Ankle saved by a release

[eleeski]

I'm experimenting with a funky ski design (surprise!). Yesterday I had a couple of ankle stressing crashes. The first was at 28 off - not too much energy. The ski just stopped dead at the peak of the turn and my body kept moving forward over the ski. Wow! I really felt the stress on my ankles. No release and no real damage but I was thinking to myself "that is the fall that could break an ankle if I were pushing it a bit more".

After a session with the grinder, I want back out on the ski. A bit better ski feel and I was really gunning down 32 off. Typical overpull and buoy overrun. OK try again but this time I'm going to get more ski and edge in the water with lots of tip load to control the speed. Oops, overpulled again so I really jumped on the tip. Ski stops dead, I keep going - this time with a lot of energy. Same fall as earlier but a lot more force on everything. Front binding only releases and I'm fine. OK I scratched my knee (whine whine - it stings and dripped some blood on the carpet) and actually the scratch is relevant.

I use double hardshells bolted to the ski. My shells are like the old soft FMs and a bit softer than the Goode shells. The rear has a rubber band instead of the top clip and I have come out of the rear only. The front is cut down for flexibility but pretty stock. Only four screws hold the boot to the ski. The plastic is quite soft and the screws will tear out in a hard crash. This is exactly what happened here except only the rear screws of the front boot pulled out. This unloaded my ankle and avoided any ankle injury.

The nature of this release was similar to a Reflex release (for those who don't build all of their own hardware). I'm lucky that the bindings were not releasing as a double unit. This load would not have popped both off and released the stress from my ankle.

I'm wondering if the Reflex style release might be the safest for ankle protection. I know a lot of skiers who are really worried about ankle safety. Reflex front with a toe kicker and a trick skier style heel strap might minimize the ankle risk.

Now I hate the Reflex system. It frequently slices up my leg in trick falls (whine whine - it stings and dripped some blood on the carpet). But a minor scratch (or even a couple of stitches) is way better than a blown ankle.

Of course, this was one weird fall. Binding and release systems will not work perfectly for every fall. Different binding systems will prevent different injuries. And no binding system will prevent all injuries.

I think I'm retiring this ski...

Eric