Words: Sakeus Bankson 2018-01-18 14:54:41
Over the decades, the ski industry has seen certain products to which “good in theory” doesn’t apply—where pure novelty overpowers flaws that, in retrospect, were garishly obvious. Creations like metal ski boots, denim Gore-Tex and snowblades saw momentary excitement, followed by fatal derision.
Burt bindings were among those products.
It was the 1970s, and “plate bindings” were a hot technology trend: a shaped piece of metal locked to the sole of a boot, which would then click into a matching attachment point on a ski. The most well-known brand was Spademan, but Burt was by far the strangest.
Originally released in 1974, Burts were the creation of New York inventor Burton “Burt” Weinstein, and were pitched as the “end of ‘stop-and-go’ skiing.” Using manually engaged toe and heel bails, skiers locked their boots onto a detachable metal plate, which was attached to the ski by two retractable cables. In the event of a fall, the plate would briefly separate from the ski before being pulled back by tightly wound springs—meaning you’d never have to struggle into a snow-jammed binding mid-slope, or worry about losing a runaway ski. As a 1978 ad boasted, “It all happens so fast that you can often recover ‘on the run’ and avoid the fall completely!”
There were multiple series of Burt bindings, each lighter and slimmer than its predecessor (relatively, as even the lightest version weighed multiple pounds). For the original Burt, the cable spools were hidden in a metal plate behind the boot, which resembled a square-shaped steel snowboard binding. For the Burt II and III series, the spools were hidden in the plate itself, and the III series even had a hands-free, step-in heelpiece.
Despite their oddity, Burts received positive feedback for both performance and safety, with one 1974 SKI Magazine review declaring, “much can be said about the future of this binding.” Because Burts weren’t directly mounted to the ski, they didn’t affect its flex, and because of the elastic, low-friction release mechanism, you could run them at a lower DIN setting (although the top-end Burt III came in a 14-DIN model), which put less stress on ankles and knees.
But it would be its most popular feature that would also prove to be the Burt’s downfall. The spring system was so powerful it would trap snow—or crunch fingers—under the plate when the ski retracted. This was such a problem that Burt earned the nickname “yo-yo binding.”
By the mid-1980s, plate-system bindings were all but obsolete, and Burt went out of business in 1985. Weinstein, however, kept inventing. When he passed away in 2013 at age 87, he held more than a dozen patents in fields as diverse as sailing, woodworking and medical equipment.
As for his namesake binding, it’s now relegated to internet forums, collectors and ironic Instagram accounts. Its eulogy came in the October 1985 issue of SKI Magazine, where, in a column titled “Are Your Bindings Obsolete?” the reviewer ends with a veiled suggestion:
“If you own a pair of these bindings, have them inspected by a competent mechanic. If he recommends replacing them, take his advice.”
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