2015 Backcountry Magazine Gear Guide

[Quadzilla]

Just got mine and briefly paged thru the candy and the reviews. Some things that really stuck out for me was first, the amazing weights or lack of for the skis. Claimed weights for sure but the number of skis over 110 in the waist that were sub 8#. Some bells and whistles in the boot and binding department, mostly untested by the masses. Then there was statement to the effect that BD skis are made in China in a new BD factory when I thought the ski building was shifted to the US last year.

Overall, the mag is improving IMO and the test was conducted professionally in most regards.

[SPQR]

I appreciate the work gone into publishing this particular edition as well. Sure, maybe some stuff gets overlooked and perhaps even omitted for whatever reason, but I like having one resource that you can pick up and compare many of the mainline skis, bindings and boots with a little information provided about the function of each item. I always like to see the ski boot reviews, as brief as they are, for me boots are the most important aspect of my skiing. This year it's nice to see Scott has reintroduced Garmont's old Ener-G and I can't help but notice that Dynafit has introduced the Neo which has a 103 last (finally). The Mercury has a 102 last but it is so so in the volume department, this new Dynafit boot looks appealing but like someone else posted in another thread, why lime green?

[dschane]

Anything new on the TTS and progeny front? At the end of the season, TTS changed to a one piece plate to hold down the cable and changed the mount location. Any changes other than those? I bottomed out a couple of times with the cable located in the front position and with Voile cartridges, so I'd like to find a workaround for that.

Also, the M Equipment Co. announced a new tech-tele binding at the end of last season, and that's all I got.

[Quadzilla]

Anything new on the TTS and progeny front? At the end of the season, TTS changed to a one piece plate to hold down the cable and changed the mount location. Any changes other than those? I bottomed out a couple of times with the cable located in the front position and with Voile cartridges, so I'd like to find a workaround for that.

Also, the M Equipment Co. announced a new tech-tele binding at the end of last season, and that's all I got.

Well the binding did get reviewed but not anything more than whats been said in the forum here. Bottomline line was that a very active binding but not progressive so it was full on right away. Weight was 2# and a USA built toe piece. The big negative they added was a lack of boot choices and that was it. They also felt that it was a "struggle" to get into the binding.

Anyway, they only reviewed 6 tele bindings, all current bindings that have been around for years.

[Dostie]

There was nothing new written for tele bindings 'cuz there's nothing new. Legitimacy of the M Equipment binding is suspect due to questions about licensing of the 2nd heel.

As for the difficulty getting in to the TTS toe, that was covered in-depth in April, and there were some comments referencing it in the TTS thread.