badmigraine 0 Posted March 29, 2003 Share Posted March 29, 2003 The rented Chevy Blazer wove back and forth over the yellow line as the rolling tink of an empty soda can under the seats punctuated the silence. It was nighttime rush hour on the fringes of Salt Lake City. After a big dump day at Snowbird, the mood was "pasta/garlic fix". "I could have sworn it was around here, on the right..." I said, staring out the side window. The Blazer drifted across the line toward a forest of oncoming headlights. Seventy wandering minutes later, the Blazer coincidentally re-appeared on the same street. This time Mogski is at the wheel. "I thought it was up here, on the right..." he said, and the rented Blazer drifted across the line toward a forest of oncoming headlights. It looked like pasta was out of the question, so we gave up on Buca di Beppo and did the only reasonable thing: Burger King. One of the side benefits of spending 3 hours tooling up and down the streets of an unknown place is finding sports shops with end-of-season blowout sales. We saw a half-acre circus tent full of 80% off skis, boards, boots, bindings, cases, helmets, goggles, etc. We saw two giant metal soccer balls, we found a paintball war shop, and we repeatedly drove past two strip bars and a Hooters without even stopping. At Gart Bros., a big chain shop kind of like Oshmans, I picked up a pair of 2003 Flow FL-11 freeride bindings, for only $90! That's less than a night out in Roppongi. I tried these bindings out during 4 boarding days in Big Sky last week and the verdict is, Amazing. I will probably never even bother to look at another make of binding. Absolutely unbelievable. I should not have waited this long to try them. There have been a couple of detailed Flow threads on this board in the last year or so, but I just wanted to add my own experience for the record: INSTALLATION OF FLOWS No different from installing any other binding. Are you good at screwing? I mounted them with Palmer PowerLinks, another great product that REALLY WORKS and that you should rush out and buy immediately. DAILING-IN OF FLOWS As others have posted, it takes a few runs on the first day to find your preferred strap tension, but this is a piece of cake. It is no more time-consuming than messing about with strap bindings at the top of the hill. I spent about 2 minutes total on the first day clicking the footstrap down 1-2 clicks tighter each run until it was where I wanted it. Even at the too-tight tension, there is no pain or pressure point. Rather, you just have to work close the binding more than usual because you boot won't easily go in all the way. But you don't need to make them this tight. WHAT YOU NOTICE WHILE USING FLOWS You notice that you don't notice your bindings anymore. For me, the feeling was one of even, no-pressure-point union with my board. I am really particular about wanting stiff, responsive bindings and until now I have had to crank my straps down super-tight to get the edge control at speed that I like. Even after the top-of-the-line stiffest and bestest Burton and Salomon strap bindings, I had given up and concluded that I needed to move to hard boots/plate bindings next year, in order to get what I want out of the interface. But thanks to these Flow bindings, I won't have to do that. This is the perfect interface for me. HOW EASY AND QUICK TO GET IN AND OUT OF FLOWS? Even faster and easier than most step-ins, because you don't have to look at it and mess about with clearing snow from a small insert plate or ratchet. You just put your boot into the rat trap, slide down the lift ramp, then as you are going along you reach down and close the back. It takes maybe .7 seconds. I saw jaws dropping all around. People, I was faster than skiers! I began to get irritated having to stop and wait while they fiddled with their poles!! Haw haw haw haw haw haw haw!! Now when I think about poor Mogs having to wait for me to strap in these past 3-4 years, I want to buy him a beer. I reckon if you add up all the time he's spent waiting on me and my straps, it must be about 1 full on-mountain snow day. Now THAT is tough, even for a friend! And never a single complaint or even a funny look. Well maybe there was a funny look but the helmet and goggles hid it from sight. BADMIGS, WHAT ABOUT FLOWS AND BOOTS? Good question. On the hill, the Flows are so perfect and seamless that they drop out of your consciousness completely, leaving you with only boot and board tweaks to think about. As for my boots, until now I had thought they were pretty good. But after I got into the Flows I could see the problem with my middle-of-the-range K2 soft boots: my foot moves around in the boot something awful! No matter how tightly I laced the liner and boot, and even