First impression
You can immediately see that the Marker Kingpin is noticeably different from all other touring bindings. The front jaw is similar in principle to almost all other available Pintech bindings, but the rear jaw is similar to that of an alpine binding, so it does not rely on pins. To ascend, the rear jaw is simply moved back a good distance by moving a lever, so that the boot remains fixed to the ski only at the front via pins and inserts. With this obvious system, the only question is why it has only been developed now...
Test conditions
First things first: The binding is very new and therefore could not be tested in all conditions, I only used it for a few shorter ascents and descents. A full and comprehensive test report will be published in the course of the season, when I will be able to go into more detail about how the binding performs in tough continuous use. The Kingpin was tested on a Vökl V-Werks BMT 94, I myself am 184cm tall and weigh 75 kg. The snow conditions were quite demanding on my test days: with rather hard snow, partly broken snow but also some piste and moguls.
