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Tyrolia Protector Series of Bindings

BigSlick

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Yes, that's why I led off with "Kind of a relevant factoid".


Agreed. But an injunction is a possible outcome of the complaint. That's my concern.

I really appreciate that Head/Tyrolia brought the Protector to market. I want the added ACL safety and was planning to go all-in this summer and get Protectors on all the skis in my quiver.

But, heck, now this VSD vs Head thing has thrown a lot of uncertainty into my mind about the future of the Protector. For example: if an injunction happens... will Protectors remain on the indemnified list like normal binding models??? Since the indemnified list is driven by legal & insurer priorities, I'm guessing the answer may not necessarily be a "yes".
I wouldn’t sweat it. I’ve been doing patent litigation for 20+ years and injunctions are rarer than hens teeth these types of cases.
 

Wasatchman

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So having ordered and mounted a set of PR Protectors on my Blossoms that used to have PRD, and Attack Protectors on my Line Blades this season, I'm pretty convinced; I had an ugly fall where I'm almost certain I released laterally out of the heel
Can you explain the mechanism of your fall? So I presume you're saying the binding saved your knee where a traditional binding wouldn't. Can you elaborate? I'm very curious as I'm sitting in the fence at the moment regarding these protector bindings.
 

raytseng

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Can you explain the mechanism of your fall? So I presume you're saying the binding saved your knee where a traditional binding wouldn't. Can you elaborate? I'm very curious as I'm sitting in the fence at the moment regarding these protector bindings.
I can give you a recent example where I wish I had a lateral heel release.
Was in lift line that had a relatively steep downhill, so had to wedge and be on the edge of stopping vs. slip. Next/behind me, kid not paying attention skis through and catches tail of my ski and drags it forward, and causing ski to really wedge out forward, and me to fall backwards with skis crossed up still in a wedgeand dug into the soft snow and both knees torqued and strained. Needed help to have someone unclick.

Another buddy this season, had a incident where in a missed moguls, got spun around and
ended up into a similar position with skis wedged in and knees torqued so couldn't move to reach the skis, and I needed to get to them to help them release the binding.

Both of these were mild strains, and ok by next day, but if we had knee issues it could've been worse.
I don't have the bindings, so don't know if they would've helped, but thinking this through though, you may need to play with the setting and have lower settings than the other releases, as both of these incidents were at relatively slow speeds.
 
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Wasatchman

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@raytseng so are you ready to switch out your bindings to the protector after this incident?

I'm all for a safer binding. My hesitancy is I just don't know anyone who uses them nor do I know if the mechanism actually translates to a meaningful difference in on hill knee safety.

So I'm sitting on the fence watching at the moment
 

raytseng

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I personally am not. I just got a strive for next setup.

There are so many inherent risks on the mtn this is just one of the ways might get injured so hard to give this more attention than the others. I've never had any long standing knee issues, possibly due to short stocky legs, knock on snow. If I had preexisting knee issues I might reevaluate though.
 
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Wasatchman

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I personally am not. I just got a strive for next setup.

There are so many inherent risks on the mtn this is just one of the ways might get injured so hard to give this more attention than the others. I've never had any long standing knee issues, possibly due to short stocky legs, knock on snow. If I had preexisting knee issues I might reevaluate though.
Fair enough. Although the mechanism for a lot of ACL injuries makes no difference at all if you have great knees or not. That said I'm not jumping all over the protector binding either. I'm waiting to see more adoption. Unfortunately I'm not sure it's easy to tell if the the bindings ultimately result in a lot less ACL injuries untill there is more widespread adoption.
 

JWMN

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I have had KneeBindings (there I said it) on all my skis for over 10 years. I have even taken the Konect bindings off my Hero Elite MT skis and had the KB put on. I bought them because I was having knee issues at the time. I have had 1 fall where I am sure they saved my knee. It was the classic backwards, twisting fall that was very painful. When I fell I heard a loud snap and I thought surly I my knee was gone. But, the knee was OK and the heel piece was open. As I understand it, the Protector works in the same way as the KB except it releases both ways instead of one.

