Karakoram Nomad Review

The Karakoram Nomad is a do-it-all workhorse binding from one of the top names in splitboard bindings. Coming in at the middle of the Karakoram price range, the Nomads are responsive and able to handle hard riding, but aren't as lightweight as the higher-end offerings. The new Ride Mode 3.0 Interface is 10% lighter than its predecessor and handled icy conditions fairly well compared to previous models. The active joining of the Karakoram interface is the real highlight of this binding and provides some of the best board feel and response in our test.

Uphill Performance

You'll spend most of your time splitboarding going uphill; for this reason, it is worth putting some stock into the uphill performance of your bindings. The Nomads offer uphill performance that doesn't get in the way, allowing for comfortable ascent. While you won't be looking to these bindings for ultra-light ascents, they are more than capable of getting you wherever you have the stamina to go. Especially helpful for smooth climbing with these bindings are the frictionless pivots. Where the binding mounts to the touring brackets is actually a rotating disc that is incredibly smooth.

The Karakoram touring mounts are a little tricky to get in and out of because the lock mechanism is under the bindings. Once you're used to it, it is pretty easy, but it takes some practice. The risers on Karakoram bindings also fall into this, tricky until you get the hang of it, category as well. The risers are cleverly designed so you can lift them with a pole basket, and they work in two stages. The first lift puts you into the highest setting, then you use your pole to knock the riser over into the middle position. What we often found is that this worked well until snow got into the middle hinge, at this point, knocking over the riser into the lower position wouldn't work and it would just knock the whole riser down. This could be overcome by binding down and folding over the riser by hand, but we prefer not to put ourselves in this uncomfortable position if we don't have to.

Downhill Performance

Although we spend most of our day going uphill, we put in all that work for one moment, the sweet downhill. The tricky transitions and slightly heavier weight of the Nomads all seem quite worth it once you strap in for the downhill. Karakoram calls the Nomad a 6/10 flex, and we thought it felt just right for daily riding. The bindings weren't too aggressive for low-angle tree run days, but get them in open terrain, and you could carry speed without chatter or lack of response.

What really sets Karakoram apart is the excellent board feel and response that their active joining system provides. If you have never ridden a binding with active joining, it is a real game-changer for splitboarding. Ultimately, as splitboarders, there's an elephant in the room: our snowboard has been cut in half… Because of this, splitboards simply have a slower response time than solid boards and have worse boardfeel. While new technologies keep improving upon this, we are not going to sit here and say splitboards are the same as a solid board in this regard. To make the most of your splitboard, active joining technology is one of the top investments you can make. Karakoram does this with a pin system that pushes into their mounting discs and brings the two board halves together, greatly increasing response.

The Ride Mode 3.0 mounting discs also feature overlapping mid-sections, this places material from each disc over the other half of the board so the two halves are less likely to separate in a vertical orientation from each other. Combine all of these things, with a set of Karakoram Ultra-Clips for joining your board halves together, and you have done a lot to increase the downhill board feel of your whole setup. For this reason, the Nomads are one of our favorite bindings for downhill performance.

Transitions

Transitioning a splitboard already requires a lot of moving parts; anything we can do to make that process easier is welcome. Often, we are dealing with ice on our board that collects as snow melts and refreezes to our topsheet while we go uphill. The best bindings for transitioning are ones that self-clear ice pretty well and don't require much scraping to get things going. The Nomads with Ride Mode 3.0 are improved from Karakorams of the past, but they do still require some work to clear out the mounting discs. If you do not clear the base of snow around the disc, the binding will not drop far enough for the pins to slide into their slots. If this happens and you try to force them, the closure bar feels on the verge of bending or breaking. We've never had a failure with this part, but it's worth noting that you shouldn't get too aggressive with it.

Technically, the Nomads can be transitioned without ever removing the binding from your foot, which is a cool concept for speed, but we never found ourselves doing this, as it's quite challenging and requires you to walk around in snow with bindings on your feet, so you'd pack snow into the interface. Maybe you might get good at this, though!

Binding removal and transitioning back to uphill mode is much less complicated than transitioning to downhill with these bindings. We found it quick to pop the bindings off and then slot them into the touring mounts for quick down-to-up on pow days when we were milking every bit of vertical we could get.

Weight

The Nomads fall slightly heavier than higher-end offerings in our test. While the ride mode 3.0 does lighten things up, the binding chassis itself is a heavy construction compared to the carbon models that Karakoram offers.

Straps and Highbacks

The Karakoram Nomad bindings feature their airpod ankle strap, which we found to be comfortable and pain-free throughout our season. Many splitboard bindings will reduce weight by reducing padding in the ankle strap; this can sometimes result in discomfort, but we never noticed such things with the airpod straps. The straps do feel on the stiffer end if you are used to softer straps on your resort bindings, though. Our lead tester often remarked that the Nomad setup felt much stiffer laterally than his hardboot setup. This is certainly not a downside, but it is worth accounting for if you really like soft straps.

The toe strap on the Nomad is light and simple, yet very secure. It is designed to be used in a toecap fashion, but because of its thin, minimal design, it can easily be worn over the top of the foot instead of a cap-strapped one if that's what you prefer.

The Nomads feature Karakorams C4 carbon highback, which they rate at an 8/10 for stiffness. We found this was maybe true flexing from toe to heel, but laterally twisting the highback felt softer. This combo is really quite nice for giving you the movement to pedal or footsteer your board, but the highback holds up when you get higher edge angles. The highback has an easy-to-use forward lean adjustment that spins out of the way for uphill, and two forward lean settings you can choose between before going down. Each of the two settings can be adjusted to your preferences. We set it up so one was a more relaxed lean for surfier riding, and the other was more aggressive for charging steeper lines.

Should You Buy the Karakoram Nomads?

The Karakoram Nomads are a great choice for riders focused on downhill performance. There is no denying that the active joining technology that Karakoram uses is a huge improvement for board feel and response while splitboarding. The uphill attributes are a little finicky on the Nomads, but we don't think users will have any trouble figuring them out quickly and getting comfortable with them.

What Other Splitboard Bindings Should You Consider?

If you are looking for a simpler interface, the Spark Arc ST and their puck system clear ice more easily and come in a lighter package than the Nomads. If you are willing to sacrifice the ease of a puck system for the active joining tech Karakoram uses, but want something lighter, they offer the Karakoram Prime X, which saves almost 100 grams compared to the Nomads. Those looking for the top of the line in weight savings will find the incredibly lightweight design of the Spark Arc Pro as the answer to their marathon days in the mountains.