By: randosteve|Posted on: January 5, 2012|Posted in: Gear, Gear Reviews | 8 comments


To-Pin or Not-To-Pin…that is the question. (And I don’t mean telemark.) 🙂

Alas, after a couple weeks in limbo, Dynafit has now released the new Radical binding heel-pin upgrade. The pin is made of brass and has a skinny end, as well as a think end with a small ring indented into it.  When installing the new pin, the thin end goes in, towards the heel-post.  I’m not sure what the indented ring is for, but it may add a bit of bite to the lock-out feature or be some sort of break-off point so as not to damage the plastic housing.  All-in-all, the new pin is reported to decrease the amount of force it takes to spin the heel-piece in a counter-clockwise motion and over-power the auto-rotate lock-out feature of the Radicals.

Here are some instructions for pin replacement if you need them.  (Note: Don’t get confused by the arrows and follow the numbers under the images.  See last page with text for additional guidance.)  FWIW, for the past couple of weeks, I’ve been testing a new ski for next season (Fall 2012) from Dynafit called the Huascaran (AKA, the Landfish) with a Radical FT12 binding that had the pins removed.  It’s temping to go completely sans-pins, since I really didn’t have any problems or excessive auto-rotation issues without them being installed.  Anyway, food for thought.