Staff Review
Dave McCall here at The House. I’m here to talk about the
Burton custom ICS/EST combo. It’s called ICS up through 2008 when it was invented, and then the ’09 & '10 stuff is going to be called the “Channel,” so keep in mind when you’re looking at the snowboards.
The snowboard bindings are always going to be the EST snowboard bindings. The biggest thing about these snowboard bindings is it’s a single, or the snowboards I should say, it’s a single track on the snowboard, replaces the older inserts you saw on the snowboard. What it allows you to do is pretty much have an infinite stance width adjustment, as well as angle. It’s also only two bolts, so it’s much easier to put on, take off, or adjust. Because of that, the snowboard bindings, when you’re looking at those, they actually don’t have any hard plastic underneath with the exception of this bridge right here. All the material in the base plate is dampening material, so it gives you a lot more cushion. But then because there’s no hard plastic, it also gives you better snowboard feel, and it doesn’t create any dead spots in the snowboard as far as the flex goes.
Another thing that’s cool too, on the ‘08s you can actually undo these two screw here and the whole base plate will pop out so you can ride directly on top of the snowboard, and for ’09 & '10 they’re going to be doing Cantbeds, the shorter Shred Beds, and a number of other things with the system so it’s really versatile and can be tuned to different riders’ needs. Other than that, another huge advantage is if you’re, say, in the park or something like that, you can ride the snowboard more centered out, and you’re going to go to the top of the mountain and jump into some powder, while your foot’s in there you can reach down, do the two screws, and slide it back. Gives a little better nose, a little better flow in powder too.
Other than that, that’s pretty much the best things about it. Definitely going to be seeing it on a lot of Burton snowboards from here on out. One other feature of the EST/ICS, or Channel, combo is that the little tab on the bottom of the snowboard bindings goes into the track. What that does is give you very accurate angle adjustments via this little window, and width adjustments via this one, so you can know exactly what the angle is, what the width is, and then also how it’s balanced front to back on the snowboard as well. Makes it more accurate as far as mounting and gives you pretty much infinite options as far as the mounting.
