Meidjo NTN 2.0 review/warning
Posted: Sat Mar 19, 2016 12:52 am
note to self: Don't ever again buy an unproven binding and mount it to a high dollar, new pair of skis.
So I bought a set of the new Meidjo 2.0 bindings. And I was excited about them for four reasons: 1) They are marketed to ski like a duckbill. 2) The low tech toe attachment; seams like the future of tele bindings not only for weight reasons, but having a tele binding that can actually AT skin well is drool worthy. And with the Dynafit style toe attachment, there is what would seem like a solid releasability option. 3rd) The Meidjo has an optional low tech heel option. I love tele, and I've been doing it over 35 years, but there are circumstances like wooptidood, single tracked connection trails through slop that it would be nice to have the option. Plus alpine turning the boards in certain conditions is just what I like to do. Why not lock the heel down occasionally; just for sport. 4th: because they had won awards they had to be good. Right? Wrong.
Before I go on a slamfest I have to say that for 4 days the bindings were as advertised. I mounted them on a brand new pair of fairly high dollar K2 Pinnacle 95s. For the first two days I basically cruised them in order to adjust to both the skis and the bindings. They skied much better than my Rottefella Freerides, on which I have thrashed for several years. Unlike the Freerides there is no dead space when starting your drop knee. And the binding flexes the boot much more like a duckbill. The activeness of the binding is very progressive and predictable. It is very light, which you notice when throwing the boards from turn to turn. And the binding is a lot more on the ski rather than elevated off it, and because of that you have much better ski feel. Day three I felt ready to take them into double diamond territory but only made a few runs into all that. Day four I was loving life and ready to push. Third run into steep, bumped-out double blacks, during a short radius snap turn, I ripped out of the ski the part of the binding that anchors the second heel spring box.
Now when you rip out the screws on a Meidjo you have a real problem. Before I go into that, a little info: A single ski Meidjo mount requires 12 holes. The problem with the binding become blatantly obvious when you encounter what I did, which you will if you ski aggressively. In short the material part of the binding anchoring that second heel is flimsy at best and held to the ski solely with two closely spaced screws, and that is what will rip out when doing deep kneed turns. The designer has a lot of mechanical stuff figured out pretty well, but he thoroughly underestimated the leveraging forces a tele binding must endure. Look at a Rotteffela or 22 Designs NTN and you can see that the bulk of those bindings are to counter said forces, using very beefy single piece material to disperse the load over the entire length of the binding. The Meidjo asks a 1.5 inch piece of approx. .050" break formed (i.e. bent to shape) stainless to carry that load, and as the picture shows that little piece is pathetically weak. But back to the matter of what happens when you rip those screws out: well, as far as mounting another binding in an optimal place you are pretty much screwed. And forget inserts--you will pull those out too, and then even mounting the replacement, better binding in a bad spot is nixed. Basically if or should I say when you pull those screws out you have in effect trashed your skis.
Now personally I think Pierre the designer has run into customers complaining about all this. In the mounting instructions he goes into great detail about how to fix the Meidjo to the ski using the screws. I think that he thinks the binding failures people are experiencing are due to flawed mounting. He is wrong. I'm a pretty experience guy concerning. Not only have I mounted many bindings but for 25 years I've been an aircraft mechanic. I've literally drilled thousands upon thousands of holes and repaired countless engineered structures. Not only do I know how to drill and attach things, I also understand structural integrity. And the fact of the matter is, no matter how scientific you make mounting this binding to be, and I followed his instructions to the letter, if you are an aggressive, expert telemarker you will destroy this binding and in short order. And you will be very upset when you realize that you will not be able to get a good, strong mount in the ski's sweet spot using another binding--you will have a swiss cheesed piece of trash that was once a great ski.
Now I think with some help Pierre could eventually create an amazing binding out of this mess. First he needs a structural engineer show him how to beef it right. Second, the AT toe is also in need of work. When my binding came apart the collapse got rolling first when the toe pre-released. If you own Dynafits, which I do, you know that they use a lot of spring tension, and that snaps the pins in with great force. The Meidjo 2.0 AT toe springs are relatively weak, and a hard tele will pry the pins jaws open. But that is a whole different topic.
To sum up, I think this binding idea has potential, I respect Pierre for sticking it out there and investing a great deal into his concept, but I like my fellow telemark skiing brethren, and I would be doing a disservice by not passing the above stated on.
