[quikboarder93]

For those of you who remember from earlier this season, I've been working on a lightweight quick entry snowboard binding system. It's a set it and forget it design that is super convenient.
I finally got some footage of the prototype in use and decided to make another tech talk video.
Always open for suggestions and comments, so check it out and let me know what you think!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppwQyCycFvk

 

[Ocho]

Hey man, looks good! I remember your earlier post. Excellent to see you kept at it. (And got a haircut? )

Embedded for ya:

 

[quikboarder93]

Hey man, looks good! I remember your earlier post. Excellent to see you kept at it. (And got a haircut? )

Embedded for ya:

Thank you! Good to hear that I made a big enough impression for you to remember my last post.
And thanks, couldn't get that to work. Haha
Yep, got a haircut and wore a hat this time! Also much more excited about this now that I got to ride the CNC machined prototype for a season. It's been sweet!

 

[ShredLife]

i give you props for:

1. sticking with it

2. admitting the downfalls you see (in the promo)

3. if this is useful for anyone

criticism:

bottle opener shit is stupid. who cares. lame.

saying "i've put 20 days on these so they're good to go" is just bullshit. if you think you've got something real then kick out 20 or so pairs to a bunch of riders better than you and wait and see what everyone else has to say about comfort and durability.

thats all i got

 

[Argo]

i give you props for:

1. sticking with it

2. admitting the downfalls you see (in the promo)

3. if this is useful for anyone

criticism:

bottle opener shit is stupid. who cares. lame.

saying "i've put 20 days on these so they're good to go" is just bullshit. if you think you've got something real then kick out 20 or so pairs to a bunch of riders better than you and wait and see what everyone else has to say about comfort and durability.

thats all i got

I totally agree with everything shred said...

 

[Ocho]

Thank you! Good to hear that I made a big enough impression for you to remember my last post.
And thanks, couldn't get that to work. Haha
Yep, got a haircut and wore a hat this time! Also much more excited about this now that I got to ride the CNC machined prototype for a season. It's been sweet!

You're welcome.

Ha yeah. It was your honesty, maturity, and willingness to be open to criticism from your first thread on it that was memorable. Then there was the whole haircut discussion haha.

Plus, it's an interesting and viable concept. That doesn't often happen with new snowboard gear/gadget related ideas. Especially when it comes to bindings.

Shred's suggestion of cranking out 20 or so pairs for testing by others is solid. Do that if you can. Diversify the testers.

Eh the bottle opener is like that little "oh, and look there's this" sort of thing. I can see it being a perk to the adult beverage consumers of the snowboarding world (although I am not exactly one of them).

fyi to embed just copy the characters after the v= or whatever it is then insert into the YT brackets provided by the icon link on the post.

 

[quikboarder93]

i give you props for:

1. sticking with it

2. admitting the downfalls you see (in the promo)

3. if this is useful for anyone

criticism:

bottle opener shit is stupid. who cares. lame.

saying "i've put 20 days on these so they're good to go" is just bullshit. if you think you've got something real then kick out 20 or so pairs to a bunch of riders better than you and wait and see what everyone else has to say about comfort and durability.

thats all i got

Without economies of scale, they are $800/prototype. I was lucky enough to have gotten two for the price of one using my financial aid refund check. 20 pairs is super unrealistic for me at this point in time.
I said 20 days or more, and it's actually probably closer to 30, but that doesn't include yard sessions either and I don't like exaggerating.
Also live in an area where very few people care about snowboarding (Maryland) and we don't get much snow or days on the hill. My crew consists of 1 dedicated boarder (girlfriend), a couple people who go a couple times a year, and a skier.
Thanks for the input though.

 

[readimag]

Yeah I agree also, you need to send some out for testing or get people to give to small fee (10 dollars shipped ) to help pay for the materials to make it. I know that it kind of sucks but without more people riding them and breaking them or not breaking them you won’t know what to do. R&D is always hard but I am sure if you ask people on here will help you out by paying for shipping and let you know what they are like.

 

[ShredLife]

close to the last fucking thing you want to be doing with a (aluminum?) part of your bindings is opening bottles with it... snap the tab of that thing and now your bindings don't work. stupid.

 

[ShredLife]

Without economies of scale, they are $800/prototype. I was lucky enough to have gotten two for the price of one using my financial aid refund check. 20 pairs is super unrealistic for me at this point in time.
I said 20 days or more, and it's actually probably closer to 30, but that doesn't include yard sessions either and I don't like exaggerating.
Also live in an area where very few people care about snowboarding (Maryland) and we don't get much snow or days on the hill. My crew consists of 1 dedicated boarder (girlfriend), a couple people who go a couple times a year, and a skier.
Thanks for the input though.

if you can't afford to give away 20 pairs then i doubt you can afford to sell them. :dunno:

 

[quikboarder93]

You're welcome.

Ha yeah. It was your honesty, maturity, and willingness to be open to criticism from your first thread on it that was memorable. Then there was the whole haircut discussion haha.

Plus, it's an interesting and viable concept. That doesn't often happen with new snowboard gear/gadget related ideas. Especially when it comes to bindings.

Shred's suggestion of cranking out 20 or so pairs for testing by others is solid. Do that if you can. Diversify the testers.

Eh the bottle opener is like that little "oh, and look there's this" sort of thing. I can see it being a perk to the adult beverage consumers of the snowboarding world (although I am not one exactly of them).

fyi to embed just copy the characters after the v= or whatever it is then insert into the YT brackets provided by the icon link on the post.

