Meidjo 3.0 alpine heel hole pattern

[scharny]

Does anyone know whether the Meidjo 3.0 alpine heel piece shares the same hole pattern (and distance from the front attachment) as the telemark heel piece? In other words, if you mount the telemark binding and heel piece with inserts, can the heel pieces be swapped out at a later date for alpine heels?

[comradeporcupine]

The alpine heel augments the Meidjo heel climber/stop, not replace. That is, it sits behind the regular heel.

Don't get it, though. It's brittle. Both my heels are broken in two different ways, and I've barely used it.

[scharny]

The alpine heel augments the Meidjo heel climber/stop, not replace. That is, it sits behind the regular heel.

Don't get it, though. It's brittle. Both my heels are broken in two different ways, and I've barely used it.

Thanks for your response. So just to be clear, you are talking about the heel part that allows one to ski the binding with an AT boot with Dynafit-style tech heels, or with a Crispi NTN boot that has a tech heel AND tech toe, correct? I was considering the alpine heel for my ski mount so as to have the option to use them with AT boots in the future.

[comradeporcupine]

I'm talking about the alpine heel part from M equipment: https://www.the-m-equipment.com/en/prod ... alpin-heel

It lets you use e.g. Crispi (or Scott) NTN tele boots with the heel locked.

It does not let you use alpine touring boots as you describe wanting to do. Only an NTN telemark boot will work with the binding, heel or not. The rest of the binding is incompatible with an AT boot (because of the Meidjo 'duckbutt' attachment)

If you want to use AT boots with the ski as well, you would need to probably mount the whole thing on inserts and swap the binding off entirely and replace with an AT binding; which would be a nightmare with Meidjo because of the sheer number of holes it drills.

IMHO in my opinion and that of others, there's limited value to it. The times I've locked the heel, I didn't feel like it gave me much beyond just holding parallel form unlocked. The boots still have quite a bit of flex, so it doesn't "feel" like an alpine ski really, you still end up a bit in the backseat. And after skiing tele all day/year it feels strange and uncomfortable to go back to alpine anyways.

And the heel is brittle overall honestly.. On one heel the release lever pulled partially out and then eventually all the way out from me fiddling with it with my pole to get in and out. On the other, the whole "U" lock just popped right off and I can't get it back in. I'll be taking them off this year and putting epoxy in the ugly holes it left behind. Waste of $$. Just practice your tele turns and commit to the sport. You can still do parallel turns with the heel unlocked anyways.

[scharny]

I'm talking about the alpine heel part from M equipment: https://www.the-m-equipment.com/en/prod ... alpin-heel

It lets you use e.g. Crispi (or Scott) NTN tele boots with the heel locked.

It does not let you use alpine touring boots as you describe wanting to do. Only an NTN telemark boot will work with the binding, heel or not. The rest of the binding is incompatible with an AT boot (because of the Meidjo 'duckbutt' attachment)

If you want to use AT boots with the ski as well, you would need to probably mount the whole thing on inserts and swap the binding off entirely and replace with an AT binding; which would be a nightmare with Meidjo because of the sheer number of holes it drills.

IMHO in my opinion and that of others, there's limited value to it. The times I've locked the heel, I didn't feel like it gave me much beyond just holding parallel form unlocked. The boots still have quite a bit of flex, so it doesn't "feel" like an alpine ski really, you still end up a bit in the backseat. And after skiing tele all day/year it feels strange and uncomfortable to go back to alpine anyways.

And the heel is brittle overall honestly.. On one heel the release lever pulled partially out and then eventually all the way out from me fiddling with it with my pole to get in and out. On the other, the whole "U" lock just popped right off and I can't get it back in. I'll be taking them off this year and putting epoxy in the ugly holes it left behind. Waste of $$. Just practice your tele turns and commit to the sport. You can still do parallel turns with the heel unlocked anyways.

This is great intel. All I've ever done is tele (26 years now) - I was looking for something that would be a bridge towards AT/parallel skiing (but with same skis/bindings, should I go that route in the future). I appreciate the detail and real-world experience in your reply - you saved me a lot of headache.

[comradeporcupine]

I think what you want to do is actually possible if you build out your own custom TTS rig.

A dynafit toe piece + the moonlight or similar TTS adapter (let's you put Voile hardwire behind the toe). And then an alpine in the back that can either fully retract and get out of the way (during tele & climbing) or be removed.

I tried to build something like this, but struggled with the height of the heel piece.

It's possible that the Meidjo heel piece on its own could be used for this. It releases back to get out of the way nicely (uh, when it doesn't break), and is designed to sit behind a heel riser. So it may actually work well, just without the whole rest of the Meidjo binding. I've heard of others doing it. So in that case you could combine e.g. moonlight tts system with the M equipment alpine heel and M equipment riser. And then it would work with either an alpine touring boot or an NTN tele boot.

If you have the $$ to play and some old skis to experiment with, it could be worth a try.

But by the time you've built all this out and acquired all the pieces, you may as well just have two sets of skis.

[freeheelcraig]

I bought the latest version of the Meidjo (now InWild) binding this winter, with the alpine heel. My first impression is deep disappointment, with the whole product feeling poorly made, bad quality, despite the extremely high price. The alpine heel has never worked - either the boot pops out or, on some occasions, I cannot get the boot to release. Terrible thing. I tried to contact InWild, but got no reply. I spent a lot of time adjusting the gap between heel and boot, but nothing worked. I believe most AT bindings (Dynafit, etc) come with a spacer to get this dialled in accurately, but not Meidjo. Their instructions just say 'approximately 5mm", but this is actually quite difficult to measure precisely.

Maybe I am doing something wrong, but I have never had a single problem with my Marker AT bindings in several seasons of use. The Meidjo / InWild binding is the best example I can think of across all Telemark technology of 'great concept - terrible execution'. Such a shame, and looking through the forums, clearly I am not the only person to have come to this conclusion.