Toe-Jaw Lockdown. And Up. Video.

You know how when you are out touring, or even at the resort, you'll notice how some people still ski down with their tech binding's toe lever angled up in tour mode? This locks out the binding and means it won't release. As someone who has been skiing exclusively on tech bindings (in and out of bounds) for more than a decade, this is remarkable to me.

Many folks making this mistake are competent, smart people—for some reason they just didn't get the memo. Regardless of the nifty little graphics (on Dynafit bindings for example) some folks still assume that the binding will release unnecessarily if in "ski mode" —that's when the lever is parallel to the ski.

Though this video is a little G3-centric, it does state clearly that a locked out tech binding eliminates all the release values associated with binding of this type. In my experience, the only time to consider locking out your binding is when the consequences of losing your ski are greater than the consequences  of your ski not releasing.