So I bought a set of the new Meidjo 2.0 bindings. And I was excited about them for four reasons: 1) They are marketed to ski like a duckbill. 2) The low tech toe attachment; seams like the future of tele bindings not only for weight reasons, but having a tele binding that can actually AT skin well is drool worthy. And with the Dynafit style toe attachment, there is what would seem like a solid releasability option. 3rd) The Meidjo has an optional low tech heel option. I love tele, and I've been doing it over 35 years, but there are circumstances like wooptidood, single tracked connection trails through slop that it would be nice to have the option. Plus alpine turning the boards in certain conditions is just what I like to do. Why not lock the heel down occasionally; just for sport. 4th: because they had won awards they had to be good. Right? Wrong.
Before I go on a slamfest I have to say that for 4 days the bindings were as advertised. I mounted them on a brand new pair of fairly high dollar K2 Pinnacle 95s. For the first two days I basically cruised them in order to adjust to both the skis and the bindings. They skied much better than my Rottefella Freerides, on which I have thrashed for several years. Unlike the Freerides there is no dead space when starting your drop knee. And the binding flexes the boot much more like a duckbill. The activeness of the binding is very progressive and predictable. It is very light, which you notice when throwing the boards from turn to turn. And the binding is a lot more on the ski rather than elevated off it, and because of that you have much better ski feel. Day three I felt ready to take them into double diamond territory but only made a few runs into all that. Day four I was loving life and ready to push. Third run into steep, bumped-out double blacks, during a short radius snap turn, I ripped out of the ski the part of the binding that anchors the second heel spring box.
Now when you rip out the screws on a Meidjo you have a real problem. Before I go into that, a little info: A single ski Meidjo mount requires 12 holes. The problem with the binding become blatantly obvious when you encounter what I did, which you will if you ski aggressively. In short the material part of the binding anchoring that second heel is flimsy at best and held to the ski solely with two closely spaced screws, and that is what will rip out when doing deep kneed turns. The designer has a lot of mechanical stuff figured out pretty well, but he thoroughly underestimated the leveraging forces a tele binding must endure. Look at a Rotteffela or 22 Designs NTN and you can see that the bulk of those bindings are to counter said forces, using very beefy single piece material to disperse the load over the entire length of the binding. The Meidjo asks a 1.5 inch piece of approx. .050" break formed (i.e. bent to shape) stainless to carry that load, and as the picture shows that little piece is pathetically weak. But back to the matter of what happens when you rip those screws out: well, as far as mounting another binding in an optimal place you are pretty much screwed. And forget inserts--you will pull those out too, and then even mounting the replacement, better binding in a bad spot is nixed. Basically if or should I say when you pull those screws out you have in effect trashed your skis.
Now personally I think Pierre the designer has run into customers complaining about all this. In the mounting instructions he goes into great detail about how to fix the Meidjo to the ski using the screws. I think that he thinks the binding failures people are experiencing are due to flawed mounting. He is wrong. I'm a pretty experience guy concerning. Not only have I mounted many bindings but for 25 years I've been an aircraft mechanic. I've literally drilled thousands upon thousands of holes and repaired countless engineered structures. Not only do I know how to drill and attach things, I also understand structural integrity. And the fact of the matter is, no matter how scientific you make mounting this binding to be, and I followed his instructions to the letter, if you are an aggressive, expert telemarker you will destroy this binding and in short order. And you will be very upset when you realize that you will not be able to get a good, strong mount in the ski's sweet spot using another binding--you will have a swiss cheesed piece of trash that was once a great ski.
Now I think with some help Pierre could eventually create an amazing binding out of this mess. First he needs a structural engineer show him how to beef it right. Second, the AT toe is also in need of work. When my binding came apart the collapse got rolling first when the toe pre-released. If you own Dynafits, which I do, you know that they use a lot of spring tension, and that snaps the pins in with great force. The Meidjo 2.0 AT toe springs are relatively weak, and a hard tele will pry the pins jaws open. But that is a whole different topic.
To sum up, I think this binding idea has potential, I respect Pierre for sticking it out there and investing a great deal into his concept, but I like my fellow telemark skiing brethren, and I would be doing a disservice by not passing the above stated on.