If you had 10 words to describe Fix Bindings co., what would they be? Simple, durable, dependable quality all at an affordable price.
What sparked the idea to start Fix Binding co.? It was a dream cat boarding trip to Baldface Lodge and at the top of the run the binding I was riding at the time broke. I had to ride down to the lodge in the cat while my friends had the run of their lives in the sunshine. It was in that moment in that snowcat that I decided I was going to start a binding brand; one where the product was dependable yet affordable, and simple without the need to tighten screws all the time. Most importantly, a binding you could depend on.
Is it true that you don’t need tools to adjust your Fix Bindings? All of our plastic injection models (Truce, January, Nation) don’t need any tools to adjust them. The only hardware for adjusting the bindings are the screws that mount you to the board itself. Its a major advantage as most people have had to tighten screws on the hill at some point while riding. This completely eliminates that as well.
This year's binding line up is really different from the past years, what made you redesign your whole product line? We have a brand new production facility and we really wanted to take all of the lessons learned over the past 5 years and put them all into brand new designs. Better fit, better function, lighter weight, less moving parts, nicer design and all produced with processes that reduce our impact on the environment.
You guys offer a lifetime warranty on buckles assemblies and base trays. This is a huge statement about the bindings quality! What makes you that confident about your product? We test and test and test, then we modify the design, then test and test an test again. We test our bindings and we test the others on the market and what we realized was how much stronger our buckles were. A really good binding’s buckles will get 12,000 clicks on on our testing machine, but with Fix buckles we’re around 28,000 clicks. Globally we don’t have any buckles come back as warranty claims, so with that we felt confident to offer a lifetime warranty on them as well as our base trays.
Fix is one of the few brands that operate their own production factory. What are the pros and cons between having control over the production process and having the products made somewhere else? For us it’s about innovation behind closed doors. We can control every step of the production process with our own staff. Not only that but the crew that builds our bindings are all boarders. I’ve literally snowboarded with every person who works in our factory. For me that’s a really important advantage. If the people who build your products actually use it, they will have a much better vested interest in making them as good as possible. The primary con to having your own facility is that it is 100% on our shoulders. If there is a Quality Control issue for example, it is on us so it's critical that this never happens…which also turns this into an advantage for Fix.
How does it impact the quality of the products? We’re all passionate about snowboarding and making great products, right down to the person packing boxes, so there’s a real sense of pride in our company. When a team rider, rep, retailer or customer provides feedback we have a meeting and typically the modifications are happening that same day if it’s something valuable. A lot for the time our products will go through various improvements before they even hit the shelves in the fall even if it’s the tiniest detail to make them better.
Fix Bindings are known to be great for how affordable they are. Does having your own factory have an impact on your price range too? Yes, but not for the reason that people likely think. Our head engineer and head of product have been designing and manufacturing bindings for over 25 years and in the past many top brands would turn to them for production. Having that experience exclusive to Fix is a massive, massive advantage as they know all of the tricks and secrets of how to build bindings efficiently without spending a small fortune on tooling. It’s all about doing it smarter and thinking of solutions to the expensive barriers in manufacturing bindings.
Running your own factory must also have a huge impact on the environmental side of things. Can you give a few examples of the brand’s eco-friendly initiatives? Definitely. First and foremost, we don’t paint our injected nylon on the base trays and highbacks. This cost significantly more as we have to pigment each binding component separately and for every size rather than inject them all one colour then paint them later. It’s better for our staff and better for the environment and makes the bindings significantly more durable as they don’t chip and get scratched. That’s just one example of what we do differently.
You're the only snowboard company in the world offering their binding in plastic reusable plastic boxes, can you tell us more about these? The previous question is a perfect segway to this question as we also don’t put any old filler plastic in our bindings. Every Fix binding is 100% pure, first shot nylon. Due to the injection moulding process, there are extra parts (think of the frame around the parts of a model airplane) that need to be ground up and typically they are injected back into bindings, but Fix doesn’t allow that. So what do we do with all of that extra material? We inject the box that the bindings come in as a reusable crate. People use it for organizing their tools or their wax kit, or to organize the trunk of their car, etc… it’s a really handy thing to have around for years to come. It keeps the old material out of the landfill and out of our bindings where it could make them weak and susceptible to breakage.
What can we expect from Fix Binding Co. in 2022? I can’t say too much, but I can tell you that we have a new model coming and we are developing new production processes that have never been done before in the binding game. We’re continuing to push for more environmentally friendly production processes; not because it’s something that we have to do, but because it’s something that we should do. We need to do everything in our power to protect the winters for future generations to enjoy.
Nov 18
Nov 05
