MOUNT UP! The story behind center-mounting
This past winter, Tanner Hall and Jon Olsson entered 120-foot Chad’s gap in Little Cottonwood Canyon at 53 mph skiing backward. Without fat, twin-tip skis and center-mounted bindings, the feat probably would not have been possible.
Playing with the location of binding mounts has become more common as skiers break from tradition to explore the frontiers of switch-riding and terrain parks. Forward mounting, as any ski tech can tell you, simply means mounting the binding forward of the suggested boot midsole line on the ski. Center mounting, on the other hand, is mounting the binding on the exact center of the ski.
The placement allows skiers to ski and land fakie more easily, improves balance on rails, and reduces swing weight when spinning. And according to Line skier Eric Pollard, “It makes for easier grabs.” Even a few big-mountain skiers are engaging in the trend, except in the opposite way. Josh Novotny of Dynastar says Jeremy Nobis mounts his bindings a centimeter or two behind the suggested mark, which reduces tip-dive in powder and steeps.
But the central locale for the center/forward mount resides in the park, where skiers are breaking out tape measures to ensure their bindings are mounted exactly on the center of the ski. “Simply put,” says Pollard, “the ski rides much better backward when the binding is center-mounted, and the tail rides better when skiing or landing switch.”
Companies like K2, Atomic, and Line have joined the movement to assist skiers with their mounting location questions. For instance, Line has designed the Quickmount Six Pack (see Prophet 130 and Mothership Flite) and K2 provides a numbered guide on the side of the ski so skiers can decide how forward they want to be.
Not all bindings, however, can be mounted wherever the skier desires. “With a forward- or center-mounted binding,” says Jason Levinthal, founder of Line Skis, “you have to work with the sidecut and flex of the ski to ensure the ski’s performance will remain the same.”
Although this creativity boosts progressive riding, the beneficiaries are those who ski switch more than half of the time or those demanding extra tip for Alaska-style lines. Like Novotny declares, “Most freestylers ski backward as much as forward.”