Meidjo telemark bindings: M-TN

As you might heard, there is a new telemark binding created in France.

www.the-m-equipment.com/en/products/bindings

Some us including myself have experimented on combining the tech toe and various heel holding scheme.  This one combines the tech system and the NTN mid-heel, but it is designed and manufactured from scratch.  I'm no mechanical engineer, but pretty impressed how well it is designed and fabricated.

Anyway, I've decided to go ahead and try them myself instead of waiting for a few years.  Can't wait too long when you are getting...  I had to wait over a month for a 2nd batch since they had to make some changes based on some feedback from the first 100 sets.  Btw, there is no US distributor yet.

Installation:
My immediate problem was how to mount them on my skis which have inserts for NTN Freedom.  The hole patterns are completely different with some partial overlap for the recommended position.  Since I wanted to be able to switch between NTN and MTN but without more new holes, I made adapter plates w/ stiff palstic plates and T-nuts.  However, this approach ended up losing the half of the weigh gain since they need 14 screws total.  It'd have been fine for experiment, but ended up just directly screwing to the skis, 10 new holes!  Good thing Cham HM has metal binding plates. 

Here is a pic and the final weight:


Now you can compare w/ Freedom:


The weight difference is exactly 1lb for a pair, which is about 10% of the total.  I'd say it's not that much in practice.  I'd need much light skis to really feel some difference.  Well, I now have a good excuse for a pair carbon skis. Btw, yYu may notice I kept the Hummer heels, that's intentional since I like them best over all others. The Meidjo heel risers don't seem BC friendly, nor Freedom ones.

Field test, part 1:
I used the new setup last weekend for our Wilson trip, up/down of ~4500'/9M.  I was a little nervous using them for a real tour, their first time out.  Basically they toured well and skied well without any incident.  Stepping into the binding was easy in the ski mode, a bit fiddly in the tour mode though that just me needing to pay a due for "dyna-fiddling".  Wet new snow tended to pack a bit on the plate near the heel lock needing to clear of snow before locking into the ski mode. 

The tele-activeness is a little less than Freedom (blue spring at 1), but the tension is immediate.  They hold the boots solidly and securely, which helped a lot in hard/breakable crust.  I had one hard crush into a wind drift at the bottom of crusty slope, and I though the bindings might release, but they didn't.  My Freedom never released for 3 seasons anyway, so I'm not drawing any conclusions here.  Overall, they ski fine and fit my style well.

More reports coming as I use them more, especially for Spring volcano trips.

thanks for the info Kenji.

kenji,
thanks for posting that. I am seriously considering the same purchase.
sounds like you have skied the hammerheads, can you compare the flex between the two?
any impressions about the company from a service perspective?
great review, thanks again,
alex

Awesome.

What boots are you using?

Cool! I guess this means your carbon project gets put on hold?

Also, i heard that the TX boots are discontinued next season, with Scarpa putting all their eggs into the TX-Pro and Comp baskets. I at least need to snatch a pair of the vanilla TX before they're gone!

Yes, I have used the Hammerheads, actually the very first prototypes and the 1st commercial version followed.  But I didn't continue using them for some reason, probably felt too heavy-duty for my style, or simply too heavy!  Anyway, it was too many years ago to say anything useful.  The company is tiny and the consensus so far is they may be too busy to be responsive.  I got mine through Telemark Pyrenees store, and they are pretty responsive.

I've been using orange TX, almost picked up a 2nd used pair last week.  But I'm hoping a light model would eventually show up.  My duck-butts are wearing a bit, but should last for a few more seasons, I hope.

One thing I desperately need is a better crampon attachment.  They do have two screw holes to mount a piece for holding a Dynafit type crampon on top of each flex plate.  But those pieces didn't come with, nobody seem to have them yet.  I'd definitely prefer more solid attachment near the ski surface, not an inch above.  Almost ready to start modifying them, but I should wait a little longer.

Web, you are right on about my carbon project.  They may be ready to test next season.  Meanwhile I can play with these MTN to get inspired for a better design!