Now you're probably wondering, what the heck is the interface?

Was that just clickbait? Well, the answer is no.

The interface is everything that goes between your body and your snowboard.

I'm talking about boots, bindings, risers, and the specific way you set these things up.

But first, we're going to answer the age-old question that's been burning in everybody's mind.

What is in James' boots?

Alright, check it out.

First thing I want you to notice is that the buckle and the ladder on my back toe are reversed.

This makes sure that there's nothing there that's going to drag, minimizes my overhang on the toe side, and, as you just saw, helps me get out in one motion looking super smooth.

Okay, the boot.

This is a standard Driver X with a handful of custom modifications I'm going to show you right now.

First thing is I've got two straps, cinching it all together, adding some stiffness.

The reason I use two is so that I can tighten this one, and then tighten this one, and then go back and get even more stiffness out of it.

On the best days, the perfect corduroy, there's almost no limit to how stiff I want my interface to be.

But, you know, if it gets bumpy rough, okay, I'm going to back it off a little bit for sure.

I need some mobility to absorb those imperfections.

Alright, let's keep going here.

Next thing I have in here is a custom boot stiffener.

These are not quite available yet on the market, but I'm working on it, hopefully soon.

Next up.

Next up.

This is a custom liner actually from a snowboard race boot.

What it's got is a hard plastic tongue in the front, adding more stiffness, meaning I can push further into the front of my boot, into the tongue.

Now there's a reason why the top-of-the-line snowboard boot is about $600.

Whereas a top-of-the-line ski boot is around $1200.

Part of that reason is the liners.

So when you get your snowboard boots, first thing you should do is throw those liners away.

Get yourself something in this style, is what I recommend.

Some people like the intuition wraps, it's not for me.

I like that hard plastic tongue in the front.

I actually go to my local boot fitter, because every time they sell a boot, they rip out the liners and throw them in a pile and sell them a custom foam-molded liner, right?

So $50, and I walk away with a high-quality liner with the plastic in the front.

I do have also in here a custom footbed.

Oh, it doesn't want to come out.

But I recommend those for comfort. They can help a lot.

After that, I have one other item.

This one is actually Ryan Napton's idea, and I really like it.

I have in my front boot a shin guard for volleyball.

Just put right against the back here to just add a little bit of extra leverage on heel side.

Like my jacket? This is from Skyline Outerwear.

These guys are at the cutting edge of design, construction, and materials for snowboarding outerwear.

It's all made by snowboarders for snowboarders.

There's a 30% off discount code in the description.

Also, I got a little kickback for anybody who uses this code, and I promise you every dime that I make, I'm going to put towards prototyping boards.

Now, I've already done years of prototyping.

I have the boards that I want to be riding.

I'm working now on the boards you want to be riding.

Soft, slower, forgiving.

Yeah, so buy a jacket, help support the cause, help support the industry, help support carving.

Me too.

Welcome to the boardroom.

We're going to look at some bindings.

I have here a set of Flow NX2 Carbon Fusion.

I have the Flux XV.

I have a Nidecker Supermatic.

I have a Now O-Drive, and I have a Drake Podium FF.

We're going to assess these bindings and a couple others that I don't have in the room on four factors.

The first one is the BO factor, the boot-out factor.

It basically refers to the length that the binding is adding to the boot.

We're going to talk about that momentarily.

The next most important factor is the performance of the binding, which is very closely correlated with things like stiffness, response, and the connection to the board.

The third factor is comfort, which I deem less important because, you know, sometimes you've got to sacrifice comfort for performance.

And the fourth factor is the quality or the longevity, how long this binding is going to last you.

It turns out every binding breaks in with time.

They might seem very stiff out of the box, but like your boots, you know, give it 20, 40 days, and it's not the same anymore.

Let's look at the boot-out factor first.

Pretty straightforward, okay?

You can see right here there's some small distance between the square and the toe of the boot.