Haha BA/Angry brought up the haircut thing. That was pretty amusing.
I really do appreciate the suggestions and I will be working on getting some other people on it at some point, but for now I'm working on:

1. Obtaining a full patent by the end of this year
2. Saving up/moving to either Utah or Colorado next year
3. Growing my online presence a bit

Once I get out west where people actually snowboard, I think I'll be able to make more progress. Hitting tons of dead ends here though.

 

[quikboarder93]

if you can't afford to give away 20 pairs then i doubt you can afford to sell them. :dunno:

With mass production, it can easily drop in price to less than $10/prototype. This would be through injection or die cast molding and mass assembly. The fixed cost per unit drops significantly when thousands of units are made as opposed to a few. For now, my fixed costs per unit are incredibly high though. Unrealistically high to even try to sell.

 

[Ocho]

close to the last fucking thing you want to be doing with a (aluminum?) part of your bindings is opening bottles with it... snap the tab of that thing and now your bindings don't work. stupid.

That is a good point. Didn't realize the bottle opener part is also the closing mechanism (didn't look closely before as it's not an important feature to me, thought it sat benignly atop the closing mechanism).

Hitting tons of dead ends here though.

You're in MD. There's PA accessible to you, NY and VT too if you're willing to drive. Hell I'm on the east coast and rode twice this week. Going out a few times again next week. But as already mentioned, you have access to a world wide testing demographic if you were able to ship them out. No dead ends here.

 

[quikboarder93]

close to the last fucking thing you want to be doing with a (aluminum?) part of your bindings is opening bottles with it... snap the tab of that thing and now your bindings don't work. stupid.

They say people who cuss more are actually more honest and trustworthy, so this amuses me. Haha
Yeah, it would ruin your bindings if it broke in the wrong place. Aluminum is pretty strong though.
Honestly as inconvenient as it would be to position your board and bindings in a way that you could open a beer with it without spilling, I would hope it would be a last resort. It's more of a joking thing than a real selling point.

 

[quikboarder93]

That is a good point. Didn't realize the bottle opener part is also the closing mechanism (didn't look closely before as it's not an important feature to me, thought it sat benignly atop the closing mechanism).



You're in MD. There's PA accessible to you, NY and VT too if you're willing to drive. Hell I'm on the east coast and rode twice this week. Going out a few times again next week. But as already mentioned, you have access to a world wide testing demographic if you were able to ship them out. No dead ends here.

I lost count how many times I went at around 20. Couple times a week all season, and it was probably closer to 35-40. I have 3 boards though, and only 1 has a prototype on it. Easily at least 20 days on the prototype.
Yeah, but not world wide money resources. Not going to buy $800 prototypes for everyone.
Full patent comes first otherwise all this goes to crap anyway. Probably be a couple years before I get people on it, unless a company or rich guy helps me out!

 

[Argo]

20-30 days isn't much. I put 115 days on my flows between last jan and this December and had the aluminum highbacks break, granted I'm a bigger dude than you and most so the forces created on a hard turn are way higher than what you could possibly do.

They replaced both highbacks, can you afford to do that for 20% of your customers on warranty materials? Just food for thought.

There are people that ride way more than average out there and those that put way more stress on there equipment per use than you.

 

[quikboarder93]

Man, you guys are tearing me apart this time around! Haha
It's all constructive criticism though, so this is awesome!

 

[Ocho]

I lost count how many times I went at around 20. Couple times a week all season, and it was probably closer to 35-40. I have 3 boards though, and only 1 has a prototype on it. Easily at least 20 days on the prototype.
Yeah, but not world wide money resources. Not going to buy $800 prototypes for everyone.
Full patent comes first otherwise all this goes to crap anyway. Probably be a couple years before I get people on it, unless a company or rich guy helps me out!

Is it transferable from binding to binding? If so and you were able to meet up with others on-hill for even just short demos at this point, it could be helpful?

Of course you don't want to drop $800 per prototype. That would be silly.

 

[quikboarder93]

20-30 days isn't much. I put 115 days on my flows between last jan and this December and had the aluminum highbacks break, granted I'm a bigger dude than you and most so the forces created on a hard turn are way higher than what you could possibly do.

They replaced both highbacks, can you afford to do that for 20% of your customers on warranty materials? Just food for thought.

There are people that ride way more than average out there and those that put way more stress on there equipment per use than you.

With my job, where I am located, and my resources, I am lucky to get 20 days on the hill in a season. The fact I got over 30 and a trip to Vermont was lucky for me. Full time students don't make money. Dropping out of college soon though, so that will change.
With mass production, definitely could afford to deal with warranties, if I had a company and not a part time job tutoring math.

 

[quikboarder93]

Is it transferable from binding to binding? If so and you were able to meet up with others on-hill for even just short demos at this point, it could be helpful?

Of course you don't want to drop $800 per prototype. That would be silly.

Bindings are not universal, so it is only transferable from Nitro to Nitro binding. I haven't had the opportunity to make it work with Union, Flux, etc...
Season's over here. Won't be getting any more time on the hill. Might get one last day at Springs.
I tried to get Nate Sheehan on it a couple times during the season, but he was always busy running the park and never had time while I was up at Liberty. He was probably the only person I would have trusted to use it. Kind of scares me letting people use something I could not replace if it broke.
I have to make sure my prototype is taken care of until I obtain more resources.