I've been pretty happy with the pair of Salomon Relay's I'd been riding for the past two seasons since exiting my career in snowboard retail, but an opportunity to check out Union bindings allowed me to really test if the cool aesthetics union had been doing for the last few years really matched their practical ruggedness. So when the purple velvet case arrived in the mail, I added some prince to my playlist and hit the hill.

Truth be told- I've been riding these bindings for the last few weeks now. First I rode them for a day at a park in Mass, then up in NH at wildcat- haulin on some groomers and ice, and then for the last 2 weeks out in Montana. Figure that after all that, I can make a fair assessment of Union's quality.

As you can see above, the velvet aesthetic really helps when you are chopping down overhanging cornices above your cabin.

Ok- so bottom line is that these are a pretty decently put together binding. The first thing I noticed was how light they were compared to my old bindings.
There are dampening pads for the heels made out of foam, both of which fell off by day 2 on them. I didn't notice any hindrance when i kept riding them without them though. The forward lean tool free adjuster piece also broke off somewhere along the lines also (but it wasn't after I was hacking at the cornice...)

None of those really affected my opinion of the bindings too much though- they still felt great and secure while riding. I did get the feeling though that Union could've spent a bit more time working out some of the practical aspects of the binding and less on aesthetics- even though looks are what really sell product A vs. product B off the floor. I mean- these bindings came in a velvet case- totally for show (i thought of unboxing an apple product when i opened them) but the foam pads underneath your heel are hot glued onto the chassis? c'mon now. Doesn't add up to me. Certainly not saying that there wasn't on-snow R&D done on these bindings, but I do feel that more money was spent on getting the aesthetics and packaging.

For me though, these bindings are still just fine. I get enough response out of the baseplate's rigidity while still having effortless lateral and torsional flex. Makes for a great binding to haul at high speeds, and also a jibby enough binding to get in the park with.