The Marker Tour epf hates touring

Rider type: Skier
Product type: Equipment
Sex: Unisex
Product Name: Marker F12 Tour Epf
Brand : Marker

The motivation for buying them was almost purely financial. I needed a binding with touring ability but didn’t want to spend the money on new boots with tech inserts.

I had made peace with the inevitable pitfalls of any frame binding. They are unavoidably heavy, have a significant stack height, and are clunky to tour with because of the positioning of their toe pivot.  However, they provide alpine binding surety whilst skiing, and I could afford them!

Sadly, as soon as I flipped them into touring mode, they made it their absolute mission to make it as unpleasant as possible.

As we started the schlep up the hill, I flicked the risers up. But they both crumpled as I moved forward. They kept collapsing after five or so tentative slithers forward. This made steeper sections significantly more straining on the body, particularly the ankle. And combined with their already fairly hefty weight, it was slightly unpleasant.

As to why they did this, I am still unsure; my best guess is that snow had got stuck in the grooves the risers were meant to latch into. I don’t think this does much to absolve it of its sins; a binding that fails because of snow is a redundant bit of kit.

As we wound our way upwards, it got steeper, and the snow remained fairly hard, so we put on our ski crampons to give us some much-needed extra bite. This proved deceptively difficult. The mechanism to attach them was fairly fiddly and it took a good glove-less five minutes, which my fingers didn’t thank me for, playing around to get it to work. Not ideal. I did get slightly quicker throughout the weeks of use, but nonetheless, it really felt like the bindings were dispositionally difficult.

The only bit of ironic consolation is that since the risers don’t work, the crampons, when on, could grip normally.

For touring, these bindings really only fulfil the minimum requirements of allowing you to walk uphill!

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