And in the back here, there's actually a fair bit of distance I can fit a whole finger in.

So every millimeter of length that I'm adding onto the boot is a millimeter extra I have to put into my waist width.

And I'm already maxing out a bunch of my suppliers, so I don't really have that room in the waist.

Riding a lower BO factor binding means you can ride a less wide board.

Yeah, let's look at these bindings as measured.

So all I'm doing here is I'm putting the boot against the block.

I'm marking it, then I'm putting the boot in the binding, putting it against the block, marking it again, moving the block, doing it again.

I think we have five bindings. Results are in the end.

You can see through those measurements that this Flux XV is going to add 14 millimeters, 1.4 centimeters to the length of your boot, versus this Flow NX2, which you can see adds zero in the back.

And zero in the front. It hits the boot, not the binding, back and front.

So again, that's 14 millimeters I can take out of the waist of my board.

Let's look at some other things here before we start assessing these bindings.

I want to talk a little bit about canting and lifting.

Let's look at this one here.

This is a Flux XV.

It comes with a flat base plate.

So what I've done here is I've added some strips of rubber along the right side of my front boot, about a quarter inch.

And then I've added another layer across the toe of my front boot, again a quarter inch.

So what I'm doing is I'm lifting the toe and I'm canting inward.

The back binding will be similar. We're canting inward, but I lift the heel.

This kind of position just gets me much more comfortable, balances me better, I have no pain in the hip, and I find it a more aggressive, better stance for carving.

So I do these to a lot of my bindings.

Let's look real quick at this one here.

This is the Drake Podium.

Now this one already has, I believe, four degrees of inward canting.

So I only had to add a little strip under the toe for the front foot, and then under the heel in the back foot.

Back foot's not here.

One more, real quick, will be this here.

So every time I do this to a set of bindings, it's a custom job.

Every binding is different, every base plate has different requirements.

I need to be able to access the screws and take them out, so it's always a little awkward.

But here, I might have to...

I just want to show you something, if you can see it here.

On this binding, also a front, I just added a big quarter inch piece under my toes.

But I also added a strip, because this one does have inward canting, but only two degrees, and I wanted a little more.

So I added a very thin strip of rubber, and frankly, I just drop it in the base plate before I put the footbed on, and it stays.

And I don't have a problem with that, I can access my screws, I don't need to glue nothing, everything's great.

I recommend you try this, I think it's worthwhile, for carving especially.

I think the inward canting that a lot of binding manufacturers supply is excellent if you're in a duck stance.

But the further forward you go with your stance, the more you also need to add the lift.

Front toes up, back heel up.

Yeah, bindings. Let's talk, where should we start?

Let's start with the Nitek or Supermatic.

Now these are all bindings, let me say up front, except for this pair that doesn't belong to me.

I paid for all these bindings, I have no sponsorships or affiliation, I paid for these full price.

And I've ridden a lot of bindings, and other bindings as well, I'm going to give you my honest opinion, from a carving perspective.

There are lots of bindings out there designed and built to do many other things, but I'm a carver, I'm talking about the best carving bindings.

So the Nitek or Supermatic. I have not ridden it, I cannot say what the feel is, I cannot say anything about the comfort or the quality.

However, as measured, as you just witnessed, this is 32mm, 3.2cm longer than the Now.

And that's just impossible. So in my opinion, impossibly long.

I mean, I'm not going to be able to carve that, I'm going to boot out, I'm going to need such a massive board, for the same amount of boot out that I'm going to get on this binding as I'm going to get with this binding.

So to me, pure and simple, this is not a carving binding.

Performance, comfort, all other factors aside, the BO factor is just too big, and I wouldn't try to carve that on anything but greens on a super wide board.

Next up, let's look at the Drake Podium.

Now this one I've seen on websites as a 9 on 10 for stiffness.

And, you know, it's a relatively stiff binding, but on my scale of carving bindings, this is a 5.

