To answer a couple questions I read in the posts that went unanswered.
When Jonny is talking about moveable mount position plates on the Freedoms and Freerides, he is talking about the plate that gets mounted first that the Rott bindings then slide onto. With these plates you can easily move the binding fore and aft quite a bit. An added benefit is that with this setup the Rott bindings have a rather large but lite mount plate that requires few screws yet anchors the binding down sturdier than say a Meidjo, which have a rep for ripping screws out of the ski (supposedly solved with the 2.1 version).
To Jonny... Actually in the new Telemark Skier edition that mentions the new 22 Designs Lynxs it also reviews a 22 Designs mount plate that supposedly works with a large number of bindings, NTN, 75 mil etc.
Also, another cool thing about this binding is that it looks like the structure comprising of the TTS pins is burlier than the Meidjo. And if you look at the base of the binding, the whole thing is a one piece, cast aluminum plate, which will alleviate the weakness of the Meidjo that causes the toe piece rear holes to pull out of the top sheets, which is a much-needed design change I suggested to M-Designs' Pierre a couple years ago, but he hasn't done, but instead on the 2.1 added some 2 screw each rails to anchor the rear of the toe piece; I suspect he is still trying to recoup up-front production costs and can't afford a complete re-design change yet). Plus, unlike the Meidjo but like the Axl, Vice and Outlaw you will get three different activity settings to adjust the flex point that is changed easily with a quick pin (you can see it in the picture, FWD of the spring plate). That is something no other NTN offers besides the Outlaw. Simple but very, very cool feature.
Have no idea how that second heal releases or is activated, but it looks like you it will be accomplished at the second heel, which means you don't have to release the TTS pins to de-activate or re-cock the second heal, a design limitation of the Meidjo (and a feature on the Meidjo that requires an added plastic plate thing secured by two screws and more breakable parts to deal with). Safety-wise it probably has the same release characteristics of the Meidjo.
Snow Buildup is probably kept in check with the spring plate just as it is on the Outlaw which also uses a spring plate.
It looks like the binding is still in prototype phase, but if it is 22 Designs, you know it will be a very good binding, tested by some real hardcores with most bugs worked out.
I would suspect that the main thing keeping telemark boots heavy is the lack of profitable market. If you had carbon fiber cuffs and intermoulding, which I'm not even sure is possible, in the lowers in the places that are low flex (like the heels) it would drop the weight significantly but up the costs substantially. How many would pay $1200.00 for a pair of boots? $600.00 seems the upper price point. Rando gear is getting pretty light, but there is no warmth there, or durability, whereas durable AT boots are still pretty damn heavy. My Scarpa AT boots are only nominally lighter than my TX Pros, but then they don't have bellows or the structure requirements for all that, and are way colder. Afraid it will be a long time before a lite real duckbill or NTN boot hits the market. And at what point does extreme range of walk-more movement get to be a silly feature. Teleboots can flex at the toes/At can't, and you are still walking around in a pair of ski boots; they aren't meant for trotting around the dog park with Fido.
http://www.telemarkskier.com/first-look ... ng-plates/
