Snow Skills

An old Maine sayin’ goes “An ounce of protection, is worth a pound of cure.” When that cure could be a knee operation or a cast on a broken limb, that ounce of protection will seem like a bargain to keep you enjoying the outdoors through the winter. According to sources on the Web, injuries due to equipment issues are one of the top five common accident causes. Downhill ski bindings have come a long way in design and materials to improve injury protection. The performance of your bindings relies on an annual maintenance check, however, to verify their condition and that takes a professional ski technician. Bindings will protect you when they are accurately set and functioning properly: only an experienced ski shop has the ability to assure you of both!

Consider that you can’t tell if a binding is functioning properly by looking at it. You can’t simulate a release situation on the mountain just by twisting your boot out of the binding in your living room. You can’t identify what your binding setting should be from season to season without specific guidance from the manufacturer. In short, the only binding test you can have confidence in is the one performed on a testing machine operated by a qualified technician. Start your season off on solid ground by making a binding check part of your pre-season ritual.