Plum R170
Over the past 15 years or so, Plum has solidified itself as the binding maker of choice for Chamonix steep skiers. Made in the Haute-Savoie, Plum has deep roots in the Chamonix valley and has earned the trust of many of the folks doing cutting edge skiing in the Alps. With an athlete roster featuring the likes of Tom Lafaille, Vivian Bruchez and Pierre Hourticq, there is some pretty serious skiing going down on Plum bindings.
In North America, at least, Plum’s race bindings were the first race bindings savvy ski tourists were using on much wider skis than they were perhaps designed for. Often, this pairing used the Dynafit Speed Radical toe and the Plum R145 heel. While the Dynafit toe had the appeal of a mostly steel construction, the only failure I heard of from the Plum toes was the locking lever breaking on older models.
The heel is simple and svelte. The two screw adjustment track is the main differentiator here.
With their most recent iterations of race bindings suitable for touring skis (we’ll ignore the R99 for now), the R120 is the lightest offering with more heavily sculpted and minimal machining. The R150 and R170 are more substantial and reinforced but share the same general design. The added 20g of the R170 gets you a 25mm adjustment plate.
The R170 toes are well machined and feel tight and snappy.
Also available is a ski crampon adapter—this is my first experience with the Plum ski crampons, and I am sold. Rather than a “wiggle fit” that requires some futzing, the Plums drop directly into place and feel robust.
The Plum ski crampons are pretty neat. It takes a lot to get me excited about ski crampons, but here we are.
Overall, I am impressed with the quality and solid feel of such a svelte binding. Feature-wise, the R170 doesn’t stand out from something like an ATK Trofeo Plus, but it seems a worthy alternative with as good a track record as any tech binding today. In our THR Gear Shed podcast a few weeks ago, Slator and I talked about benchmark gear, especially skis. The R170 is a perfect example of a true benchmark binding. To unseat it, any new options on the market must live up to the functionality and reliability track record of the R150/R170.
I have the R170 mounted on a fresh pair of 4FRNT Hoji’s, my most used ski the past few seasons. I generally think a binding test has a plateau of usefulness—you learn a lot in the first few days, then hopefully don’t learn anything new until you have enough hard use to put longevity to the test. I have some hesitation as the fixed RV of 8 is lower than I generally use on wider skis, but time will tell here. I tend to enjoy the Hoji in powder and skiing fast in variable or poor snow. In these less ideal conditions is generally where I have found the limits of lateral retention in race bindings. We’ll see how the R170 fares.
I mounted a pair of R170s last season and they were simple, no frills bindings. Coming from the Salomon MTN Bindings, the toes took less force to release when crashing but no pre-releases. One issue I had was that the two screws securing the adjustable heel plate became loose, once while skiing and another skinning uphill. I’m hoping that applying loctite will prevent unexpected loosening and now I always bring the right torx bit with me for adjustments. Turning the heel from flat to ski mode 180 degrees is also tough to do by hand. For only an additional 30 grams (if you already have the crampon attachment mounted to the R170 which adds 20 grams) the Plum Oazo’s bigger heel makes grabbing the heel much easier. This is something to consider if you find yourself switching from a true flat mode to uphill risers frequently.