Trencher wrote:
If I were buying another pair of Metrons, I would certainly consider Pavel's solution. As he says, it's only that strip of tin that makes mounting alternative bindings intimidating. Two things that I would consider first are, what type of skiing do I do ?, and is there an advantage to the standard Neox binding ?
If like me, you just use the Metrons for carving up the groomers, then the extra weight is less of a problem. however if you need to be light on your skis, then lighter bindings might be benificial.
For carving, the weight of the Metron/Neox combination seems to cut through just about anything. The rail mounted Neox bindings cope well with the dacambering that occurs in carving.
That raises an obvious point, I thought, along with Atomic as it happens, that the Metron and Neox were a system and designed for each other to give a package that skied in a particular way. What you say about it cutting through anything is pretty much the standard comment people who've skied them have and pretty much always the best feature people state. I thought it was blindingly obvious this is related to the weight of the ski and binding and just as obvious that this quality is lost when the weight it removed leaving you with a totally average ski or arguably not even that good.
As it happens, Atomic did lighten up the system themselves slightly over the years, they thought they'd got it as light as they could without compromising the performance of the ski. Apart from carrying the skis around then I can't understand why the weight is a problem, it does make the ski more predictable and ski better for most people, that is a fact and something the whole industry realises which is why Atomic aren't the only people making fairly heavy ski sets, it's noticeable at ski tests over the last few years just how heavy most skis are getting.