Good advice offered by Jason and Scott. Just "throw down" for the Spark bindings now.
vermaine wrote:Is the voile universal interface the only way to go? 160 bones for a slider system that isn't that great seems steep.
Any Spark R & D binding will be a huge step up from mounting a binding on top of the Voile slider track. The main thing is that it gets your binding as tight and flush to the board as is possible, as opposed to the Voile slider track. With the old slider tracks, it may not have seemed like much of a difference but your binding actually sat quite a bit higher than the pucks. Going from regular snowboard bindings mounted on the Voile track to a Spark R & D is a huge difference, basically the biggest quality-of-ride innovation to splitboarding since the splitboard itself.
So basically, don't even consider the old Voile slider tracks an option :). If cost is truly an issue, hit up splitboard.com. There are always older Sparks binders being sold on there for under $200 (often under $100).
Also, lots of shops (and probably some places online) will sell you just pucks for like $20 maybe?
vermaine wrote:Has anybody strapped into a splitty with conventional strap bindings and ice boots? How scary is the ride?
Is there a particular reason you're wanting to ride in your mountaineering boots? Over on splitboard.com you'll find huge discussion threads on the merits of mountaineering boots vs. AT Boot/"dynasplit" system vs. traditional soft boot + Sparks, etc.... My two cents is that you need to really consider your objectives and let those dictate the choice. Also look into some of the burlier snowboard boots being produced. The most recent model of the Deeluxe Spark boot has welted Vibram soles for fully rigid crampon use should you want/need it. For my part, there are very few things I've ridden that have mandated using a fully rigid step-in crampon. For much snowboard mountaineering, IMO, you can get by with a regular snowboard boot paired with a strap-on crampon i.e. the Petzl Vasak or the Black Diamond Contact (my choice). I'm thinking along the lines of the Grand Teton here.