I find this binding very high quality, very comfortable, not as stiff as I like for riding my biggest boards.

The thing about interface is the boot stiffness, the binding stiffness, have to match the board stiffness.

You don't want to be overpowering a soft board with a super stiff interface, and you don't want to be riding a sloppy interface on a super stiff board.

So for most of the boards I ride, this is just not doing it for me.

I really like a stiffer binding, I get them so stiff with the straps sometimes I feel like I just lean into the boot top and I can relax my feet.

And that's the feeling I want to get, the relaxed feeling as my board carves through the turn.

So for me, stiffer is better. There is a limit to how stiff I want to go, but if the conditions are good, I'm going to say stiffer is better.

As long as you've got circulation in your feet, I think the performance goes up.

However, when you start to get bumps and ruts, small push piles, moguls, whatever, ice chunks, you need to be able to move around.

You need to have some flexibility to absorb those bumps, and that's when I would say your bindings can be too stiff.

Right, so that's the Drake, Drake Podium FF.

Oh yeah, also very high quality binding. I've had two sets of these, I used to use these for testing boards, and I don't know exactly how many days I have in these bindings, but I have never replaced even a ladder on these. These are fantastic, very high quality bindings.

Like I said, high performance as well, but not as stiff as I generally like.

The Now O-Drive is also marketed as a carving binding, and this is actually a much stiffer binding.

When you put your boots into these, you feel that's a stiff binding.

And if you're not moving, if you're just standing on the board, I would give it a 9.

However, it has the skate tech, so once you start to move and put a lot of pressure into the board, now it moves around.

It moves around along this axis, this kingpin down the center, but it's made to go kind of back and forth like that to absorb bumps.

I would suggest it's actually a really nice feeling, and I like it, but not necessarily for carving.

This is going to absorb a lot of bumps, it's going to save you a lot of energy, it's super comfortable, super cushy ride.

But, you know, for the kind of turns that I want to be making on the best days, I need secure attachment to my board.

I can feel the board kind of moving under me when I'm in these bindings, and I can see my track is wider, because I'm not able to control the board with my feet as well as I could with a binding that's fixed more solidly to the board.

So I definitely see why some people like them. High quality, high performance, and excellent, excellent for comfort.

This is actually the binding I turn to when I'm getting some soreness from my other bindings that are less comfortable.

I come back to this for a few days until the pain goes away, and then if the conditions are good, I want my stiffer bindings again.

Yeah, good for absorbing bumps. I think a lot of people like the Skate Tech, I got nothing against it, but for me, on the big boards, I want a more solid attachment.

Next up is the Flux XV.

This is a very high performance binding.

I would say the comfort level is low. I would say the stiffness level is very high.

The adjustability level is good, because I'm going to want to turn my high backs.

When I start to get to steep angles like 30 and 15, you've got to rotate that high back.

Otherwise, if that high back was at 30 degrees, when I go to pressure the nose of my board on heelside, my calf is just falling out. There's nothing here to stop it.

So I do like to rotate my high backs. Not every high back is rotatable.

I think it's more and more important, as your angles get steeper, to be able to rotate your high back.

So for a carving binding, a rotatable high back is an excellent idea.

What else about this one? Yeah, that's about it.

Until I discovered actually the Flows this year, I would have said, if you'd asked me a year ago, this is the highest performance binding on the market.

But again, not the most comfortable, not the highest quality, but if you want performance,

I definitely recommend the Flux XV.

Now, the last one on our list here is the Flow NX2 Carbon Fusion.

This binding I bought this season, because I had an arm injury.

I actually started this season riding with my arm in a sling inside my jacket, and I needed something I could operate with one hand.

This, by the way, the sling turned into the pockets, and maybe you've seen the video.

But yeah, that's where that came from.

So that's why I bought these. Immediately, I noticed how incredibly stiff they were, and how I could just lean into the boot tops.