with thicker socks, I could not stop significant side-to-side and heel lift movement inside the boot. I wondered if this movement had been as bad in my strap binding setup, so I tried my strap bindings one afternoon to see if this inside-the-boot movement still occurred. Yes, it did! I just never got as far as caring about it too much since the straps were so hard and tight around the toe and ankle and I figured this was the sacrifice I had to make to get stiff binding response. Silly me. In fact, I had been ratcheting those straps tighter and tighter to try to eliminate heel lift etc. This problem has nothing to do with bindings. I just need better-fitting boots. I'm looking at Burton and Salomon boots, because they seem to fit my feet OK and have a beefy pad on the inner ankle backside to reduce heel lift. Once I get some decent boots, things should improve even more! How nice that I have this great, indisputable reason to go shopping yet again. Thank you all for reading this far and validating my Need to Shop for Gear. Mogs, shall we go back to Gart Bros. in SLC and look for my boots? I'm pretty sure we could find Buca di Beppo and have an aglio, olio e peperoncino lunch with a nice dry Chianti and fava beans. F-f-f-f-f-f-fff! WHAT ABOUT FLOW BOOTS? It's true that Flow makes boots. I've not yet been able to find them in a shop, but most shop people told me they are somewhat inferior-seeming and lag behind other boots in terms of features and comfort. One shop here said they sent them all back mid-season because they hadn't sold a single pair. Feet come in innumerable shapes and sizes and so do ankles and calves. Try the Flow boots if you can, they do fit some people fine, but rest assured that any soft boot will work with your Flows. You can still get your most favoritist boot and your dogs will thank you. BOOT HANGNAIL ISSUE SOLVED The sole of my old boots was peeling off the back of the heel this season. The Flow binding kind of accelerated the pulling-off of that peeling bit of rubber, like when you rip a hangnail off your fingertip. To handle this, I cut the peeling section down with nail scissors (it was cosmetic only) and put Shoe Goo on the bottom part to hold it together and now everything is fine. New boots should eliminate this problem completely though. INTERCHANGEABLE FOOTSTRAPS The great thing about Flows is you can put any of their different footstraps on your bindings and change the flex characteristics across the full range from soft-freestyle to stiff-boardercross. I was perfectly satisfied with the FR-11 freeride footstraps, medium-stiff, but for icy and hardpack days when I will be blasting full speed and trying to lay some trenches, I'll probably want the boardercross ones. Switching these footstraps would be a two-minute job at most, and as the footstraps are so light, you can bring alternates on your trip and it's like having two different bindings with you! My wife is ready to move up to a better boot-board linkage than her K2 clickers give, so she will be picking up some Flows too. I am going to try to get them mail order from the shop where I got mine. $90 is a great price. IN CONCLUSION You need these bindings. They will change your life! DISCLAIMER The author of this message is not receiving any paid compensation from Flow bindings, Palmer snowboards, Gart Bros. chain stores, or Buca di Beppo restaurant. The author of this message is, however, available for sponsorship by any of the foregoing fine companies. 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indosnm 0 Posted March 29, 2003 Share Posted March 29, 2003 have changed mine & my wifes.. Link to post Share on other sites
Fattwins 0 Posted March 29, 2003 Share Posted March 29, 2003 You wont beat a skier off a lift on a powder day. Not a pow hound we have poles and can skate. Link to post Share on other sites
Ocean11 0 Posted March 29, 2003 Share Posted March 29, 2003 I can second that Palmer Power Links are a product worth having. They allow you to hang your hide right out over the side of your board when you're carving, with no effort at all. They were a godsend with my squishy old boots, and with my stiffer Burton Ruler boots they give super-duper control. After nearly a whole season with Burton SI, I'm ready to try Flow bindings. Getting out of Burton SI when you're up to your neck in powder is enough to spoil your day. You have to dig for two little red tabs the size of your thumbnail and press them simultaneously while lifting your foot out evenly. It would only make it marginally harder if you also had to balance a pool cue on your nose at the same time. Stepping in, you always have to brush some snow out wherever you are and whatever the conditions. This usually involves stopping. You can't really just stomp your boot in there either as this may result in not getting stepped in. They're not 100% comfortable either. On my front foot there's a lot of pressure around the interface with the binding. Also you still have to crank down the ankle strap hard as you do with a conventional binding, and this results in the same pain and constriction as you get with strap-ins. To sum up, I'm rather upset by your posting badmigraine. I wish I hadn't read it. Link to post Share on other sites
