| |
Re: strap-ons
In article <5sr3a0F1agm1uU1@mid.individual.net>,
dardruba wrote:
>
>I've no idea what the military use these days but I presume they must have a
>binding which grips a walking/working boot.
>If so that should work on your boots.
>
I believe it's called a NATO binding for obvious
reasons. Rottefella makes it, Model 120. I think.
I think the OP would be a lot better off switching to
a different boot maker. Not everybody has alpina shaped
feet, the other XC boots have a significantly different fit.
For example, Alpina's kill my feet, but I'm perfectly happy in
Rossignol boots.
_ Booker C. Bense
|
|
|
| |
Booker Bense wrote
> Ken's approach works until it doesn't and then
> fails badly when the crampon flexs out[1] and
> you have neither edge or crampon in place, your
> knee is at a odd angle and reweighting the ski is difficult.
I have not used the models of harscheisen / couteaux / ski crampons that
Booker cited for possible problems, but I'm glad he warned about it. So far
I've tried this "flattening" approach only with the Fritschi Diamir binding
with its harscheisen, and I have not yet encountered this problem of
"flexing out".
(Maybe that's because the Fritschi harscheisen are made of steel? Most
experienced people I know are giving up on aluminum and switching to steel
for the parts that you really must be able to count on to bite into hard
snow/ice. The general comment is that aluminum points and edges are good,
until you really need to depend on them. I noticed this spring that several
serious mountaineering shops are no longer stocking "light skiing" ice axes
with aluminum heads -- instead their lighest axes have aluminum shafts and
steel heads).
Anyway, I'm not saying that "flattening" is the "right" way to do it all the
time -- just that it's an approach that could help in some situations.
> most ski boots make any kind of French techinque
> with either boot or ski crampons fairly painful.
OK, how about let's call it "semi-French" -- I rarely if ever get the
fullest possible penetration with the downhill harscheisen blades. I use
Scarpa Laser boots a lot, and I loosen up most of the buckles and
power-strap when I'm climbing, and I definitely do not find this
"semi-French" approach to be painful. (but maybe I just have more flexible
knees and hips than some people?)
> I think that the best stragety is to pretend that
> you don't have ski crampons on and just climb
> as you would without them.
But I definitely think the better strategy is to climb differently with
harschiesen. Here's why: On hard snow there's a tricky optimization
trade-off in the choice of ski-edging angle: between getting the metal of
the edge to bite into the snow, and getting the friction of the edge of the
skin to grip on the snow surface. (and with the shaped skins, there's a
prior trade-off in how close to the ski edge to cut the skin to fit the ski
base).
Putting harscheisen on the ski gives lots of help with the edge-bite side of
the problem, but very little help to the skin-grip side. Therefore the
optimal ski-edging angle must be different. Also there's the mechanics of
crampon-point/snow-shearing interaction -- where clearly planting the
crampon-point perpendicular to the snow surface is stronger against
snow-shearing than planting the crampon-point vertically -- which is the key
point of why "edging" is a dangerously bad idea with ice-crampons. This has
nothing to do with how many points you get into the snow: it's about the
mechanics of perpendicular versus vertical angle with the exactly the same
crampon points.
Ken
___________________________________________
"Booker C. Bense"
wrote
in message news:d5b501$89v$1@news.Stanford.EDU...
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>
> In article <4277f6d7$0$26068$7a628cd7@news.club-internet.fr>,
> davidof wrote:
> >Ken Roberts wrote:
> >> A few weeks ago I started a different approach for climbing on skins
with
> >> harscheisen on firm snow.
> >
> >Interesting post Ken, I will have to think about this next time I'm out.
> >I was both cutting and cramponing on Saturday and it is true, on
> >crampons you do flatten your feet to the slope when traversing which you
> >don't do so much when skiing with couteaux as you want the edge grip too.
>
> _ Most ski crampons are a lot more flexible than even aluminum
> boot crampons. They are designed to support a vertical load,
> not a lateral one. Ken's approach works until it doesn't and then
> fails badly when the crampon flexs out[1] and you have neither
> edge or crampon in place, your knee is at a odd angle and
> reweighting the ski is difficult. If you don't catch yourself
> with the upper unweighted ski, you're likely going for a ride.
>
> _ Personally, I think that the best stragety is to pretend that
> you don't have ski crampons on and just climb as you would
> without them. If things start to feel sketchy, then it's time
> to switch to regular crampons and carry the skis.
>
> _ Of course, the point at which the crampon flexes and pops out
> will vary greatly with design, materials and mounting method.
> However, of the two I've personally used ( Rainey superloop
> crampon and Silvretta 500 ) both did this eventually. In
> particular the aluminum Silvretta 500 crampon does this quite
> easily. Both of these mount to the binding rather than the
> ski, so you might get much better results with Petzl and
> BD[2] crampons that mount directly to the ski.
>
> _ The other problem is that most ski boots make any kind
> of French techinque with either boot or ski crampons fairly
> painful.
>
> _ Booker C. Bense
>
> [1] This most often happens when you have only the crampon
> in contact with the snow.
>
> [2] http://www.bdskigear.com/index_files/Page1362.htm
>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: 2.6.2
>
> iQCVAwUBQnkXQGTWTAjn5N/lAQF0/QQAufK7C2eZr58VHwv7FagqXbEMr4RSXAkj
> AszlxufliTROVcaD0kpCJ29eKv9PoA2kyFR5lGtxOvpywHystyFs7eLPM7uwOicX
> 8+BIltXJlj4bdkE4mA4lJe3grrDsXeWCapzUdPYrEAddB3L44iP7hCw8rx+IoLGF
> jaXVN8wScpE=
> =cle0
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
|
|