UPDATE: Check out our review of the 2018/2019 Bent Metal Transfer here
- Price: £225
- Sizes: S, M, L
- Flex: 6
- Entry System: Classic
- BENTMETAL.COM
Mervin Manufacturing (the US-based producers of Lib Tech and Gnu boards) have resurrected their Bent Metal binding brand in fine style. They’ve taken all they know about making quality, environmentally-conscious hardward and poured it into this: the Bent Metal Transfer.
Of the three Bent Metal bindings available in 2016/17, the Transfer is somewhere in the middle. While the Logic is flexy and the Solution is packed with stiff carbon, this one is the ideal all-rounder that’s as capable of chucking buckets in the backcountry as it is of soaring out of a halfpipe.
“The drive plates of the Bent Metal Transfer are made at Mervin’s factory in Washington State by dyed-in-the-wool snowboarders”
First off, let’s address the elephant in the room – there’s not much metal, bent or otherwise, to be found here. However, that’s no bad thing. The baseplate and highback are both made from tough, lightweight nylon, so it’ll take a beating without weighing you down.
The real selling point of the Bent Metal Transfer, however, is the ‘drive plate’. Thanks to some unique Jamie Lynn artwork it’s not hard to spot, but there’s definitely more to it than a pretty picture. The construction is similar to that of a snowboard; various layers – aluminium/boron fibreglass, shock-absorbing EVA and Mervin’s signature bio-bean topsheet material, to name just a few – are pressed together to make an underfoot plate that boasts just the right amount of flex and response. Again, the Transfer aims for something in the middle ground; you get plenty of edge-to-edge response without being too restrictive to the natural flex of your snowboard.
They’re not the cheapest binders, but considering the work that’s gone into them you can hardly say that they’re over-priced. Besides, the drive plates of the Bent Metal Transfer are made at Mervin’s factory in Washington State, so you know they’ve been produced with passion by dyed-in-the-wool snowboarders.
