Today (1st November 2019) Marker has released a video of a new freeride touring binding – the Marker Duke PT 16. These will be available for winter 20/21.
This binding will compete directly with the Salomon / Atomic / Armada Shift binding. It’s a bit like taking the best of the Cast Freetour, Marker Kingpin, Marker Duke and blending them together with some new additions.
Marker’s calling the Duke PT a hybrid freeride touring binding.
At first glance the binding looks not too dissimilar to other beefy freeride bindings out there.
However, you can remove part of the toe piece assembly to uncover pins – different to other bindings out there. This way you get two bindings in one – a full-on freeride binding for charging hard downhill then a far lighter pin toe for the ascent.
In this respect it can be compared to the Cast Freetour and the Shift binding. With the Cast Freetour you have a regular downhill toe and this whole toe piece is removed and replaced with an entire pin binding toe piece.
The Shift achieves this combination of full-on downhill and pins for ascent combined in one unit. Here a switch system transforms the toe from downhill mode to reveal the pins for skinning.
DIN RANGE
The Marker Duke PT freeride touring binding will be available in two DIN ranges; 6-16 and 4-12. This is unusual as often just the upper DIN range is available then a season or so later the lower DIN range is released. Good on your Marker!
Unfortunately neither the Duke PT 16 or Duke PT 12 will be available until autumn 2020.
TOE PIECE
The toe piece is called the Ride & Hike Toe.
Ski mode
It looks and functions like a regular, beefy freeride toe piece for the descent. Marker says the toe housing ‘locks itself at 4 different points automatically when stepping into the binding’. How this functions I don’t know, as I haven’t tested this binding yet.
Image courtesy of Marker
The toe has lateral elasticity, as you normally get, and provides skiers with a DIN range of 6-16.
There’s a movable, stainless steel AFD (anti-friction device) on the toe. This is adjustable so can be used with ISO 5355 Alpine, ISO 9523 Touring and Grip Walk soles.
There’s a metal bar over the toe housing that allows you to scrape snow from the sole of your boot. Marker’s used a system like this on a few bindings and I really like it. Snow stuck to the sole of your boot can seriously impact binding safety, so this is a nice detail.
Tour mode
To switch to tour mode on the Marker Duke PT, there’s a lever at the front of the toe body that you press down to open the pin wings and release the toe piece housing. This lever is very similar to the lever you get on the toes of most pin bindings.
Image courtesy of Marker
You can leave the housing pivoted in front but really it’s designed so you can take it off and pop it in your backpack. If you remove the housing you save over 250g per binding when skinning up, which is a lot more efficient than having it on your ski. It’s an equivalent saving of more than 2kg off your back[1] if you remove the housing and pop it in your pack.
Image courtesy of Marker
Once the housing is removed the toe piece looks just like a regular pin toe. The AFD remains in place. There’s a single pair of springs to close the wings when you press on the closing lever. You don’t need more springs as the pin toe’s just for skinning so you don’t need more spring pressure for skiing.
The lever that you press to release the housing is used to lock the toe for touring – like a regular pin toe lock-out lever. There’s also the required slots between the AFD and the pins so you can fit a touring crampon.
To put the housing back in place on the binding, you hook it into the lobes at the front, pivot it backwards over the pins. You then lift the front lever which pulls the pin wings in and locks everything into place.
HEEL PIECE
Image courtesy of Marker
The heel piece looks like similar to a standard Royal family heel, such as on the Jester and Griffon.
It’s called the Inter Pivot 3 Freeride heel. The current Jester and Griffon bindings use the Inter Pivot 2 heel.
The new Inter Pivot 3 heel has a lever on the brake pedal which allows you to lock the brake arms up, out of the way for skinning. There’s also a heel riser, providing 10o incline for steeper climbs. If you leave the lever down then they call it ‘neutral’. Often this means it’s not quite 0o , but for all but total purist this is fine.
STAND OVER HEIGHT
Stand over height is the distance between the sole of the boot and the top of the ski when clipped into the binding. For the Duke PT this is claimed to be 29mm, which is pretty low for a freeride touring binding.
Some prefer a low stand-over as they feel more connected to the ski and often report better snow feel. Racers, however, can prefer to be higher off the top of the ski as this allows more leverage and higher edge angles. Stand-over height is regulated in FIS (International Ski Federation) racing.
KEY STATS
Marker Duke PT 16
Image courtesy of Marker
DIN range 6-16. It weighs 1,000g in tour mode, 1,280g in ski mode. Two brake widths: 100mm and 125mm. Black and gunmetal in colour. This binding’s recommended for skiers weighing more than 60kg/132lbs.
Marker Duke PT 12
Image courtesy of Marker
DIN range 4-12. 850g in tour mode, 1,090g in ski mode. Two brake widths: 100mm and 125mm. Black and red in colour. This binding’s recommended for skiers weighing between 30kg/66lbs and 110kg/242lbs.
You can read all about what’s new for Marker for winter 19/20 here on SkiKitInfo.com.
You can read more about the exciting new Duke PT on Marker’s site.
0 Comments