Well, I value lateral release at the toe a lot. I also value elasticity (I am pretty picky about my Alpine bindings and try to ski only STH or Pivots), but of course I realize BC is a different game. Curious about durability and functional tradeoffs of Tectons. What I like about Shift (in theory!), is that when you ski downhill, your boot is clamped in fully alpine style, no pins. But I get and seriously value the weight argument.
Well I can’t speak about durability*. The Tectons have a lot of plastic, but so do the Shifts.
As far as being clamped, the Tecton (and Kingpin) clamp the heel alpine style. It's the heel pins that have a less firm connection to the boot than alpine. Toe pins, if anything, have a more direct, rigid connection. So from a skiing power transition standpoint they should be just as good. They don’t have as much lateral elastic as a good Alpine toe(Shift), but it’s is there.
In the
Blister review, Brian Lindahl actually skied them on one foot, with an alpine binding on the other foot, and found no noticeable difference.
Lee Lau also wrote a good comparo article on TGR:
www.tetongravity.com
And indeed, ~180g weight difference isn’t going to feel noticeably different, but it will help over the course of a day, and really with no loss in performance. In fact, I would say, the
easier operation is an even bigger benefit than the 180g weight saved.
And again, if you are not planning on 50/50 use, I would seriously consider something lighter than a Tecton.
Outdoorgearlab puts it this way:
“
The Tecton is for truly hard-charging backcountry skiers. Buyer beware, though, as the Tecton is a specialized piece of equipment. Only those skiing like they should be in a TGR film will really take advantage of the weighty and spendy attributes of this niche product. You've gotta weigh more than 170, drop cliffs, and have a long alpine racing background to fully and truly realize the performance gains.”
For skiing performce, ATK(/Hagan/Majesty) R12 with freeride spacer has great power transfer.
Vipec Evo does too: its heel doesn’t rotate, and therefor is more direct when pushing sideways, and your heel rests on the brake pad. Also still offers the safety of lateral toe release, and some lateral elasticity. From your comments, this would be the top of my list for you.
And if this ski is to be mostly used in soft snow, would the slight reduction in downhill feel, of a lightweight binding really be a big problem?
*except for the breaking brake retainer, which is not day ending, and can be avoided with some care.
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