I have to say I don't understand all the hate for the KB and all the sudden interest in the Protector. They both do the same thing - they will possibly save a knee. If you want to protect your knees and are unsure about the issues surrounding the Protector just buy the KB. They have a very long and positive track record.
 

Nobody

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I can give you a recent example where I wish I had a lateral heel release.
Was in lift line that had a relatively steep downhill, so had to wedge and be on the edge of stopping vs. slip. Next/behind me, kid not paying attention skis through and catches tail of my ski and drags it forward, and causing ski to really wedge out forward, and me to fall backwards with skis crossed up still in a wedgeand dug into the soft snow and both knees torqued and strained. Needed help to have someone unclick.
Same incident pattern happened to me back in December. A beginner brit boy clumsily did same thing to me. Only, as soon as I felt the tail of one of MY skis being pushed outward, I reacted and pulled my leg back toward center. The victim was my ski tail protection stud. It was cleanly "shaved off" by the other ski's edges. Unfortunately I realized I had lost it only at the end of the day, so I was unable to recover it. Given the age of the ski, I doubt any shop would have the spare part. I skied the rest of the season with a thus "maimed" ski nevertheless.
Had I had a heel release safety, I guess the ski would have come cleanly off.
 

Rich_Ease_3051

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It took almost a decade for Protector to go from paper concept to retail. And that's with (alleged) patent violation.

I wouldn't hold my breath for other binding manufacturers like Marker and Salomon to come up with their own solutions. These things take time.

I don't know which other binding manufacturers have a Protector and Kneebinding alternative. @Philpug mentioned there's a 2024 one in the pipeline from another manufacturer.

I learned a long time a go just to buy whatever technology solution is available at the time I need it. Waiting is a fool man's game when it comes to these things.
 

tomahawkins

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@raytseng so are you ready to switch out your bindings to the protector after this incident?

I'm all for a safer binding. My hesitancy is I just don't know anyone who uses them nor do I know if the mechanism actually translates to a meaningful difference in on hill knee safety.

So I'm sitting on the fence watching at the moment
Without public data, it's hard to quantify. All we have are anecdotal stories on this forum. Mine came late March when my right ski tip caught in crud and dove straight under me. Smooth, vertical toe release.

The way I look at it, Protector offers more ways to release than any other binding on the market, including Knee. Every other binding has bind spots, where a large magnitude force will not trigger a release, and is instead impacted on the skier. Then what about retention issues? With 46 days on this season, I'd say no, not an issue.
 

PupManS

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Can you explain the mechanism of your fall? So I presume you're saying the binding saved your knee where a traditional binding wouldn't. Can you elaborate? I'm very curious as I'm sitting in the fence at the moment regarding these protector bindings.
Skiing Gentian Gully and Promised Land at Alpine recently, was skiing thoroughly in the backseat as I was concerned of hitting very grabby snow and doing an endo.

While backdating like this I wound up in a mogul rut that took me on Mr. Toad's wild ride. Net I was nearly sitting on my tails on quite steep terrain, unable to get skis lateral enough to slow back down, hit another bump and had a big deflection and the ski came off.

My ligaments were quite loaded. While it wasn't the classic backwards twisting fall, my knee was in basically the same position. Upward release wasn't really possible.
 

Wasatchman

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Skiing Gentian Gully and Promised Land at Alpine recently, was skiing thoroughly in the backseat as I was concerned of hitting very grabby snow and doing an endo.

While backdating like this I wound up in a mogul rut that took me on Mr. Toad's wild ride. Net I was nearly sitting on my tails on quite steep terrain, unable to get skis lateral enough to slow back down, hit another bump and had a big deflection and the ski came off.

My ligaments were quite loaded. While it wasn't the classic backwards twisting fall, my knee was in basically the same position. Upward release wasn't really possible.
Interesting. Sounds like you believe the binding saved your knee in a way a traditional binding wouldn't. It does seem like knee bindings have a reputation for prerelease issues and questionable qc based on various reports I've read on the Internet. I'm not sure what to believe, so I'm sitting on the fence seeing if there is more widespread adoption.
 

