2006 04 08 - Les Diablerets
8th April 2006
Spring’s arrived apart from the odd snow shower so any skiing has to be fairly high now and the highest place around here is Glacier 3000 or Les Diablerets which is part of the area covered by my Gstaad season ticket.
Today I particularly wanted to go and try some new skis I have, a pair Stöckli Stormrider XL’s mounted with Fritschi Diamir Freeride Plus bindings. These are next years (06/07) model of bindings and are supposed to be state of the art for crossover touring/alpine bindings, together with some Colltex climbing skins this makes for an all Swiss setup 
I’d wanted something similar to this for some time and hesitated about the bindings as I was concerned if they were robust enough for normal alpine downhill use, the new Freeride Plus is reckoned to take some more steps towards this so it looked a reasonable time to invest.
So, how are they? The Stormrider XL is a fairly stiff ski and, like all handmade skis, varies in flex between pairs, I’d selected the stiffest pair that Stöckli had that day to try and match the performance I get from the Stöckli Laser SC’s I have. The downside of this is that, unlike my Lasers which have Tyrolia railflex plates, there’s a limited output for any shocks that hit the ski. At speed in hard ground the railflexes on the Lasers absorb a lot of the impacts and compensate for the stiffness of the ski, in the XL/Freeride setup these shocks come back at the skier
That said, the XL is never the easiest ski for everyone, I ski every weekend and I’m pretty strong so although skiing on the XL/Freerides I was aware of the forces it was never enough to cause the skis to break away from me. So for me it works. Sking a mix of terrain today I’d say mostly I’m not aware the Freeride is not a normal Alpine binding.
How many of those peaks can you name? No prizes of course, and as a starter, one’s the Matterhorn
Related posts
August 8th, 2006 at Tue, 08 Aug 2006 08:54:03 +0000
A quick question - I am looking into buying the new Diamir Freeride Plus. I would most likely use them for occasional day touring to get to the powder more than multi-day randos. I am therefore interested in if they are sturdy enough to be used as an alpine binding most of the time - can they take pretty tough skiing and drops? Could you please elaborate a bit on the binding? Thanks a lot!
August 8th, 2006 at Tue, 08 Aug 2006 09:30:50 +0000
It’s a subjective thing, they take my skiing but whether that can be termed “tough skiing” is hard to say. I’ve skied with them for about 10 days and been very happy with them. As I said above there’s not the dampening you get with many downhill bindings which is the biggest negative I’d report. The most notable feature of using them is the reduction of weight in the ski/binding package.
There were some comments at PisteHors (here) but as a new product there’s a shortage of long term reviews so far. I’ll certainly update the blog as I use them next season. Note, I’m am referring to the Fritschi Diamir Freeride Plus not the older Fritschi Diamir Freeride.
August 8th, 2006 at Tue, 08 Aug 2006 17:51:02 +0000
Thanks! I have been checking all over the net for info bu, as you say, there really isn’t a lot. Well, when I say tough skiing I didn’t means any pro freeriding 40 foot cliffs would they cope with a 15 footer? I was thinking about getting normal binding and a pair of alpine trekkers but it seems like the general feeling is that - even though the trekkers work as they should - it is better to buy a pair of rando bindings. …so I am pretty undecided at they moment but thanks for your help!
August 8th, 2006 at Tue, 08 Aug 2006 21:32:37 +0000
Hi Marcus,
Regarding cliff hucks I can only relay what the Diamir people say and that is if you want to do that kind of skiing you should use tough alpine bindings (for one thing they are cheaper to replace). That said I have the Diamir Titanal II and they have withstood 3 meter drops no problem so 5 meters for a much more solid binding doesn’t sound like much. However I know serious freeriders who have broken the toe-pieces clean off the old Freeride binding so the final answer is that you can overstress any piece of kit.
I think the Freeride Plus is the strongest ski touring binding you can buy at the moment although Naxo have some new bindings for next season. I didn’t get to speak to them at the ISPO and I’m not exactly popular with them after reporting their reliability problems with the Nx01.
August 8th, 2006 at Tue, 08 Aug 2006 23:33:43 +0000
Sounds right, I’m just not going to be leaping off cliffs personally, but I’m a fairly heavy and reasonably aggressive skier on a good day and I’m not concerned about the binding being robust enough.
My biggest single piece of feedback from 10 days or so use is the lack of suspension/damping/shock-absorber/flexes that modern alpine bindings have. Without them the feedback from the ski/binding at speed on an icy rough piste is brutal and will be very tiring for many people.
August 9th, 2006 at Wed, 09 Aug 2006 09:30:16 +0000
Thanks guys! That is exactly the kind of info I need. I guess I will just have to decide if I will spend the most of my time going uphill or downhill!
August 15th, 2006 at Tue, 15 Aug 2006 20:25:26 +0000
I’ve added another page here :
http://snowslider.net/reviews/fritschi-diamir-freeride-plus/