AT boots and downhill bindings

I have done a bit of research on this and can't seem to find a confirmed answer. I am slowly piecing together a back country setup and am starting with the boots. I have been looking at the Garmont Mega Rides and am pretty sure thats the route i'm going to go. My question is will they work in my downhill bindings? The guy in the shop today seemed pretty positive that they would while I have found conflicting answers on the internet. Anybody know for sure? I plan on just boot packing with the boots or using trekkers until I can afford AT bindings, but after climbing hood in downhill boots a month ago I knew I needed different boots.


Thanks!

I've had the Mega Rides for backcountry for several years and I have used them on downhill binders occasionally. This year I had to buy new downhill boots and decided to get the Garmont Axons as I could use them for dual purpose. I already had a set of bindings with a little slider thingy on the toe pad. (Old timers will remember the Lipe slider of the 1970's). This thingy essentially eliminates any friction between the AT's "vibram" boot sole and the toe piece. This, I think, is 95% of the reason not to put an AT boot in a downhill binding. I surmise the other 5% may be that a DIN downhill boot toe and toe piece may be shaped a little different than an AT boot toe, but I don't know this for sure and I'm not near my boots to check it out. I have also taken a chance and used my Megas in a normal nonslider toe piece. I would not recommend this, but if you find a toe piece with the slider, (I've seen several styles and they all move side to side laterally about an inch on a track on the toe piece pad), then I that may work for you. Another issue is that you will have to find a shop to mount these to your skis. I can't imagine any shop fitting downhill bindings to non-DIN AT boots. Or you can mount em yourself or just have the shop mount em with your DH boots then readjust them to the AT boots. Of course you can't sue the binding company when you break your leg if you do this. The true test for me with any binding is being able to twist out of the toe piece while standing on the flat. I can do this with my Axons and my slider toe piece so I'm happy. Anyway, I figure my set up is 10 times safer than the bindings we had in the 1950's, 60's and 70's. After all this I think I've seen a thread on this some where else. Maybe you can search that out. Good luck.

Any boot sole that is rubber or Vibram rubber like the Garmont's are incompatible with alpine bindings period. Alpine bindings work on a principal of limited friction and the addition of this rubber sole creates a situation of unpredictable added friction into the release system. I say unpredictable because in a forward twisting fall you would super weight the toe of the boot and the rubber now becomes a source of unpredictable added friction thus affecting the release. Bottom line , you can get them to work as stated above but is it safe and how much risk are you willing to accept. In the end its up to you they will fit and ski but is sitting out a season due to a broken leg worth the cost of a set of AT bindings?   Got health insurance?

TGR has several good threads on AT boots in alpine bindings, including this one:

www.tetongravity.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5507

People do it, but above post is correct that they are not truly compatible in terms of release. Along with a sliding AFD (a la Freeride/Duke/Naxo) you need a toe height adjustment. Some alpine binders have both, but even those aren't designed for rubber soles.

And as an aside, the Axon doesn't have an alpine DIN sole like the Endorphin, only AT binding compatability. Check out the red rectangles on the bottom of the Endorphin. The Axon doesn't have those. If it did, I'd already own them!

Garmont makes a line of Free Ride boots with interchangeable soles, one of which is an ISO norm alpine sole.  The web site shows four men's models in this category:  Shaman, Endorphin, Axon (dynafit compatible), and Adrenalin.   If you only wanted one set of boots, and didn't mind swapping soles, this could be the way to go.