JWMN

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Wasatchman wrote: It does seem like knee bindings have a reputation for prerelease issues and questionable qc based on various reports I've read on the Internet.

As I said above, I have had the KB on my quiver of skis (always 3 different pair) for at least 10 years. My shop has been selling them, often selling out of them, for as long. I have never had a pre-release and the shop has not had any customers reporting a pre-release. I know some of the shop customers have taken the race plate off their race skis and had the KB put on. If they were going to pre-release it would happen to racer rather quickly.
 

twa2w

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here is a note from a ski magazine article about Knee
"The first study was conducted by the University of Denver Biometrics Lab at three Colorado ski resorts owned by Vail Resort. One hundred ski instructors skied on KneeBinding at work for the 2017 and 2018 seasons, and another 200 acted as controls and skied on regular bindings. The Vail study found KneeBinding reduced the risk of all knee injuries by 75 per cent.

The National Ski Areas Association conducted the other study over three winters at 10 resorts across the U.S. and one in Canada. Of the 1,600 patrollers, instructors and other employees involved, about a third used KneeBinding. In 59,102 skier-days the KneeBinding skiers reported one ACL injury and nine other knee injuries. During the 105,923 skier-days, the control group reported 10 ACL injuries and 47 other knee injuries.

“People skiing on any other ski binding were 5.7 times as likely to have an ACL injury as people who skied on KneeBinding,” the NSAA study reported."


I had knee bindings a while back - a year or two after first available. No issues with prerelease. they were heavy and expensive though. takes a different technique to get into the binding. no different feel on the snow,
Sold them with the skis after a couple of years when the shop owner told me there was an issue with a part that malfunctioned on some Knee bindings and he was no longer going to stock them. I did not experience that issue and there was no recall that I am aware of. I have a friend with a 10+ year-old pair that he has had no issues with.
 

neonorchid

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A Blister podcast conversation with Andrew Couperthwait, VP of Winter Sports for HEAD / Tyrolia that includes future product development for the Protector binding.



Knee Bindings vs. Protector Bindings (32:17)
- doesn't seem like good news for the patent infringement plaintiff

Product Evolution (52:24) (53:24)
- sounds to me like '24/'25 Attack Protector will be the first of the Protector series to be offered in a flat mount non-power rail mount option
 

PupManS

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Knee Bindings vs. Protector Bindings (32:17)
- doesn't seem like good news for the patent infringement plaintiff

Product Evolution (52:24) (53:24)
- sounds to me like '24/'25 Attack Protector will be the first of the Protector series to be offered in a flat mount non-power rail mount option
I wish we could figure out if the 24/25 Protector will actually be lower stand height. I have two sets of the Attack Prorectors- my only issues are that they are annoying to put on in deep snow, and the stand height.

To me, the issue is, looking at the heel piece, even if you took the Powerrail off, you need that height to have clearance for the brakes. Put another way, if you are in a lateral release situation, the base has to be able to slide out ABOVE the brakes.

So while you could take out the rail, I’m not sure you could take out any height.
 
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Philpug

Philpug

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I wish we could figure out if the 24/25 Protector will actually be lower stand height. I have two sets of the Attack Prorectors- my only issues are that they are annoying to put on in deep snow, and the stand height.

To me, the issue is, looking at the heel piece, even if you took the Powerrail off, you need that height to have clearance for the brakes. Put another way, if you are in a lateral release situation, the base has to be able to slide out ABOVE the brakes.

So while you could take out the rail, I’m not sure you could take out any height.
I woudn't expect much of a lower stack height, all of the mechenisms are below the heel. My gut is they are making a taller toe. The Protector SLR 10 and 11 are 28mm in the heel because they are a bit mroe compact. Bit don't ecpect a hard mount Protector to be 20mm high.
 

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