NTN newbie, should I get the Meidjo 2.1 or Outlaw X ?

[Digger]

Thanks Harris. Some of the better commentary on the topic than I have seen in years.

To me there is not that much difference between 75mm on AXL's on 3 and NTN related to downhill. I have skied Rotte and Outlaws for NTN.

I also still ski 3 pins and leathers, Rivas and leathers, and Swithcbacks and Excursions. Kind of a "right tool for the job" thing to me.

Personally I don't mind bending over to put on bindings or connecting leashes. At my age it is a reason to stretch a little. I do like integrated brakes for lift served !

[Harris]

To old schoolers today's telemark is most often a pseudo-mark. More parallel with fake tele thrown in for style points. But that is another matter.

I totally agree... It's a different sport man... I once had this discussion with a CANSI level 3 member... I was saying how the whole BOF technique doesn't apply on NTN, especially due to the boots stiffness... We were not able to agree on anything...

Rott NTN really feel strange in this regard. It comes on almost too strong and too early before a hard edge can be set

Hummm... I honestly like Rotte NTN a lot better than the Outlaw because of that... I think the "pull" activates just at the perfect timing on the Freeride... While I find it way too early on the Outlaw... Well, at least for me...

One of the cool things about tele no matter what gear used is how it can work using personalized techniques. You can take 2 people on completely different gear, using somewhat different technique, and both can jam a slope with authority. I've switched skis with guys and wondered how in the hell they were able to work them like they do.

Admittedly I became scared of NTN after I destroyed my knee. What happened was NOT the result of a catastrophic wipeout. It was weird. I was tired, skiing a last run down to the base. The run was a groomed blue, steepish grade, but was getting icy in certain patches. The light was flat so I couldn't differentiate the ice spots from the non. I was punch turning at a fairly high rate of speed. My downhill ski slid out a bit on the ice, and like I've done probably a thousand times to compensate I threw the shoulders back and went deep to drive my inside ski's edge in for bite. Bite it did like it never had before. Boy howdy. It almost stopped dead, which was a problem because my downhill ski still slid out and away, forcing me into a drop knee splits. It seemed like slow motion, but actually happened really fast. As I went into the split, the inside ski had to roll from one edge to the other, but it couldn't because the edge bite was so good, and so my knee exploded to get the edge to release its bite. Of all the years I've skied I've never had an inside ski bite that hard. It did what I wanted it to but just way too much and way too instantly. Did the binding release? Nope! My ACL did though. And I put so much tension on my LCL it actually fractured the bone around where it attaches. And I punched a significant tear in meaty portion of my meniscus as my femur popped forward. It took almost 2 years to walk without pain, even after the ACL was replaced.

The thing I learned about that is that NTN is not a turn I personally could short hard turn, go deep knee with. It was fine if kept more upright and danced, but I do like to drop deep when I really want to lay an edge on hard instantly, especially when checking speed before a transition or changing lines in the bumps or even setting up for an odd bump on icy steeps. I felt most confident with NTN in this regard using the Meidjo, but going deep was exactly what pulled the mount from the ski. And so I went back to duckbill, and although I get worn out much quicker, I can ski much more fearlessly. My setup is my old "rocker launched" Garment Garas, which are stupid soft, matched with Vices and Axels and the whole rig has almost no resistance until the heel comes up quite a bit, even using stiff springs. In fact at first I thought about making some wedges to help pull the heel down, and I even spent a half-a-day shaping a wedge out of a Stihl logging wedge, but I quickly re-adapted to the sloppiness and came to love it. But, I do not anymore drop cliffs anymore or even pop jumps, so I can deal with that. When I parallel I use a lot of knee bend and hip flex to stay balanced so I don't really need much heel hold down.

Is NTN the thing? I think there are things being done on tele that are amazing, especially in the Freeride Competitions and trick parks, that are mostly facilitated by NTN technology. I agree that I hope the advancements keep coming, and NTN does works wonders for a lot of rippers. One thing that bums me a bit is how there are less boot MFGers staying with it, mainly due to a lack of enthusiasm for the sport, which is sad. I have older, m 2nd gen NTN TX Pro and a newer, 2016 pair, and the newer pair are junk. They are too soft and pinch the hell out of the toes, which my old ones didn't do ever. The only good thing about the newer ones is their liners, which first went into my older NTN shells and then into my Gara shells. With a little custom fitting around the heel I couldn't be happier with boot fit.

[Johnny]

Well said...

One of the cool things about tele no matter what gear used is how it can work using personalized techniques. You can take 2 people on completely different gear, using somewhat different technique, and both can jam a slope with authority. I've switched skis with guys and wondered how in the hell they were able to work them like they do.

True... One just has to get used to its gear and voila... Another cool thing about tele is that you can take 2 people who have been telemark skiing for 20 years and they will have complete different opinions about the same things. One will say that Crispi are the narrowest boots while the other will swear it's the widest. One will say Rotte is more active and the other one will say its 22D. One will dare to say pins are better and another one will only believe in NNN...

[telemarkmark]

Harris,
Sounds like a totally horrible knee injury - surprised you have not given up!
Just for the record: What was you stance when it happened? I have a theory that it more difficult to heart your knees in a lowish tele stance.
I ski ScottyBobs - very powerful on the inside ski - I have experienced the inside ski grabbing, though it felt like it would lead to a groin strain, had it been worse.
cheers
Mark

[Harris]

Personally I don't mind bending over to put on bindings or connecting leashes. At my age it is a reason to stretch a little. I do like integrated brakes for lift served !