badmigraine 0 Posted March 29, 2003 Author Share Posted March 29, 2003 Well, Ocean, if it makes you feel better, getting into Flows in deep powder would involve some brushing out of snow that would soon go back in again...just about every binding is hard to use in that kind of snow. I would say that having so much snow around that bindings are hard to operate is what technical experts call a "Happy Problem". I picked up a pair of Burton Rulers today...on sale for $120. They seem to hold the foot down just fine! Link to post Share on other sites
snowboard_freak 0 Posted March 29, 2003 Share Posted March 29, 2003 I've been looking at the Palmer Powerlinks for a while now. They look interesting and I'd like to try them. Are there any draw backs to them?? Ocean and BM what kind of Palmer PLS's are you using? cheers fellas! Link to post Share on other sites
Ocean11 0 Posted March 30, 2003 Share Posted March 30, 2003 As far as I know there's cheap ones and expensive ones. I'm using the cheap ones. If you change your bindings around a lot (ie, move them up and down the board) they could become a pain, but otherwise there are no drawbacks whatsoever. badmigs, getting into bindings in powder is going to be a problem with any binding. I'm talking about when you wipe out in deep powder and can't ride out. Then trying to get out of Burton SI is agonizing. I imagine just about any other setup would be easier. The Ruler boots are very comfy though if you don't ratchet down too hard. Link to post Share on other sites
badmigraine 0 Posted March 30, 2003 Author Share Posted March 30, 2003 snowboard_freak, I have the boardercross ones (stiffest) and the all-mountain ones. I use the boardercross ones because I like a stiff hard fast (remember, I have to keep up with Mogski, a skier!) unforgiving ride where the edges slice as clean as you please and you can see the smooth, long trenches in the snow when you ride back up the lift. My sis is currently "borrowing" the all-mountain ones, but I doubt she will ever give them back. The first time she tried them, she noticed a difference and now is less wary of ice and hardpack. Rather than write a lengthy disquisition on how they are and what they do, let me just simply say that they do exactly what the label says they do, no more and no less! Just read the label and you can believe what it says. If you can't make up your mind which ones you want, the all-around ones are a good bet over the freestyle or boardercross ones. Highly recommended. The only people I have seen who tried them and didn't notice much difference are people who backfoot/skid their entire turns without carving and slicing and edging round. They are not using their edges much, so hardly notice improved edging leverage and performance. But even then they noticed it was easier to scrape during their skidding! Link to post Share on other sites
Will Lee 0 Posted March 30, 2003 Share Posted March 30, 2003 Now you`ve got me interested...about how much are these plates gonna cost me(all-around ones)? Link to post Share on other sites
Ocean11 0 Posted March 30, 2003 Share Posted March 30, 2003 8,000 yen when I bought them. Link to post Share on other sites
snowboard_freak 0 Posted March 30, 2003 Share Posted March 30, 2003 Thanks for the info guys. I think I might have to invest in a pair. Link to post Share on other sites
mogski 0 Posted March 31, 2003 Share Posted March 31, 2003 Quote: Originally posted by badmigraine: Now when I think about poor Mogs having to wait for me to strap in these past 3-4 years, I want to buy him a beer. I reckon if you add up all the time he's spent waiting on me and my straps, it must be about 1 full on-mountain snow day. Now THAT is tough, even for a friend! And never a single complaint or even a funny look. Well maybe there was a funny look but the helmet and goggles hid it from sight. And all it's worth is a beer?! No complaints from me matey. Better to ride together and enjoy so one must put up with the minor time losses. Glad you got thoe Flows hooked in and daialed up! As for fining that Italian restaurant, given the drastic lack of night life in Utah, how about we hit Colorado? Link to post Share on other sites
