www.snowboard-women.com

This weekend I had the opportunity to try out my new women’s Burton Lexa Snowboard Bindings. It was a cold weekend in Mammoth, with packed-powder and somewhat icy conditions at times.

These Lexa bindings were my first pair of toe-cap bindings, and what a huge difference this style made! Previously I was using a really cheap pair of bindings which just strapped over the bridge of my foot.

The toe-cap style works a little differently. It securely holds your boot into the binding, with a combination of pressure two ways: against the top of the boot and towards the back of the boot. This results in your boot’s heel being held in place and less of a chance of your heel to lift up during toe-side turns. (You may also find you don’t have to tie the boots quite so tightly, a definite bonus!)

I found that the toe-cap bindings made my board a lot more responsive during turns because of the better contact they gave my boot to the board. And this was a huge bonus on the icy, packed powder conditions this past weekend. I have yet to see how they perform in the powder, because I usually don’t have a too much of a problem with turns/control in powder.

As for comfort, the Lexa bindings offer a wide cushion across the top-most strap for a more even distribution of the strap’s pressure against your foot, resulting in better comfort over the course of a day riding.

The buckles are easy to tighten and loosen, although you do have to be careful on the toe-cap because at least for me buckle “skipped” as I tightened it - it felt a little loose at the connections. I’ll have to ask the guys at the Burton store if this is normal.

Being Burtons, they will fit most effectively from what I understand with other Burton boots (even older ones - my Sapphires are 4 years old.) These bindings also will work on any board - the plate comes with a hole configuration that works for 4-screw and 3-screw boards.

All in all, I’m very happy I made the investment ($180) for these Lexa bindings - made a huge improvement in my riding, they’re very comfortable with lots of padding on the straps, and are easy to adjust and fit. And they’re cute, too - white with pink, yellow, and blue stripes and cute Louis Vuitton-style insignias on the highback section. And, they were fairly light; didn’t add a lot of weight to my setup. Buy some today!