Soawsome

So i have this years T-Rice in a 161.5cm. I will be using this board mostly for freeriding, maybe some freestyle but i do have a dedicated park board so i wont be bringing this thing to the park. I just wanna do alot of speed runs



The board is relatively stiff, Lib tech rates it a 7.5 out of 10, and my boots are K2 Thraxis and they to are relatively stiff K2 says 4 out of 5.



So the most important thing to me in choosing a binding is that it preforms the best and is the most comfortable, most of these bindings are within the same price range so the difference between them is not significant to me.

First up is the Union Data



I have heard great things about all unions bindings and apparently the data has one of the more stiffer highbacks and i also heard its the most comfortable in the union line.

Union Force SL



The lightness of this binding is a good perk but not that important to me, only reason i choose to include this one is the fact that i heard that this years Force SL is supposed to be a freeride oriented binding compared to previous years where it was a more soft binding. How does this one compare to the Data in stiffness and in comfortably?

Ride Spi



i have heard alot of bad things about ride bindings recently, mostly about how there ratchets suck. Can anyone comment on this ? With that being said the only reason i am considering ride bindings is because there canted footbeds. Last year towards the end of the season(i go about 30-40 days a season) My knees hurt real bad and clicked sometimes when i would step for about 2 months and then the clicking and pain went away.

Now i don't know if the canted foot beds are a gimmick thing or if other binding company's already do this but they just don't advertise it. But it seems to make sense and i would hope it could rid me of knee pain for the season. If there was a way to get a canted bed that worked good on the unions i would prob not consider the rides

Last Years Ride CAD's



The only reason i choose these is because of the adjustable canted foodbed. I have heard that the CADs are rides stiffest binding. I want a stiff binding for freeriding but incase i decide to do some freestyle on the board i don't want this binding to be too stiff. I would assume this is also the stiffest binding i have listed here, with that being said how comfy is it compared to some of the others i have listed?

thanks for any input you can provide

redlude97

The CAD is Ride's stiffest binding, and Spi is slightly softer but still decently stiff, it comes with precanted footbeds in the 2010 models. The canted footbeds are definitely something that that sets ride bindings apart from the others on your list so if you were experiencing knee issues then that I would stick with Either of the Rides. Which one you pick depends on whether weight is a concern for you and how much "freestyle" you plan to do with them. If by that you mean hitting natural kickers and dropping cliffs then the increase stiffness of the CAD's won't be a big issue. Another binding to consider is the NRc, either 2009 or 2010. The 2010 has an adjustable ankle strap like the 2009 CAD's, but a slightly softer highback that provides a good blend for an all mountain freestyle binding.

As for the ratchets, the complaints are regarding the "revolver" style ratchets used in older bindings but in 08/09 ride switched all of their ratchets over to the current style which hasn't really recieved any complaints as far as I've seen

Soawsome

^^ thanks for the words of wisdom.

everyday i am leaning more towards the ride bindings simply because of the canted footbeds. i wish ride would put a stiffness rating of 1-10 on there website instead of having to guess from peoples experiences and there short description.

i have heard complaints about the cant footbed adjusters on the ride cad's i read several reviews saying they have a regular adjust and a quick one and the quick one apperantly blows and breaks.

Weight really isnt an issue to me, but how much heavier is the cad vs the spi?
Does ride have anymore freeride bindings? is the alpha supposed to be a freeride binding or a freestyle?

redlude97

I don't think there is a difference between the CAD and NRc footbed adjusters, so if this is true I didn;t have any issues with mine. As far as weight I'm not sure as I don't have the SPi's, but my NRc's are decently heavier than my betas, but those both use different bases. I would say the SPi/CAD are Ride's freeride bindings, even though they are labeled as "ATV". Most agree that the SPI is one of the stiffer bindings on the market, and overall aluminum bases are stiffer so even a lot of their freestyle bindings will manage all over the mountain

legallyillegal

2010 spi is basically on par with the CAD in the stiffness category now

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Glade Ripper

As far as weight, this was posted in a previous thread and shows the weight of several bindings.

Burton Snowboards Community - plastic vs aluminum bindings