Glen Falting 0 Posted March 31, 2003 Share Posted March 31, 2003 Badmigraine, Thanks for the run down on your gear. Ocean is right about burton step-ins, they can be a real pain to take off, particularly if there is a bit of pressure on them. Not a good situation if you're by yourself and stuck in an awkward position. One of the good things about them is that you can skate along and then step in whilst moving. Its worth making the effort to do this just for the looks on the faces of the strap on boarders. Can you step into flows on the move (ie. whilst skating, not off the lift, that can be done with most step-in bindings)? Hey SJ - Has anybody ever suggested a gear review forum for this site? I know of a couple of pretty good snow gear review sites, but it would be handy reading reviews from people who are buying the kind of gear that is available in Japan at Japanese prices and using it in the local conditions. Link to post Share on other sites
Ocean11 0 Posted March 31, 2003 Share Posted March 31, 2003 > One of the good things about them is that you can skate along and then step in whilst moving. Its worth making the effort to do this just for the looks on the faces of the strap on boarders. They also make a certain kind of expression when you bend down on the move to brush out that little bit of snow, and fall on your face right in front of them ... as happens on occasion. But when you can pull it off, it's well cool. I saw quite a few learners on their bums at Iwatake looking at me stepping in with that 'I want them too' look. Link to post Share on other sites
snowboard_freak 0 Posted March 31, 2003 Share Posted March 31, 2003 Kambei what equipment review sites do you look at? The few I have found have been pretty average. Link to post Share on other sites
Fattwins 0 Posted April 1, 2003 Share Posted April 1, 2003 Mogski and everyone here for a while lets hook up next season. Plan now no excuses later. Hakuba is better for me to be honest. Link to post Share on other sites
badmigraine 0 Posted April 1, 2003 Author Share Posted April 1, 2003 Kambei, no problem stepping into Flows on the move. It is a bit trickier than clicking into regular step-ins for 2 reasons: 1. Your boot has to slide into the rat-trap or footstrap area from behind, instead of coming straight down from above, as in a Clicker, Switch or Burton SI system for example. This was no big deal for me after the first few tries, but I did almost wipe out at first because it is not a movement I had ever done before while skating. 2. You have to bend down and flip up the hi-back. This was easy enough for me, but I envision falling on my face 1-3 times per season while doing it. It might be harder for a new or beginner boarder to do this, but then again, so would be anything else too. Link to post Share on other sites
Glen Falting 0 Posted April 1, 2003 Share Posted April 1, 2003 Snowboard_freak I'm not sure if the cut 'n' paste job worked but the website that seems to have quite a decent range of reviews and products is: http://outdoorreview.com/reviewscrx.aspx It comes up as one of the first sites on altavista if you search under "snowboard" and "review". There are a couple of others, but this is probably the most comprehensive site that I've been able to find. The best thing is that it seems to have gear that might still be in the stores but nolonger produced by the manufacturers. Link to post Share on other sites
mogski 0 Posted April 1, 2003 Share Posted April 1, 2003 Fattwins I like your idea! I am planning for winter already next year by not spending anything between now and then. I will not eat, not drink not smoke or anything like that. Proved to be the catalyst to a breif and uneventful season for me this year these did. C u next year! Link to post Share on other sites
Fattwins 0 Posted April 1, 2003 Share Posted April 1, 2003 mogski how much did you get out this season. I am planning on hitting 40 days I hope. Link to post Share on other sites
mogski 0 Posted April 1, 2003 Share Posted April 1, 2003 Um it really is sad, but I think I got about 6 days in total in Japan this year with 5 in the US. Really sad. Between holidays and bus. trips just did not get the time nor have the money. Really really sad. 40 days is a dream for me at the mo. Link to post Share on other sites
badmigraine 0 Posted April 1, 2003 Author Share Posted April 1, 2003 And Mogs, we have to work on improving the dollars-to-days ratio. I am hurting after the expense of visiting the Goods. If I am in the US next winter, I will have this sussed out. Link to post Share on other sites
Fattwins 0 Posted April 2, 2003 Share Posted April 2, 2003 I found a place this year where the seasons passes were cheap. 20000 yen full season, thats why I could ski so much. Link to post Share on other sites
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