2012 Burton Cartel Re:Flex Binding

The Cartel has been my binding of choice for many years for its performance in the park and freeriding. It has always been a responsive binding, aimed at aggressive riders who demand performance. My biggest issue with the 2012 Cartel stems from a departure from that stiff, responsive performance.

Burton made what I believe to be a poor decision and a step back from the goal of the product when they eliminated the built-in forward lean from the Cartels.

In the past, I’ve ridden all my Burton bindings with no added clicks of forward lean, so I did the same with the 2012 Cartels out of the box. As always, I also rotated the highbacks until they were parallel to the edge, which allowed for a more directed response from the highback and lateral movement within the binding.

From the very first run in the 2012 Cartels, something didn’t feel right.

Dropping into a Snowbird favorite, Skatepark Gully, my front highback seemed to give out repeatedly when driving heelside turns through the flat bottom. In rougher snow and at high speed, the combination of less forward lean and softer highbacks allowed my boot to flex backward. It was very unstable and unresponsive in hard snow conditions, and very unlike the Cartel of old. After a few standard runs at Snowbird, my knees were sore from repeated hyperextension.

I ramped up the forward lean after a few days of misery. Currently, I am up to five clicks on both left and right, and I still cannot get the same seemingly small level of forward lean that I enjoyed on my 2008 Cartels. My sentiment has been echoed by several other Snowbird locals over the past year.

It seems the 2012 Cartels, unlike its predecessors, cater more to the park/jib market, where some riders frown upon forward lean and responsiveness. Yet the Cartel I tested this year lacked the very performance that made it so popular in the first place. I hope to see Burton return the stiffness of the highback in years to come, and address the forward lean issue as well.

While the 2012 Burton Cartel is packed with new technology and has great straps and cushioning, it is not the same stiff, responsive binding that has been the choice of both professional riders and demanding consumers for years.