Meidjo NTN 2.0 review/warning

[Harris]

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.

[jzahnny]

Thanks for putting this out there. Sorry to hear about your skis. I'm excited for the Meidjo and I'm glad you praised it's merits in detail because it substantiates some of the promise of the design.

Have you contacted Pierre directly? You seem to assume the problem is common and that Pierre may have his head in the sand. Maybe it's the case. I don't know. But making the effort to contact him--if even only a brief email with a link to your concise and articulate assessment of the failure--might be just what's needed to catalyze the next iteration of the engineering. I doubt Pierre thinks he's achieved perfection at version 2.0.

[Harris]

Yes, I have contacted Pierre. Before the binding blowout we were in contact over a rubber "bushing" he refers to as an "amoritizer" that I thought would wear prematurely and could be improved upon. And we were in contact over the low tech heel I also purchased that broke on the bench before it was even skied. He was responsive to that. But since the binding failure he has been real quiet.

I don't expect him to warranty it. It wouldn't make a difference if I got a new piece to replace the one that failed because it would only fail again.

I've tried to upload photos of the piece that failed, which would clearly show why the design has a serious flaw, but I'm going to have to do some format changing in order to get the pics upload able. I will post them in a few days when I have more time.

I'm not poo pooing Pierre. I imagine he has a ton of time and money wrapped up in his effort, but clearly this binding wasn't put through the wringer as far as testing goes. I tele very well, I would say in the realm of notably good, advanced expert, and I love to tele difficult terrain, but I'm an older guy with bad knees, meaning I'm not hucking cliffs or anything. And if this binding failed me just making aggressive turns in steep, skied out terrain than it was pretty much only meadow skipped in testing. Or it has known problems and those who know are being quiet about it. Pierre has certainly gone silent.

I bought another set of the same skis that got trashed (I'm going to be credit card broke for a while now), and some 22 Designs Outlaw Bindings (yep, more broke), and I have to say that although the bindings are Full Flintstone, they ski incredibly well, very duckbill like and much better than the Rottefellas and should be very durable.

On the Outlaws... One thing that is profoundly better than the Miedjo (besides durability) and the Rottefella bindings is that you don't ever seem to hit "max" travel, which causes the ski to bite super hard and sudden; I had to have an ACL reconstructed and a meniscus repaired due to that several years ago when skiing east coast ice while going through my initial first few days of NTN learning curve. I love the power turn feeling of active bindings but they do like you to stay more upright, and punish you if you go low and stomp the back foot with serious weight for more edge bite (old school). But the Outlaw doesn't suffer that effect. I't is not a knee-on-the-ski binding, but I never felt there was a "No-Go" limit either. As far as release function, even when I tore my ACL my Rotts never released, and that is because when the heel is raised the boot position concerning the second heel will not allow for a whole, lateral release, which would've prevented my ACL from getting torn in two. So I'm not sure that having a releasable binding is all that real world functional as far as tele is concerned. The Meidjo probably self destructed because the toe wasn't strong enough retention wise and once it popped open the super weak second heel connection point got maxed beyond the design-wise over-taxed hold down strength of the screws, but that is just a guess; it all happened suddenly fast with binding parts (the spring box) slingshotting out the ass end. And no, it wasn't a fall, I stopped myself staying upright. It was all just great aggro turning until it suddenly went WTF.

Frankly I'm kinda loving my Outlaws, and they have already lasted longer than my Meidjos, which isn't asking much, nor is that hardly a long term test, but you can tell by the construction there is a lot of proven design work behind them. However, boy howdy do they look Frankenstein.

[jzahnny]

Good! It's clear you're not dissing Pierre. Post some pics. Let it be shown!

I've only skied one day on an Axl but wow how I liked it. Frankenstein Designs!

[Harris]

Here it is.

[Johnny]

Bad... But hey, what did you expect...?

I would probably break them in half a run...

[MikeK]

If you look closely at the load path for those screws, it can be seen you'd really have to go far, far forward to put the load in a direction that would want to pull them out of the ski.

In the picture show, with the boot heel only raised slightly, they are loaded more or less in shear.

Knowing nothing about this mech, here is my thought. Skier is pounding the knee down very far, and most likely hitting some sort of stop (driving the spring solid or whatever) to lock up that rear mech. Then all the load is transferred to those screws, and mostly in tension as bar at the pivot would be very near vertical.

It doesn't seem to me that the part that hold that rubber bushing is too weak, it's perhaps it can't hold itself to the ski!

I think more screws would work but it seems to me the root of the problem is perhaps the binding doesn't have enough motion (or spring travel) for the style of skiing Harris is doing.

You could also look at redesigning that plate to help the front screws carry more load. Hint: that would mean stiffening the plate and moving the screw mounting point of the rear screws to make the pivot more in the center of screw pattern.

[anemic]

Harris,

Great writeup on the shocking problem. Thanks for the photo. I can see the problem, as you'd said the photo makes it clear. It seems that plate needs to be thicker and have a much wider screw base. In fact, I don't think two inline screws will be a sufficient fix. I think it may need three screws in a triangular pattern, and machined aluminum instead of braked stainless.

Last week in Colorado I saw a Bishop Bomber. Have you ridden those? They are certainly not a tech toe system however they look like they have their triple black diamond certification! If I were interested in BURLY I would start there.

As a new telemarker, I am curious about the demise of the Black Diamond tele gear. It seems very popular out there and it worked great for me (BD01 with the free pivot climbing mode and midstiffs). I really did not think it toured uphill any worse than my Dynafit AT setup, while I actually greatly preferred touring in the tele boot.

[x-eff]

Harris,

How much do you weight / how tall are you ? Ever ripped bindings out of skis before ?

[jarlybart]

Following.