I have a herniated L5 to S1 disk that can make snapping over heel levers a real bitch. I envy you my man! lol. On the topic... I'm thinking that it wouldn't take a great engineering feat to create an aftermarket, universal step-in heel lever that could be adapted to any heel loop design, meaning you remove the factory lever and attach the aftermarket, step in design. As for step-in heel levers Look binding co. had the design down pat 30 years ago. It would probably require some gizmo heel block thing that capture a sprung, cocked heel lever, which once in could snap down and out of the way.

[Harris]

One will dare to say pins are better and another one will only believe in NNN...

Pins with Volle plates weren't too bad, except you had to watch for ice buildup that would eventually get to the point the pins would rip out the boot's holes. I don't think I ever made a full season without having to do a resole because of that, at least back in the leather/vibram days.

[Harris]

Just for the record: What was you stance when it happened? I have a theory that it more difficult to heart your knees in a lowish tele stance.
Mark

I don't ski with any one stance, but I'll only come close to banging the top sheet if I'm bumping and do an extreme compression to bleed speed. I guess I'm mostly balanced upper body, meaning not hunched over. I probably mostly ski with a mid (90 degree/ lower leg parallel with the ski knee bend. The standard tele stance. I do though ski a tight split (tighter than most) and rely a lot on lead foot's boot flex fwd lean to get low when need be (rather than splaying out). That's one of the main reasons I like softer boots. You get a lot of fwd cuff flex without having to set the boot's fixed fwd-lean to the extreme, which can wear on the quads hard just standing around, especially if like me you have Chondromalacia issues. In other words it is there only when I really want it, but not always. In fact, if I have any real problem with skiing alpine gear after so many years strictly tel, it is that I end up fighting alpine boots" fwd-lean stiffness. As for long stances, I think it is a newbie mistake I see a lot of; people all splayed out looking for balance, thinking that is the benefit of the tele stance but fighting for control of the thing, which is swimming around behind them and doing nothing useful. I think the further back a rear ski migrates, the less worth it serves. It ends up dragging uselessly behind like a severely wounded, flailing appendage. I learned the trade adhering to the vintage shoulders back, 60/40 rule (60% rear foot/40% front foot weighting), which actually required a fairly tight stance and an erect spine posture to get that much weight on the rear ski's edge. That was back before plastic cuffs, much less boots. These days on the better gear you can go 50/50 or even less, which is great and far less taxing, but still I tend to revert back to 60/40 when I call on a hard sharp edge to check speed. It just instinctual. This is where I think I got punished on the Rott NTN. It grabbed far harder than I was expecting and the lateral stiffness didn't allow me to roll over and out of the edging.

[Johnny]

Pins with Volle plates weren't too bad, except you had to watch for ice buildup that would eventually get to the point the pins would rip out the boot's holes.

I still use Smileys on my leathers... The other way around was also true: The smiley plates could turn a useless boot with ripped out pin holes into a brand new boot...

[hoodoo65]

Outlaws are great, but get the X version. First generation broke (plates AND most importantly toepieces). Be careful. Had Freerides for 6 seasons, liked them, but when I tried the Outlaws, I fell in love. They're light, well built, has no dead spot and tours great. Best NTN binding IMO. I use them with leaches, tried the brake set-up but hated it, almost impossible to step in/out. Probably fixed on the the X, but not quite sure about this.

Cheers, Pâté

[Harris]

Outlaws are great, but get the X version. First generation broke (plates AND most importantly toepieces). Be careful. Had Freerides for 6 seasons, liked them, but when I tried the Outlaws, I fell in love. They're light, well built, has no dead spot and tours great. Best NTN binding IMO. I use them with leaches, tried the brake set-up but hated it, almost impossible to step in/out. Probably fixed on the the X, but not quite sure about this.

Cheers, Pâté

Gotta agree with Pate here. Outlaws are pretty badass skiing NTN. I think the Meidjo skis as well, maybe even slightly better, and they would be worth the cost were it not for the durability issues, which I hope Pierre has worked out. The thing I REALLY like about the Meidjos is the AT heal. Now before any hardcore, purist tele heads scoff, let me say this: On the mountain I generally ski (Alpental, WA), the upper mountain has stellar runs. It is a 2 lift mountain (they run a 3rd lift on the weekends that services a lower mountain run). The upper lift accesses the upper mountain where all the black and double black runs are, and where these runs are good, they are very, very good. However, as good as the upper-most of these runs are, the best of the runs are pretty short and have long and flattish, non-groomed runs to access the base runs or even to return to the base of the upper lift. The skiing in theses flattish areas is pure heavy, chopped, wicked deep snow-ball snow crap, on the other side of the upper mountain often with huge chunks of avy results thrown in. They never really form up with packed snow. It is a total shit Wally World. You'll want to ski it because the upper most is that good... And on one side it is fair speed, single track hell, with abrupt whooptydoos. Strait-lining single track flats with whoops are possibly the shittiest thing to try and ski free heeled. They will put you on your face. Couple that with regular conditions of blind skiing in heavy fog... To put it plainly, once past the best part of the run, the 2/3 skiing to the base of the upper lift is exhausting 3/4 mile of pure crap. If there was ever a situation you would want to lock the heels down, this mid-mountain nightmare is it. I could also see guys who ski mountaineer liking the heel binding to get through sections of crust and wind-blown conditions. Does a tele/AT setup alpine ski as well as an AT setup? Nope. But it does the job when you really need it. Another benefit is that if you blow apart the second heel function of the binding, you can lock the heel in and ski on using it with the Meidjo's AT toe.