NOW SELECT BINDINGS REVIEW
Price: £270
Flex: 6
Sizes: M/L/XL
Entry system: Classic
Now Bindings are a company founded by legendary pro JF Pelchat. A member of the notorious Whistler-based Wildcats crew back in the 90s, Pelchat was famed for his balls-out backcountry riding and hell-raising antics off the hill. He may have got older and (dare we say it) calmed down since then, but the man still loves to shred, which is why he found himself tinkering with his binding setup in his garage.
JF hit on the idea that it would be easier to transfer a rider’s weight to the edges of the board if your foot rocked back and forth over a central point, rather than sitting on a flat, static baseplate. He looked at his skateboard trucks, with their central pivot and started building prototypes to try and imitate their construction and feel. The design he eventually hit on became the Now binding. It doesn’t literally rock back and forth like a skate truck, but it has a structure that’s designed to spread a rider’s weight away from the centre of the baseplate towards the heel and the toes, making it easier to turn. JF and his crew of Now converts (which now includes Whistler stalwarts Devun Walsh and DCP as well as jibber Frank April and big mountain Jeremy Jones) reckon it’s so much easier to turn that you can do away with the need for a highback all together. And with the no highbacks trend gathering steam (Switchbacks have removable ones, and even some Flow bindings now come without) they decided to make them optional on this model, appropriately called the Select.
Sceptical? Well, we were too, but our test team tried both and were suitably impressed. The general consensus being that this mid-stiff model was excellent pretty much everywhere, with the highbacks offering more support for high speeds and the no-back configuration better for jibbing. One typical comment ran: “Wicked bindings. No highback gives a more relaxed feel when riding pow and performed really well in the park.”
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