Marker Touring Binding?

[skiitsbetter]

Not a bad price and not a bad weight, combined with not a bad stack height. I would just wait a year or so for them to go through the abuse of the masses and see how they hold up. I see lots of people are looking into buying their first pairs of Markers in a long time! Earlier I said something like "why not just stick with alpine bindings and trekkers because of the intended uses, but spinning laps in the sidecountry, I think that the Duke would win in that.

[Dside11-11]

Kudos to the ski industry for finally stepping up and giving me what i (we) want!!!

They'll get my hard-earned money another year. Yes, I will be buying Markers next year - like, for sure.

[Jumper Bones]

I'm still scratching my head and trying to figure out why I'd want to buy a Garmont A/T boot without a walk function...but I guess it does beat grinding down the soles of my boots to put vibram in place.

But shit, if they can figure out how to do replaceable soles, to swap from vibram to flat plastic, what's stopping anybody else? Remember those Atomic boots with the replaceable toe and heel lugs?

[robnow]

Kudos to the ski industry for finally stepping up and giving me what i (we) want!!!

They'll get my hard-earned money another year. Yes, I will be buying Markers next year - like, for sure.

Great, this year I'm finally off Markers and happier than ever. Now it looks like next year I'll be back on. Shit.

Those Garmonts with the Dukes are going to be a bangin steup. Supposedly the same guy that designed the Dobermans/Hot Rods designed the Shamans. I've never had issues touring in my Hot Rods except for lack of Vibram on scetch. Pre punched shell in the Garmonts though. Sounds awesome.

[Hugh Jardon]

I skied the Duke at the Snow Basin demo today. It skis fine but I did not notice a performance difference between it and my Nx21's. Only skied cruisers. I took it for a quick uphill walk at the top of the gondola and it felt like I had two tanks on my feet. As with all AT bindings: give it one year! The part that has me most concerned is the the plastic under the toe. It looks like it could sheer off easily. The climbing bar is hard to engage but I don't think it's a big deal about stepping out to go into touring mode since most people take their skis off anyway to put thier skins on. The bigger question is would I really want to climb on this thing??? Last thing: if any of the mechanisms that allow the binding to tour ice up, it will be impossible to go into touring mode. Those mechanisms look susceptable to icing up.

[SuperGaper]

Skied it as well yesterday, on the Blizzard (formerly Titan 9), was interested in hard snow performance, railed super g turns on groomers and firm crud- a thousand times better than my fritschis. Stack height is lower and energy transmission is good.
As this is clearly a side country binder I think it will work well for those who insist on skiing their AT rigs at the hill or can only afford one set up.