Next winter's gear: snowboards, boots and bindings

Rome bindings unveil their line for winter 2010-2011

As always bindings have seen tonnes of development. From lighter than light, to easy entry options to super technical design.

Burton

An interesting move for Burton has appeared in the development of it’s channel binding system, The central mounting channel for binding screws has swollen to 6mm in diameter, which is technical and a bit dull, but what is more interesting is the fact that they have opened up their patent to other binding manufacturers, to encourage them to integrate with the proprietary design. The specifications have apparently been sent out to all binding manufacturers, although we only directly know of Union jumping on board at the moment.

Drake

There have been a few changes over at Drake with the bindings being revised throughout the range. All bindings now have new highbacks amongst other changes.
The board range has been developed a bit too, with a larger range of reverse camber decks available. Boards and bindings will be available as complete packages too, with the DF2 freestyle deck coming iin at £400 with the Reload binding.

Union

The binding brand seems to have blown-up in the UK over tha past couple of years and it looks set to continue it’s upward trajectory for 2011.

Most of the range has been updated for the new season still with using regular construction methods. Special mention must gotto the three hundred and fifty pound MC though, Metafuse Nano technology is the name of the game with this one. Essentially it involves coating the binding highback with kind of sprayed-on metal. More than just shiny paint, it is the first time this technology has been used in snowboarding, as it’s been taken straight from the aerospace world. As from bragging rights, it means that the binding will be stupidly light, whilst retaining incredible strength. It also means the there’s a fairly hefty carbon footprint on it, with the binding having to be shipping from manufacturing plants in the far east over to the crazy metal spray place in Canada.

Rome

Bindings-wise VROD technology is new for 2011 that lifts opposing corners of the binding to allow for a truer flex whilst retaining strength. On top of that Rome are introducing canted base on binding models to allow for extra wide stances and to work with reverse camber models. Available in the high-end Targa and 390 Boss models coming in at around £190 and £175 respectively.