Kiwi college student Nick Eaton won New Zealand’s Best Product Design Gold Award for developing snowboard boots that easily convert into crampon equipped mountaineering boots.
Designed with backcountry snowboarders in mind, the DuoTrek boots feature titanium plates in the souls that can be flipped to hide or expose crampon teeth, depending on whether your boarding or climbing.
The snowboard boot soles can be adjusted to either expose or hide the crampon teeth.
The titanium crampon plates are flipped over to expose the teeth by twisting and pulling a locking pin in the sole and removing the rubber treads.
Eaton also designed a strapless binding system for the boots. A rigid support is built into the back of the boots, so snowboarders can just slip their boot into the binding base then lock the heel in. This part seems like a bit of a throwback. Manufacturers tried and abandoned a number of strapless systems years ago, but Eaton may be to young to remember that era. See the video below for a demonstration.
No word yet on whether these will actually be produced and available outside of New Zealand. But it’s a cool idea even if the boots never hits the market.
Here’s Eaton explaining his creation:
Via The Gear Caster
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