Heel throw breakage

[Tomahawk]

Woke up early and drove about an hour and a half Saturday morning to go skiing with my wife and a couple of guys. After wallowing through crotch deep snow to get over the snowbank, I positioned the heel throw of my Axl and pulled up. It snapped through two places--in the red piece and the black piece. No skiing for me. Luckily I had beer and book to entertain me while everyone else enjoyed a day of skiing. Looked like there was a small air pocket in the plastic that it broke through. I don't know if that's significant or just a coincidence.

Never had this happen to me before, so I bought two new heel throws once I got back into town. I guess this is a part of my emergency repair kit now. Does anyone else carry an extra heel throw with them? Can I expect this to happen again in the next couple years? Or is it pretty rare?

[Paul Lutes]

Axls of a certain earlier vintage had issues with the heel lever plastic. Skied a season on a pair, sold them, and the buyer broke the heel lever the very first time they flipped them up on the boot heel. As far as I know, current heel levers no longer are prone to breakage.

[Tomahawk]

What a coincidence. I had just bought these from a guy who skied them for a season, and it broke on the very second time I flipped it up on the boot heel.

[3PinGrin]

I broke several G3 Targa heel levers when I, unfortunately, used that product. One thing I found was that during very cold temperatures I had to be very careful about just "snapping" the lever up against the boot versus using my thumb to deaden the impact. Extra heel throws are a good idea on any binding that utilizes them IMO because they are usually cheap and light, but create a huge pain in the ass if you break one.