How to adjust your ski bindings

At last, you found the right skis to suit your needs and aims! Now, before starting your first day on the slopes, it's time to learn how to adjust your bindings to ski in a complete safety.

To properly adjust your ski bindings, you need to take the following elements into account:

• Gender
• Age
• Height
• Weight
• Shoe size
• Skiing ability

A ski binding well-adjusted can act as a protection for your knee in case of a fall, so be careful! The following steps are very important:

1) Adjusting the boot sole length

First of all, you need to find the length of your sole in millimeters. Usually, it is printed or engraved on the heel.

Now that you know the exact size, you need to adjust the front part of the binding to match it.

On the newest ski bindings, you only need to pull the tab to unlock the binding and then move it until you reach the appropriate range of values.

Example: le length of my shoe is 296 mm. After unlocking my binding, I move it until it reaches the range 292/300 mm.

To relock the binding, clip back the tab into a locked position.

The same adjustments need to be done on the back part of the binding. Unlock it in the same way you did with the front part, and then move the binding until it reaches the appropriate range of values.

You may have to make small tweaks to perfectly adjust your ski bindings with your shoes. Put on the front part of the shoe on the front part of the binding, and then the back part. By pushing on the shoe, it has to engage easily, and both ends of the shoe have to be firmly locked up in the ski binding.

Your ski bindings are now adapted to your ski shoes. It's time to adjust the binding release force setting.

2) Adjusting the binding release force setting

Did you know that one in two knee sprains is due to bindings release force setting misadjustment? This setting is very important, and needs to be not too high so the binding can release your shoe in case of a fall, and not too low so you won't face inadvertent activation of your device while skiing.

The release force setting is determined based on skier's age, weight, and ski ability. Be careful while choosing the release force setting of your binding, and in case of doubt, do not hesitate to go to a ski professional who would do it for you.

The setting can be found on each part of the binding, and looks like a graduated scale. Use a Phillips-head screwdriver to tighten or loosen the settings. The operation must be repeated on the front part, and the back part as well.

As an indication, the AFNOR (French Association for Normalization) built a table crossing different values to help you choose the one that suits most your practice and needs.

Those tables are shown for guidance only:

The first row corresponds to the length of your boot sole in millimeters, and the first column to the weight of the skier.
Then, the release force setting of the ski binding must be adjusted according to the skier's profile






If you end up on one of the table's empty cells, go to the nearest number on the same line, unless you weigh more than 94 kilograms, in which case you should go to the nearest number in the shoe size column.

Finally, this setting needs to be adjusted to suit your skiing ability by using the following table :

If you have any doubt concerning the settings of your binding, do not hesitate to seek professional advices in one of the ski shops in Val Thorens!

Now that you are ready to ski down your favorite slopes, it's time to start a good day on the slopes in Val Thorens !