First off: I love the weight, stride and convenience of Dynafit bindings, and I have trusted/will continue to trust them on hairball descents.
HOWEVER...since blowing out my knee, I've had a couple musings on the release characteristics of Dynafit toe pieces.
My own injury (for which I take full responsibility), occurred when one ski hit some mank/glop at high speed, and I kept going while my lower leg stayed put. The ski never released -- and EVEN IF THEY HAD, I think the injury would have happened before the binding had a chance. So...I do not think my injury was in any way caused by Dynafits.
That said...I do have my Dynafits cranked to 10 (but not locked for this mellow descent).
I was wondering if any of my suspicions are accurate:
(1) Dynafit release at the upper end of the spectrum (i.e., DIN maxed out) is less reliable than the middle of the spectrum...and less reliable than another binding at that same level -- even another AT binding like the Fritschi;
(2) Do Dynafits not release in an inherently knee-friendly way/direction? That is, even when a proper release happens, does the force on the leg required to get the Dynafits to release at the toe mean that one is more likely to do some damage than a Fritschi, Naxo or alpine binding. I suspect this is true. This is more about the direction of release than an "absolute" force on the knee question.
I prefer to keep my skis on/rarely go down...so I accept the responsibility for what happened (and having my skis not release has saved me more often than times I've been injured due to no release)...but this incident got me wondering about future releases with Dynafits. I am most certainly NOT blaming the Dynafits for the injury as I think it happened just *before* going down, but it made me think about the mechanics of Dynafit release.
I am generally more conservative in the backcountry (although this injury did happen in the BC near my backyard, it was really a bit of "$hit happens"), so it is *very* rare for me to ever have a release from Dynafits. In fact, thinking back over at least 3 years of skiing on Dynafits, I can think of only one other eject I've had from them, so I'm definitely unexperienced in their release...hence the above questions.
Thoughts?
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