90s Dynafit Telemark Binding prototype

[forest st.]

Hi – does anyone have any intel on this binding?

From what I heard, it's supposedly prototype made by Dynafit in the 90s. Pictured above in walk mode and ski mode. Any info would be appreciated.

[Greg]

I think Lou Dawson over at Wildsnow blogged about that a few years ago, and maybe even had those same pics. IIRC, the "activity" was not provided by the binding, but instead by a spring and hinge in the boot sole.

[cesare]

Never seen these pictures but the idea that you could make a tele binding by pinning the forefoot of the boot to the ski with a bicycle-like cleat ignores the tremendous amount of leverage a plastic tele boot places on the attachment. Pinning the forefoot down increases that leverage while the boot appears to have less than a cm of bellows travel. The telemark turn requires flexibility and that system fails to provide much. I'm pretty sure that prototype never got too far.

Thanks Greg. You can't tell from the picture that there is a spring in the boot sole.

[SoMuchBetterThanU]

But that's probably same design you can replicate for an NTN version of TTS.

[Nurse Ben]

Mark Lengel told me that his initial approach to TTS was to allow rando racers to do skip "unnecessary" clicking in and out of heels during races, esp for small hills where a free heel styled binding could make for a quicker ascent.

[SoMuchBetterThanU]

Meh... races are for the 1% of the niche of Telemark. If you were serious about racing, you'd just go to full on Dynafit. Better yet, the ATK is probably a better implementation now.