Makers publish their own service intervals, and every one of them assumes the assembly is checked rather than assumed. Three events make it non-negotiable regardless of the calendar: new boots, a hard release, and a season in which the skis were not used at all.
What changes when nothing changed
The number on the dial stays put. What can drift is what the binding does at that number.
Springs relax over years. Lubricant migrates or dries. A boot sole wears — the toe lug rounds off, the anti-friction surface polishes — and the binding is being handed a slightly different shape from the one it was set with. None of that is visible.
That is why a check is a measurement, not an inspection: the shop puts the boot in and records where the binding lets go.
The three events that force it
New boots. The sole length changes and so does the heel adjustment. The calculation is redone from scratch.
A release you remember. A binding that let go in a real fall has done its job, and the next question is whether it still does it at the same value.
A season in a cellar. Equipment stored damp, or stored under something heavy, comes out different from how it went in.
What the shop does
Reads the sole length off the boot, checks the toe height for the boot’s sole standard, confirms the brake clears the ski, applies a twisting load at the toe and a forward load at the heel, and compares the release with the setting.
The number this page will not print
The value. It comes from your weight, height, age, boot sole length and skier type, through a published procedure that ends in exactly the test above.
How this site prints it
Binding pages print the maker’s own stated service guidance as the maker’s, name the declared range, and stop there. Nothing here is described as safe — a checked binding is a binding that was measured, not a binding that will release in your fall.
Where this page and a maker’s own documentation part company, the documentation is right. Every length, waist width, radius, flex index, last width, DIN range, brake width, filter category, temperature band and mass on this page comes from the maker’s own published figures, with the unit as printed and the source named. None of it is measured here, and no figure is converted into another convention, because a converted number is a different number. And the two things this page refuses to merge: a DIN range is a property of the binding; a release setting is a number a workshop calculates for one skier. The range comes from the maker and is printed here as published. The setting depends on height, weight, age, ability and boot sole length, it is set and tested on a bench, and it is not something this page will ever suggest.
The questions asked most often
Nothing changed. Why would the setting move?
The setting does not move on its own; what the binding does at that setting can. Springs age, lubricant migrates, and a sole worn at the toe presents a different shape to the toe piece.
Does this apply to touring bindings?
Makers publish their own service guidance for touring bindings, and it differs by construction. Some lightweight pin bindings make no release claim at all, which changes what a check even means.
Last reviewed 28 September 2026