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Hello, Matt Guf here for The House Snowboard Shop and this is the Union Binding overview.
Union has a lot of great products and it's a great company. I actually have a very close
friend that works over there, and there's a lot of cool guys and girls that help in
the process of making some of the world's best bindings. Everyone at Union is 100% binding
focused. It's 100% owned by snowboarders and for snowboarders, and it's devoted 100% to
making the best bindings in the world. They all live, eat and breath bindings (actually,
I was in Seattle and everyone was eating bindings for lunch, it was kind of odd). Just kidding,
of course. But everything that Union does is in-house. There's absolutely no outsourcing;
so from the sketches, to computer drafting, prototyping, tooling, injection, assembling,
shipping, receiving and to all customer service is done, it's all done in-house. Union actually
has a pretty unique feature on their website called the Union Live Chat, and I've used
that to get a couple of questions that I had answered. I definitely recommend you guys
check that the Union Live Chat. As you hopefully know, Union baseplates and bindings all have
a lifetime warrantee. The baseplates (and entire line actually) are made out of a Dupont
Zytel ST nylon, and the extruded and anodized heel cups offer a lot of strength, safety,
durability and of course, security. So if you ever have any problems with the baseplates
or heel cups -- if you break or even crack them -- Union will replace them for life,
guaranteed. You can definitely have confidence in Union to get items back to you if anything
goes wrong, but usually it won't. I think their first year was seven years ago and they've
had zero warranties come back, so that's very good. And they continue to increase their
innovations in technology and they continue to make some of the best bindings in the world.
Union Bindings have a lot of industry firsts -- seven to be exact -- first to the snowboard
binding market: The first is the Metafuse Nanotechnology; the Dupont Zytel ST nylon
baseplates, some of them have been coated with the Nanocrystals that are 1/75,000th
of a width of a hair, which keep the bindings nice and light, of course, and pretty much
wear-resistant as hardened steel. The second is injected magnesium ratchets you'll see
on some of their bindings. The magnesium ratchets are actually four times stronger and half
the weight of traditional binding ratchets. The third is extruded aluminum in the heel
loops. The aluminum is 100% pure aluminum; it's pretty much bomb-proof and it maintains
its shape. The fourth is pure carbon fiber highbacks. There are a lot of companies out
there that do carbon fiber in their highbacks, but none of them do it with 100% pure carbon
fiber like Union Bindings do. The fifth is actually aluminum hardware. Union was the
first to use aluminum hardware. It actually increases the strength by 30% by increasing
the thickness of the oxide layer of the aluminum. The sixth great feature, and an industry first,
is the grade 8.8 hardware. The 8.8 is a property class in which ski or snowboard hardware is
rated, and traditional bindings usually use about a 4.6 rated hardware. This hardware
is going to be pretty much indestructible. And the last first is the exclusive Dupont
Zytel ST nylon that all the baseplates have. So lots of industry firsts for Union Bindings
and I have a feeling they'll continue to innovate the technology that they constantly bring
to the market. Union Bindings also offer a lot of great features, TrueFit features that
are unique to Union and Union alone. One being the minimal contact that the bindings have
with the board; 19% of the Contact Pro's baseplate is actually touching the board. This offers
a great free flex that the board needs to operate correctly. Like I said, it's going
to be stiff, but it's also going to be free and forgiving because of the small footprint
it leaves on the board. Now, that baseplate I mentioned of Dupont Zytel ST nylon (I know,
it sounds wild), is actually injected with fiberglass, depending on the size. There's
a fiberglass index for the different size baseplates. In the small to medium bindings
(both men's and women's lines), you're going to have 3% fiberglass in the baseplate; the
medium to large sizes are going to have 7% fiberglass; and the large to extra large sizes
are going to have 14% fiberglass. Union decided to do this with the thought that a larger-footed
rider usually has a bigger body or more weight, so they need a stiffer binding. I think they
are correct with that. There's also dampening and anti-vibration EVA padding that has multiple
durometer ratings. For example, the Union Force binding actually has a single EVA padding
on the base with a 55 durometer rating; so it's going to be about 75% stiff in the durometer
rating that Union has. There's also Dual Zone EVA padding and Multi Zone EVA padding. For
example, the women's Milan binding has Dual Zone EVA padding; on the top closer to your
foot is a more dense EVA padding, and on the bottom, a softer EVA padding. Whereas the
Contact Pro has multiple zones; there's actually three major zones and one zone throughout.
There's a 65 durometer rating for the EVA throughout the binding, then a 45 in the heel
area for nice cushioning, 50 toward the outside, lateral portion of the binding, giving it
a little more rigid feel; and a little softer 40 rating on the inside for it to roll into
your body just a little bit more. The highbacks are all unique, but some are extra unique
with an asymmetrical and symmetrical feature. Symmetrically they stiff the same pretty much
all the way onto that heel side edge, but some of the bindings, like the Contact Pro,
have asymmetrical flex meaning that toward the inside of the binding there's a soft,
medial flex, but toward the outside there's a stiffer bit of flex. You still have tweakability
and also a lot of support you need. The highbacks have multiple flex zones. There's three different
flex zones. Toward the bottom (the third flex zone), they're going to be 100% stiff with
absolutely no flex. In the middle section the flex zone is going to be about 75% stiff
and 25% flexible. And toward the top it's going to be about 50% stiff and 50% flexible.
All the highbacks are very well rounded. The Metafuse Nanotech heel loops are ultra stiff.
The nanocrystal coating I mentioned earlier is a technology used in a lot of satellites
and cookware as well. The straps are also pretty unique in all the Union lines. All
the ankle straps are 3D contoured, and the majority of the toe straps have multiple positioning
so you can wear them on top of your foot traditionally or on the toe to keep your heel locked in
the heel cup or loop. All the bindings are compatible with the universal discs that work
on all snowboards, so if you have 3-hole pattern, 4-hole pattern or even the new channel pattern
you can use the Union Bindings because of the universal disks. All the Union Bindings
are fully adjustable. You can bring out the heel loop, you can also bring out the toe
ramp or the accelerator pad. The accelerator pad usually has three different positions,
so if your feet decide to grow and you like your bindings so much you don't want to get
new ones, just move that heel loop out or the accelerator pad or toe ramp out and you
pretty much have new bindings. The discs as well are fully adjustable. You slide them
toward the nose or tail of your binding, offering unlimited variations of stance widths, and
then toward the heel and toe as well, but make sure you center the binding down the
middle of your board. So, that's pretty much it for Union Bindings. It's quite a lot -- they
have a lot of great technology, cool color ways, everyone there is rad, 100% focused
on making the best snowboard bindings in the world, and so far they're definitely doing
it. Again, I'm Matt Guff for The House, see you guys later!