant really imagine a much worse place to have it happen.

[bbirtle]

Never had this happen in 200+ days of skiing on the same pair of Freeride bindings. Don't do big cliffs, but have done a lot of big jumps, air in the halfpipe, etc. Maybe a defect in yours? Or maybe when skiing the massive pow dumps that hit the US, versus over here, they are more prone to doing it or something, like more snow getting up underneath dunno... just bring it up cause maybe as others have suggested there's actually some flaw in your bindings or setup in particular.............

[corn dog]

I've got 30 - 40 days on diamir 3s on softer skis and its never happened on those. It happened 3 times in the first 2 days I skied the FRs on the daddies. It only happened in bumps or otherwise cut up stuff when I was flailing around a bit. Yeah my technique could be better but it didn't happen with the D3s
One time the heel piece was up in the first touring position when I stopped and looked. The other times it wasn't. I was guessing that with the shim under the heel piece, since its now higher in the air its more subject to being kicked off by the other ski if you are kinda flailing at all. Today I just stuck some flexy plastic things from the hardware store in there, as I described above, and I didn't pop out. Since the plastic things are flexy I don't think they will immediately break the binding, but its not ideal. I had a look at these and my diamirs and I can't figure out anything obviously wrong with them or the mount. I'm thinking now I'll either concoct something to hold the heel piece in ski mode, or get some nx21s.
But I'm certainly interested in any observations/thoughts etc. thanks

[upallnight]

I was guessing that with the shim under the heel piece, since its now higher in the air its more subject to being kicked off by the other ski if you are kinda flailing at all.

Wow -- I ski bumps all day (sometimes) in my freerides and haven't had a problem. The one time, as said above, was in a VERY concave/narrow couloir, where only the tip and tail were touching and the ski was bowed quite tremendously. I should have been on a straighter ski -- not really the binding's fault.

What you write above is pretty telling -- if one ski tail is so far behind and over the other that you could flick the switch, that's not a sign of a flaw in the binding at all -- and it's not really in the same class as the "inadvertent switch to tele mode" flaw (which is only due to deep flex of the ski).

I've never had this happen, even after landing jumps. Then again, I'm not going over 30' these days.

[laseranimal]

definitely check the heel piece mounting

that's the source of most Freeride "insta-tele" problems

[corn dog]

What you write above is pretty telling -- if one ski tail is so far behind and over the other that you could flick the switch, that's not a sign of a flaw in the binding at all -- and it's not really in the same class as the "inadvertent switch to tele mode" flaw (which is only due to deep flex of the ski).

The thing is it hasn't happened on my diamir 3s, flailing and all. But looking at them side by side the FR heel piece is higher off the ski because of the cutting board shim I used, shown above. Oh well.

[corn dog]

Wait, I think I figured it out now! My removal of the shim under the heel piece that comes with the binding was a mistake. The shim supports the axle on which the heel lock thing rotates, and this support part has some plastic sticking up that stops the heel lock part from trying to lever itself off the housing when you rotate it. This is kinda hard to describe in words, but the result was that the heel piece was rotating way too easily. The FR heel piece is put together differently from the D3 heel piece. I think the quickest solution for now will just be to swap heel pieces