Italian ski touring binding manufacturers make the best ski touring bindings on the market and this clear to see from the way the brand has rocketted to success with almost every backcounrty ski brand chosing to have the ATK bindings with their branding.
ATK’s success is driven partly through their exceptional manufacturing skills in the robotic cnc of aluminium and partly through their constant striving for inovation, this has lead to an impressive collection of patents.
Here we go through a brief introduction into some of the core patents that are found in their bindnig range today.
Possibly the most important of the ATK patents, the Cam release system, gives easy heel step in and excellent boot retention whilst shaving off a large chunk of weight from the heel piece of the bindings. A special cam profile is pressed into the pins by a pretensioned spring, when the step-in or a fall release occur, the pins are forced to go through the CAM profile which provides a precise resistance to the pin release, depending on the release value set on the binding.
The elastic response system gives the bindings up to 12mm of rearward sprung elastic travel which prevents hard clamping of the heel tower into the back of the boot whilst the ski is flexed. This maintains the natural flex of the ski and the safe release characteristics through the cycle of the skis flexing.
The release toe piece adjustment represents a new inovation in tech toe design and allows the skier to match the clamping strength at the toe to the release setting at the heel. This gives several advantages in reducing the chance of pre release and improving the elasticity and stability of the bindings whilst skiing by matching the toe and heel piece performance. It also helps with release characteristics in the event of a fall as the toe clamp strength can be set differently for lighter or less aggressive skiers.
The Automatic brake system is also a new addition to the Raider Evo and replaces the push button ski brake lock on the predecessor. This makes transitions quicker and easier whilst also making it impossible to forget to unlock the brake when transitioning back to ski mode. The brakes are also more powerfull so they deploy harder giving better stopping force and they have more grip to the end caps.
This feaured on the Raider bindings too but is redesigned in the Evo bindings and is now under the front of the locking lever. It allows the locking stiffness to be adjusted depending on the boot used.
Again this blanked out toe piece which prevents snow from packing into and under to toe piece calipers featured on the raider binding but it has been deepened in the Evo series to prevent snow from packing even if the bindnig toe piece is left open in step in mode.
Found on the Raider bindings, the Magneto heel flaps use small magnets to latch the heel risers into position.
Found in the lightest titanium U springs the rolling in system has two small hardened steel bushings (0,4 mm wide) are applied to the front of the U-shaped spring, preventing wear and tear to U spring and the heel inserts
