We’ve just unpacked our first shipment of Salomon bindings for the season, and had to take some photos of the new Pilot Carbon Skate bindings. We’ve worked with these on World Cup skis for the past two seasons, and know them to be functional, reliable, and light weight (130g per ski compared with 160g per ski for the old Pilot Equipe binding).
Like the Propulse classic bindings, the Pilot Carbon comes in an RS version and an RS2 version.
The RS is the binding we’ve seen and skied on. This version incorporates about 4mm of negative ramp compared to the Pilot Equipe. To accomplish this, Salomon has dropped the heel about 3.5mm, and raised the toe about 0.5mm. The net effect is very similar in feeling to running a standard binding wedge with the old Equipe binding, except that the platform is 5mm closer to the snow, and the whole thing is considerably lighter. This is a moderate wedge compared to the nearly 10mm provided with the Excelerator SSR binding on the NNN platform – we’re not crazy about the feeling of toe-lift in many conditions, and we’ve never had a negative experience with these RC bindings.
The RS2 version binding incorporates a wider platform under the forefoot, and reduces the negative ramp by a couple of mm with the inclusion of a thin heel plate. We haven’t ever skied on this binding, but our expectation is that it will provide tremendous stability for skiers who wish to emphasize stability in their platform.
These incremental changes from Salomon provide a modest but significant step forward in the performance of a proven and well-loved system. They are fully compatible with all existing Pilot boots, and they’re successfully competition-tested over two seasons. Salomon has also set the pricing at a similar level to the Pilot Equipe. Binding prices are one of the most outrageous and indefensible profit-grabbing elements of the ski industry – it’s easy to justify and rationalize a seven or eight hundred dollar pair of skis compared with $100+ bindings and $400+ poles. We give Salomon full credit for not adding insult to injury in the pricing of this commodity. Good product development, good business practice, good binding!
We’ll be speccing these Pilot Carbon bindings for all of our SNS platform customers this season.