Arbor

Hemlock Snowboard Binding - 2023

Great binding for the price

Familiarity:

I've used it once or twice and have initial impressions

Size Bought:

M/L

Weight:

195

Bought these and rode them the first time today and they were great! The M/L fits boot sized 9-11 and I wear and 10 and the fit is good. I like how you can adjust the heel cup to better fit your boot as well. You get what you pay for when it comes to snowboard gear, especially bindings, and for the price they get the job done!

Poorly Designed Bindings

Well, what do you expect from them? Arbor are know for their boards, not bindings. I see minimum effort put into these bindings. They haven't changed much over the years, in fact I doubt they even had a single major redesign since they were first launched. And no, changing the shape of the strap slightly or bending the ladder a little outwards does not count as major redesign. Their bindings are falling behind industry leaders like Union, Burton, and Bent Metal big time. Even Nitro or Ride has way better binding designs than them. They remind me of Rome bindings, which have really poor and outdated designs and are extremely hard to adjust. As an example, the highback and heelcup are attached to the binding by two different set of screws, which means you'll have to adjust each of them individually if you want to adjust the size of the binding. This is so stupid because who would ever want to move only one of them but not the other? To adjust the size of the binding the heelcup and the highback have to move together! All the modern bindings have the heelcup and highback fixed by the same screws. Not to mention that you need a screw driver to adjust the forward lean on the highback, come on, are we still in the 80s or something? Also the footbed cannot be adjusted in or out to match your boot size, and the max amount you can slide the heelcup in/out is only a couple centimeters, which means unless your boot size fit right in the middle of one of their sizes, then you are likely left with massive toe/heel hang. I don't think Arbor's binding department is motivated to improve their products even in the slightest, they are making bindings simply because they can, not because they want to produce quality products to their customers. They repeat the same kind of work every year wanting a piece of the pie from the binding sector. I guess that's why you pretty much see no one uses their bindings on the mountain.