Binding Review: 09-10 Ride Bandita Contrabands

Location: Keystone, Colorado

Snow Conditions: Overcast with hardpacked groomers to a mixture of conditions.

Setup: I rode the Ride Bandita Contrabands with the Ride Crush and my Rome Vamp size 8 boots.

Time to set up the binding: The contrabands are one of those bindings you need to adjust properly to your boot…if you don’t, it’ll be a sucky ride. Luckily for me, we adjusted them to my boot so it wasn’t sucky.

Fit: My Rome vamps looked funny in them, they fit cause I didn’t move around but I see spaces where I’m not used to seeing them and that could be me not knowing the binding as well and what’s normal or just how it works. It seemed a bit wider than I needed for my boots, I bet I could have been a better fit in the smaller size.

First Impression: I was really happy that Ride finally gave us women a contraband binding and bummed that it took a year. First impression is it’s weird in a good way and I kept thinking I have camel toe on my foot.

Appearance: Polka Dots meets stripe infusion in black/white. You could match your underwear to the binding without any issues.

Comfort: This binding is comfortable in the cushioning in the wedgie footbed to the very padded ankle strap. It’s a lot of comfort rolled into one binding.

Functionality: It’s quick and easy, you just strap in your ankle strap and the toe strap comes over and holds your boot securely.

Flex: The ankle strap is sturdy and the lateral flex on the binding is a good amount, overall a soft flexing binding for women…definitely more freestyle, park specific so not much response to rely on outside on groomed runs. The ankle strap compensates for the lack of toe strap

Response: I would have liked more response from the highback and partially because the highback holds a lot of the control with these bindings. With the toe being held in and the abundance of cushioning, I didn’t think the highback was stiff enough for what the binding needed to make it responsive.

Toe Strap: It took some runs to get used to really not having anything there except around the big toe to hold in the boot.

Overall Impression: I didn’t hate them, but I wasn’t comfortable in them either. They were comfortable, pure comfort on the boots but it was a different feeling binding to adjust to which was interesting. Definitely for a park, easy quick into binding these are it…no bells and whistles other than the adjustments and supposed to be strong, I just still wonder about them. I’d definitely like to spend a whole day on them on harder runs than groomers.

Shay’s Honesty Box: Do I trust them, I don’t know honestly. I only rode them for the couple runs in the afternoon on groomers. Definitely a binding that I’d feel more confident about trying in a variety of conditions like pipe or trees, but then at the same time I’d have a fear of flying out and hitting objects I shouldn’t. I wish I had more time to really try them in light of the fear of flying.

Ready to buy? Head over to evo for the 2011 version of the Ride Bandita Contrabands or shop their full line of Ride snowboard bindings