Flow Men's Amp-9L Snowboard Binding Review

Overall Rating

Convenient

UNSAFE

I previously owned a pair of Flow MK3 bindings which were convenient but had two main problems. Firstly the large rivet holding the hiback latch in place broke, fortunately when I was doing up the binding. I later found out that the bindings wree the subject of a product recall in the US for ythis reason. Secondly the latch for locking the hiback in place often iced up making it impossible to do up the bindings. The "The 5" binding appeared to fix this problem so I bought a pair. However they are even more poorly designed:
1. The tension needed to close / open the latch on the hiback is so high that it is impossibly difficult to open the hiback with your boot in it.
2. The cable holding the highback in place rubs on the side of the hiback itself. Over a long weekend of boarding, the plastic covering the cable has worn away, and some of the multicore sttel inner cables have snapped. Not exactly safe!
3. The base plate is a newer design. I think this means that you dont need new mountings for Burton boards. Unfortunately it also means that with a four hole board you can adjust the binding along or across the board, but not both...

I will not be buying Flow products again, and will shortly be buying a pair of K2's "Cinch" step ins...