DO BINDINGS CAUSE BOARDS TO BREAK?

By Fin Doyle

Email: fin@bomberonline.com

There has been some talk in the carving world that certain types of plate bindings are too stiff and they are the cause of a snowboard breaking. These types of bindings use materials such as stainless steel, aluminum, and oversized bails to do their job of holding the rider firmly and safely to the board. The fact of the matter is, stiff aluminum bindings DO generate more force to the board, boot, and rider. Why? Because a soft and floppy binding is just that, soft and floppy, and so it also acts as an energy sponge. The aluminum binding is NOT soft and floppy so that same energy is now going elsewhere.

Well, you might be thinking "Ha, there you go, its the bindings fault". That would be true if the extra energy the binding transmitted was enough to surpass the strength a snowboard is SUPPOSED to be made at. The ASTM (American Standards) has set standards for the strength of snowboards, mainly the strength of the inserts. Unfortunately there are no "Insert Police" checking these boards, so the manufactures are doing what works for them. I have taken several boards that broke near the inserts (no names please) and cut them through the core so that the inserts may be examined. What was found was pretty scary! Inserts not backed up by the core and inserts with very small flanges for support. These boards would have been lucky to get 10% of what the ASTM says is "safe". These boards where shown to a couple of local snowboard manufactures and they all agreed. The good news is these brands I am talking about have pretty much gone out of business, but these construction methods still exist. (As an interesting side note I also have seen plenty of boards that broke while being used with "traditional" soft and floppy bindings.)

So maybe now you are saying "well then, it is the job of these binding manufactures to make a binding more "forgiving" for the boards sake". The answer to that, however, is no and here is why. The entire reason behind a stiff firm binding is that it is "locked in" and energy efficient. These are the very things that carvers begged and demanded for years before bindings of this type of construction came out. What you are seeing is classic engineering evolution. As one component gets stronger the adjoining components are more susceptible to failure. A great example of this is the automotive industry. In the 30's and 40's the car manufactures started making cars with powerful V8 engines. Everyone loved the extra power and speed. Everyone except the tire manufactures. Tires of that time were not able to handle the extra power and torque being applied to them by the new V8 engines. The tires were just tearing apart. Now the question here is: did the public and industry say "nuts, these engines are at fault here, they are wrecking our tires" or did they say "hey, these tires are not made up to snuff to handle this extra power, those tire guys need to make a better tire". The answer is obvious, the tire companies took notice, created the steel belted tire we know today, and everyone was happy. The funny thing was now the drive train (transmission, drive shaft, rear end) were now blowing apart. And so the evolution continues.......

Is anyone to blame? No. Am I saying with this above example that the board manufacturers are at fault? No. Is wearing a one-piece neon snowsuit lame? Yes. Examples such as the one above exist even more close to home. The tele-ski market just went through this a few years back. The tele skiers started going faster and bigger. So boot manufactures came out with boots such as the "Terminator", a stiff plastic based tele boot. But now the traditional bindings where too soft or just straight out broke. So the binding guys made stiff and strong bindings. Now the skis started to rip apart. So the ski guys inserted a retention plate inside the ski. Now every thing stays together and the human has become the weak link. This is most pronounced in the down hill ski market. Ski equipment is so well made, manufactured, and assembled it just does not fail. And so now, you see the skier himself failing. How many skiers do you know with blown ACLs? A K2 ski or a Marker binding or a Raichle boot just does not break (easily) so the skier is next.

A more global point to make here is that everything breaks. Now this is not a very profound statement but it does apply. What I am getting at is, yes, boards break around or near the binding. ANY binding. If a board is to break it would obviously be near the binding. This is a classic focus point for failure. That "board break" energy (or "binding break" energy for that matter) that is moving down your board is looking for the spot where it can do the most damage and that will ALWAYS be where the board meets the binding. Regardless of what brand of board or binding. Example: I worked as a bike mechanic for years. We saw many broken mountain bike bars come through. And, low and behold, they always broke right at or near where they clamped to the bar stem. No surprises here, that is where it should and will break. Once again, everything breaks and in this case it breaks right where it should. I suppose we could ask the stem guys to make a "soft and floppy" stem? Yeh, wouldn't that be great? The answer is probably stronger bars (or in this case, the advent of front suspensions severally decreased bar breakage). Ask yourself this; if the board broke six inches from the tip, would you still blame the binding?

It is unfortunate that we become victims of this "equipment evolution" and possibly have a good day of carving go bad. However, that is somewhat of a short sighted view. Yes, your day was wrecked but slowly and surley the sport (and its corresponding hardware) are growing and evolving. The reality is that this cycle will never end, as the rider himself will always push his hardware to the limit. And that is what makes us ride.

Fin Doyle

Mechanical Engineer

Bomber Industries, Inc.