The Holy Grail is HERE

I checked Telemark Tips today, and there is endless foaming about the new “Holy Grail” binding that MAY be available in 2 more years, following on the previous 8 years of development. And by the way, it weighs more than 3 pounds.

Well guess what? According to Tom Conway, the Holy Grail ALREADY EXISTS:it’s called Dynafit TLT Classic!

I checked Telemark Tips today, and there is endless foaming about the new “Holy Grail” binding that MAY be available in 2 more years, following on the previous 8 years of development. And by the way, it weighs more than 3 pounds.

Dynafit TLT Classic: The Holy Grail

Well guess what? The Holy Grail ALREADY EXISTS:it’s called Dynafit TLT Classic ! Here are the stats on it:

• It weighs 1lb 4oz (Lightest AT binding on the market)
• It is a step-in binding
• It is releasable
• It’s totally bomber (most durable AT binding on the market)
• And it has a DIN setting of 10, if you’re really that fat.

Maybe it’s so hard to perfect a tele binding because the tele concept is inherently flawed. I’m not sure a binding can ever fix that. I’m not saying tele is BAD; I did it for years and I loved it. It just seems to me that if you want to tele, there are plenty of great cable bindings that work fine. They may have limitations, but I say if you want the “stoke” of tele skiing, then deal with the inconvenience and lack of efficiency relative to AT. That’s what I did, and I didn’t complain. When I decided I wanted convenience, efficiency and safety, I knew that it already existed and I switched to Dynafit.

Mitch and Big Tim would say that I have lost the stoke of the tele turn. I’ll admit that for me tele skiing was a big rush because I was always on the verge of crashing big, even when I was skiing pretty well. There is a sense of accomplishment in completing a tele run without falling. But on AT gear I can ski agressively, safely, and have a blast while falling a lot less and not being terrified as often. Still pretty fun. I guess I’m just amazed at the interest, time, and money being spent trying to come up with this “holy grail” binding. when it already exists.