Board footstraps. Track vs screw ins

[madmax7]

As I do my holiday shopping for a new board, some companies are going to tracks and some are staying with screw ins

Any experiences, preferences?

Are tracks solid? Do they slip and loosen as you ride?

Any tracks rip out?

Thanks for input

Max

[Matteo V]

Tracks always seemed like extra weight, but held up well for me. No real issue with loose sliders any more so than with loose insert screws. Most of my use of tracks was on the Slingshot "Coupe's" that I owned. Then I started to use heavier boards and no longer cared about weight. And the boards I use now have inserts.

Lots of the kiters with surfing backgrounds, or strapless kitesurfing backgrounds, will talk lots about getting that mythical "just right position of the foot straps. When I switched back to strapped from strapless, and then really compared the two with some back to back riding, I realized a pretty big chunk of the strapped equation is muddled up by putting strapless variables into it.

With strapless, you move your feet to give different angles of pressure on the board such as: weight forward, back, twisting moment, and rail pressure

With strapped, you can: weight back by pulling upward on the front foot, weight forward by pulling up with the back foot, apply extreme rail pressure by prying up with the top of your foot against the strap and putting pressure down on either your toes or heels, or induce upwards AND twisting motion to the tail of the board.........plus many more combinations - some of which I am doing, but not yet fully conscious of to describe.

To sum it up - with straps you can do lots more with two fixed placements on a strapped board (under 6' of course), than you can do with moving your feet to infinite locations strapless. AND you don't have to move your feet when strapped, so it is quicker.

Given the above, your strap placement is not a determinate thing. You can put the straps on at the supposedly wrong locations and still have access to the full performance of the board. Even on TT boards, you have a pretty wide margin of error. What will change if you move from an acceptable strap location, is how much upward pressure on the straps you will need to exert if you move them more forward or back. So there is no need for a micro adjusting strap track. Inserts work fine. Tracks are pretty far up there on that list of useless kiteboarding inventions. They kind of look cool, though.

[madmax7]

Thanks for input

Lots of stuff I had not thought about

In some brands I’ll be forced to switch to tracks (north) and wondered if I should change brands or go w flow.

I guess based on your info if price of board w straps is right, it doesn’t matter.

Thanks

[iriejohn]

As I do my holiday shopping for a new board, some companies are going to tracks and some are staying with screw ins

Any experiences, preferences?

Prefer tracks because of more adjustability if you need it.

Are tracks solid? Do they slip and loosen as you ride?

Are solid and don't slip or loosen as you ride.

Any tracks rip out?

Not that I've seen (North).

Thanks for input

Max

[NorwayIsCold]

I had both. Tracks give you a waaaay better adjustability compared to inserts IMO. Your stance options are unlimited.
If you beat up one side of the bord by riding on the beach or hitting a reef or a small rock, just flip the board over and enjoy a fresh edge as most boards with track system have them in one line ( I have a Slingshot board). Inserts normally are offset by a couple centimeters so you cannot flip it over and have a good duck on your bindings.

The downside is that track system messes with the flex of the board. I noticed that on Slingshot boards with track system the board mainly flexes between the bindings but on the Shinn board that had inserts, flex was more continuous.
But if you will ride with boots that have a stiff and thick baseplate board flex between inserts will be gone as boot baseplate will prevent it and board will not flex as continuously as it would with straps.