Today we are talking about two new alpine-touring bindings from Fritschi, the Tecton 12, and the Vipec Evo 12. We’ve just put up full reviews of both the Tecton 12 and the Vipec Evo 12, and we wanted to go deeper with Blister reviewers Brian Lindahl and Cy Whitling about their experience with these new products, and how they would rank them against some of the the other most popular alpine touring bindings on the market.

TOPICS & TIMES:

• Brian's extremely memorable tour on the Tecton (1:35)
• How Brian first got interested in the Fritschi Vipec very early on (3:00)
• A/B-ing the Tecton with the Marker Kingpin (8:15)
• A/B-ing the Tecton with an alpine binding (17:40)
• On the Fritschi Vipec Evo 12 (22:39)
• Updates to the Vipec Evo (24:43)
• Fritschi Vipec Evo vs. Dynafit Radical 2.0, G3 ION, and Marker Kingpin (27:38)

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Volkl is unveiling today the new Mantra M5, the fifth iteration of the Mantra that Volkl originally released back in 2005. A lot has changed in skiing since then, but the Mantra is still one of the most recognizable and most iconic names in the game.

Last month, Blister editor Sam Shaheen headed to Germany to ski the new Mantra M5, to tour the extremely impressive Volkl factory in Straubing, Germany, and to speak to two key designers at Volkl: Tobias Heil, the head of R&D at Volkl, and Dominik Grunert, the lead designer on the Mantra M5 and the women’s version of the Mantra, the Volkl Secret.

This is a really fascinating conversation — and an extremely uncommon event. In 90+ years that Volkl has been around, rarely (if ever) has a review publication been granted this degree of direct access to Volkl R&D and Engineering, and Tobias and Dominik were extremely interesting, candid, and knowledgeable talking about the Mantra M5 in particular, and about the guiding design principles at Volkl in general.

So you can check out Sam’s conversation with Tobias and Dominik here, then head over to blisterreview.com to read our accompanying writeup and Sam’s initial on-snow impressions of the new Mantra M5.

TOPICS & TIMES:

• What were your trying to achieve with this 5th version of the Mantra, the M5? (2:28)
• Changes and the guiding design principles (3:38)
• History of the Mantra (6:55)
• Will this new shape and / or construction make its way into other Volkl skis? (9:35)
• The women’s version of the Mantra — the Volkl Secret (10:08)
• Which skis on the market is the Mantra M5 set to compete against? (12:20)
• Of the 5 different iterations of the Mantra, which are your personal favorites? (13:38)
• Dominik on the Volkl 100Eight (16:30)
• Rocker Profiles & Flex Patterns (17:50)
• Weight — what is Volkl’s position on construction & weight? (23:03)
• The possibility of bringing back a limited run of the metal Katana? (25:35)
• Predictions: where is ski design headed in the next 5 years? (28:15)

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The new SHIFT MNC 13 from Salomon & Atomic represents a significant leap forward in binding design. Check out our conversation with Salomon's Cody Townsend Chris Rubens, and Benoit Sublet, and our initial on-snow impressions.

TOPICS & TIMES:

• Introductions — Cody Townsend, Chris Rubens, Sam Shaheen, and Ben Sublet (1:58)
• What does this binding do, and what makes it different? (5:45)
• Which boots work with this binding? (11:15)
• "No compromise" safety (14:23)
• How & when did the idea originate, and why was it controversial? (15:10)
• How long has the current version of the binding been tested? (23:33)
• The big breakthrough: carbon-infused plastic (27:09)
• Downhill Performance: Salomon STH2 vs. S/LAB SHIFT (29:20)
• What was the most difficult element of this binding to design? (34:23)
• How the toe works (37:10)
• How often and in what scenarios will Cody & Chris use this binding? (39:40)
• Uphill performance (and why "touring steep is stupid" (47:48)
• Icing Issues? (52:08)
• Durability & the question of consumers as Beta testers (55:30)

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We discuss the making of — and our takeaways from — our 17/18 Winter Buyer's Guide, including our "Best Of" awards, our Blister Spectrums, our ski quiver selections, and some of the strangest claims we saw in some of the other buyer's guides out there.

TOPICS & TIMES:

• A very cool thing we did recently at marblebrewing.com (2:16)
• The blurring of ski categories (3:15)
• What we talk about when we talk about “Frontside” (8:56)
• The pros and cons of the growing category of “50/50” Skis (13:57)
• 17/18 Season -- the year of the binding? (22:15)
• “Stated Range of Motion” numbers on AT boots & the Scarpa Freedom RS (23:07)
• Head-scratching claims we saw in other buyers guides about the Blizzard Rustler 10, J Skis The Metal, and ON3P Billy Goat (29:03)
• Our “Blister Spectrums” (35:37)
• Our Ski Quiver Selections in the Buyer’s Guide (38:19)
• The rationale behind our Blister “Best Of” Awards + some specific winners: Patagonia MicroPuff; Scarpa Maestrale RS; and K2 Ikonic 84 Ti (42:52)
• Almost “Best Of” Award winners: G3 SENDr 112, The North Face Ventrix (51:46)

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Dynafit is introducing today their new Hoji series of boots, so we went very in-depth with Hoji himself about the boot, what makes it unique, and what's potentially still to come. (And there's more information in the show notes to this podcast episode on our website.)

TOPICS & TIMES:

• Welcome to our new GEAR:30 podcast (0:00)
• When and where the idea of Blister was born (1:10)
• What were the design aims of this boot, and what is unique about it? (2:52)
• The “PDA” design of this boot (15:42)
• The various iterations of the “Hoji” boot (18:07)
• Weight of the Hoji (23:32)
• The width of the boot + Hoji’s sizing recommendations (27:18)
• Fit of the Hoji Pro Tour vs. Fit of the Dynafit Vulcan (31:15)
• The buckles & ankle retention (35:30); Crampon Compatibility (39:58)
• Range of Motion - Forward & Rearward (42:05)
• Durability - Bushings & Cables (44:33)
• Hoji’s approach to boot testing (53:20)
• Where would you locate the Hoji among the Vulcan, Beast, and TLT 7? (1:00:15)
• Where would you locate the Hoji among non-Dynafit boots? (1:02:31)
• Flex of the boot (1:07:17)
• Why Eric thinks you should try skiing with your boots unbuckled (1:12:58)
• Any plans to work on a new AT binding? (1:16:05)

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