Now snowboard bindings: There is a saying out there that goes something like this “you can’t reinvent the wheel”. For the past 30 years or so that saying pretty much dictated snowboard binding R&D. Look at a snowboard binding from 30 years ago and there really isn’t that much difference to a snowboard binding of today.
But, out in the deepest backcountry recesses of Canada there was one man that didn’t take stock of that. Secretly working away in his shed was legendary snowboarder JF Pelchat, and unknown to anyone was that JF was about to unleash what you could easily describe as the biggest evolutionary step in snowboard bindings since the highback. We could end the story there but we won’t because like all the best stories this one takes a few more twists and turns. Once JF had his prototype built he took it around all the snowboard brands but door after door was shut in his face, recession here, stock market crash there, no one was willing to commit to something so revolutionary. It was at this point JF gave up and stashed his revolutionary binding away in his garage to gather dust. Now this is where our story takes a strange turn. For years our hero’s binding sat there alone on a shelf, forgotten.
Until one day after a chance conversation, JF’s prototype ended up on the feet of one of the world’s best and well-known riders. That rider took a run on JF’s prototype binding and at that point everything changed. Well our mystery super star rider was so blown away by JF’s binding that he gave it to another of the world’s best rider who feeling the same gave it to another of the world’s best riders and so this went on and on.
In no time at all what was once an abandoned dusty prototype sat on a shelf became the most talked about and celebrated innovation to hit snowboarding since the beginning of the sport. Now at last after all these years and after all the blood sweat and tears that went into the development Mr JF Pelchat presents what can only be described as the largest step in the performance of a snowboard binding.
