The Atomic and Salomon Shift is brand new binding that combines the best of a traditional alpine ski binding and that of a technical alpine touring binding. Being able to Shift from a technical pin toe piece, to a hard-charging driver toe piece that most alpine bindings have, it’s a new force to be reckoned with.
After a lengthy 7 years of R&D along with testing, the binding was finally released this season for purchase. One of the biggest draws to the binding is the fact that you can go uphill with the tech toe piece, then come downhill in a DIN-release binding. DIN is an industry standard for the amount of force it takes for the boot to release from the bindings. In a traditional tech toe piece, you just have two pins holding the boot in, lacking DIN. With the new combination of tech and DIN, it introduces safety where it heavily lacked before. This is why a fair amount of the Skirack staff has purchased the Shift, myself including.
Previously, I have never owned an alpine touring, or AT, setup before. Living in Vermont for the past 4 years for school, an AT has always been on my radar but I have never found gear that I was interested enough to invest in. When I saw the Shift, I knew it was something new and interesting that would make some serious waves in the industry. I was sold on the binding so quickly because I was unsure of how much Alpine touring I would actually be doing. What is huge is the SHIFT binding is a solid classic resort binding on top of an AT touring binding. I knew I would be skiing a lot of the Stowe backcountry and would be taking a trip out to Utah. The Shift seemed to be the only binding that could do it all, while keeping the setup relatively light when I do want to skin up Mansfield or Bolton.
The most experience I have had on the Shift binding is at resorts, and very recent serious bowl skiing in Utah. I paired the Shift bindings with an Armada Tracer 108, and that was my only setup I had there for a week straight. I had no worries bringing this, but was definitely interested to see how everything would hold up since it was so new. The first day I was there, we were skiing knee-deep powder at Alta. From ripping technical chutes, to dropping some cliffs, we were doing it all. Whenever anyone is skiing terrain like we were, safety is a huge concern. If you pop out of your binding too early, you are going to be falling for a while. If you do not pop out when you are supposed to, you could be saying goodbye to an ACL.
The Shift performed just as strong as any other binding you could have been using out west. There were a few times where I needed to eject, and in the back of my head I was thinking, “oh uh, this is it” - but the binding always did what it had to at the perfect time! Towards the end of the trip, we were skiing some real fast hardpack snow, and even some park. I never had any issues while skiing any conditions, and actively enjoyed how they performed. I felt extremely connected to the ski, with no looseness at any times. I will continue to buy the Shift whenever the time comes, and I will be interested to see how other companies will respond to such an innovative design.
I hope this helps some people who are on the fence - take the leap into a Shift binding! Trust me, you will not be disappointed. Happy shredding!
- Mike Masterson, Former Skirack Employee.
Photo Captions:
Photo header: Photo courtesy of Atomic.
Photo 1: Mike taking a break from skiing at Brighton Ski Resort in Utah
Photo 2: Mike skiing the trees at Brighton Ski Resort in Utah with the Atomic Shift Binding
