We employed a large team of accomplished skiers, spanning multiple years now, to test backcountry ski bindings. In the last couple of years alone, our lead test editor himself has tested bindings in the Tetons, Wind River Range, Canada, Alaska Range, California, Chile, and Argentina. Average seasons include 400,000 vertical feet of human-powered skiing, for just this one tester. Of course, some things need to be measured on the workbench. We note how we tested for each important binding criterion.
Weight
Before mounting, we weighed each binding, including mounting screws, on a digital gram-sensitive postal scale. We periodically calibrate this scale against some standardized weight samples; samples made exactly for this purpose.
Downhill Performance
Again, our primary means of testing was in actual skiing. While skiing on a wide variety of surfaces (perfect pow to soul-crushing breakable crust, and everything in between), we noted mainly binding hold. Our team is as handy as anyone at noting, anecdotally, force transmission, chatter damping, and binding geometry, all while skiing. These distinctions are super subtle and hard to parse out from boot and ski performance, not to mention ski technique and conditions. We do what we can, but have to admit (and advise consumers and other testers alike) that AT bindings are way, way more similar in these regards than they are different.
Mainly, our deductions on release performance defer to manufacturers and third-party formal tests.
Finally, some aspects of downhill performance are a function of binding geometry. We measured each mounted binding's stack and delta using a millimeter ruler. Again, binding geometry is measurable and varies from one binding to another, but, in our experience, makes very little difference relative to ski and boot selection.
First, we measured the distance from the ski top sheet to the center of toe pins and the center of heel pins (or deduced the location of virtual pins in the case of bindings that do not use them in downhill mode). We performed such measurements with a boot in the binding, in downhill mode. The binding stack height is the average of the two measured values. Binding delta is reported as the difference between heel and toe measurements, in millimeters. “Ramp Angle” is a function of binding delta and your boot sole length. We report binding delta, not ramp angle, because of the variation in boot sole length.
Touring Performance
We tested touring performance by going touring. We skinned tens of thousands of feet with every single binding in our test. Some of our tested bindings approached 100,000 vertical feet of human-powered skiing. While doing so, we collected observations and took notes on propensity for icing, heel riser options, and adjustment range, and in the toe pivot range of motion.
In enumerating the heel riser options, we took some measurements. For heel elevation on a ski binding, we measured its height and subtracted that from the height of the same binding's toe pins. Both measurements were taken from the top sheet of the ski. The result, for each of our most recently tested skis, is 2-3 numbers that can be used to deduce the range of heel elevations for that binding, and a way to compare each pair of bindings.
Ease of Use
We define ease of use as the ability to get in and out, make transitions, and make adjustments to length and release value. To test, we performed all of those operations, comparing one binding to the others.
Construction Quality
In some blessedly rare cases, we have actual durability failures to report on. In other cases, we have literal decades of experience with a certain product with no failures. Beyond that direct experience, we are forced to report our durability opinion based on second-hand reports and speculation based on a sound understanding of basic binding construction and materials.
Conclusion
Call us crazy, but we chose to do the vast majority of our testing by backcountry skiing – any close examination was to support what we experienced in the field.