Clicker description, K2 Snowboarding catalog 1999/2000

A screw snapped on my Clicker boot just a day after I was riding 40 degree gullies in the backcountry.

K2 Snowboarding catalog 1999/2000

The screw snapped after just 40 days riding.

K2 Snowboarding catalog 1999/2000

An independent technician said the screw was overtightened, causing it to shear.

K2 Snowboarding catalog 1999/2000

Hey K2, your product failed and you just don’t seem interested.

What with the beef? Click to find out more.

That’s what’s prompted me to create this page. After just 40 days use, a screw on my K2 Clicker-compatible snowboard boot failed. The screw snapped. The boot can no longer be used at all as the part is ‘non-servicable’.

Yup, it is out of warranty and I accept that. I am willing to pay for a repair but I am informed that, basically, all I can do is throw my beloved Yak boots away. Shame.

Read on for the gory details and tell me what you think.

Well, I’ve ridden in Scotland, France, the US, Norway, Switzerland and England. On dry slopes, I snow domes and on real snow slopes.

For pictures of me riding on real outdoor snow in the English Lake District and my trip reports to Val Thorens, France, Hemsedal, Norway, Scotland and Switzerland, visit www.snowserve.co.uk

I enjoy freeriding, I am not a pipe animal. I enjoy steep slopes, short turns, I love laying out big carved turns on the blues and reds of Val Thorens

I ride a K2 Ultima 162. It s a big wide board without a big weight. That’s what I wanted. I have UK size 11 feet and I weigh 95kg so I need that big board. Plus, the Ultima has the ultimate gimmick. Piezo-electronic circuits that convert vibrations into enough electricity to light up two small lights on the board. Shame they are usually covered in snow and I ride in the daylight.

I got my new board when I was a little bit more than a beginner. I was still falling, still riding with skiers and mostly riding at a snowdome  - the slope is only 150m long. Doing up straps on bindings was a big pfaff. So I bought some K2 Clicker SST bindings. Nice and easy step-ins.

I teamed these with a pair of Yak Clicker Highback boots. (Mr K2: If you are reading this check out the product info and tell me if they are from a bad batch? Product No. 6163. Item Yak B (Men), Black Size 13, barcode: 4 026093 165620 / 7 66525 16562 3). These linerless boots were stiff but comfy. Not every rider’s cup of tea but they suited me. An external strap held my heel down well, the highback worked well for putting weight on my heel edge. They rolled from side to side a little so you could lean back and let the board slice through the crud or powder.

I loved them a lot. The combination of kit worked for me and I didn’t mind the joshing I got from strap riders. Since April 2000 I’ve enjoyed them.

But in April 2002, my opinion turned 180 degrees. Read on

I was just coming off a lift in Brevent. I was exiting onto a wide easy blue beside the restaurant and laying out a few wide lazy warm-up turns.

I moved on to my heel edge and, wham, I was on the floor. I stood up, dusted the snow off me and realised something didn’t feel right. Snowboard bindings don’t quick release. Why was my leading foot not tightly in locked to its binding?

• I tried to step-in a couple of times as I thought it had released.
• Maybe I hadn’t stepped-in properly at the top?  
• Had my leash got tangled in the release knob?
• Or was there snow balled on the bottom of my boot?
• The cleat on the bottom of my boot and the bail on the binding just wouldn’t click.  

I asked someone to look at my boot to see if a stone had jammed in my cleat. I was told that the rear cleat was at a funny angle. So, there I was taking my boot off, mid-slope and then I turned it over and, examining the rear cleat, realised that that the screw was missing. Well, I trudged back up the hill. Perhaps I could find the screw and screw it back in. After ten minutes I found the screw head. Not the whole screw but the first couple of millimetres. The screw head had snapped off.

The technician at Trajectoire said he had never seen such a failure before. He said he couldn’t service it as he did not have the tool. He suggested that when I got home I should return to K2 via the dealer I bought it from. In the meantime he rented me a pair of Shimano Clicker compatible boots. Which, BTW, sucked in comparison to the Yaks.

On return I phoned SS20, the Oxford snowboard shop, from which I had bought the board and boots from originally. They were most interested to hear about the problem and said that they had never heard about such a thing happening ever. They also told me that they couldn’t service it.  

I asked if they had the tools.

I was told that ‘no, it’s a factory job’ but even then it was unlikely as the remnant of the screw would be difficult to get out of the screw hole.

They went on to add that the best bet was to send it to the distributor and they would tell me if it was serviceable or might replace them if I explained the circumstances.

 I asked what if they didn’t?

Thankfully SS20 shop staff are a bright bunch, an engineering grad. He suggested that I  ‘tap and die’ the screw. This involves drilling into the remnant of the screw and threading the hole. A replacement screw can then be inserted.

Light engineering firms could do this, I was told.

So, before sending the boots off I thought I’d try and find out if a local firm could tap and die it and how much it would cost. In case, it came to that.

I called three firms all of whom said they couldn’t do it. I then had a brain wave. I recalled that there was a very good cycle mechanic at my local bike store. He knew his Shimano. Clickers were co-developed with Shimano, maybe he could get the screw out or fix it.

Well, he had a look and said ‘The screw sheared because it was over-tightened’.

I asked if he could fix it or tap and die it.

‘If I can access it from the other side’, he replied.

However, we took the insoles out but you can’t get into the chassis of the boot from the interior.

‘I could tap and die it at home as I have a vertical drill but it’s a stainless steel screw, tough as old boots. Could be tricky.’

So I left it, thanking him, thinking I’d better try the official route before resorting to home-made remedies.

So after consulting all these folks I sent the boots off to the UK K2 distributor. Here’s what happened next.

A trip to the village post office and £7 lighter they boots were dispatched. Curious as to whether this failure had happened before I called Snowlines, a  Scottish K2 dealer from whom I’d bought kit online. The technician was very helpful. He said that he had heard of something similar happening about five years ago but not since.

Well, two weeks later the boots returned. The accompanying letter simply stated that the screw was a ‘non-serviceable part’ and that as the boots were out of warranty they could not replace them. The letter also offered me 20% off of my next purchase as a good will gesture. That was it, just a couple of lines

So what next? I hope this site gets to the attention of K2 as I think their brand promise is being damaged.

My faith in the K2 brand is damaged. I like the brand, it’s been around for years. I haven’t heard much bad said against them. But I feel its service proposition fails the product proposition. The brand is not interested in servicing its products. It is not interested in learning from its customers. I have the broken screw. Surely someone at K2 would like to know why its products failed.

Mid June I posted a link to this on alt.rec.snowboarding asking if anyone else had experienced similar problems. Well, with 48 hours I was contacted by a Finnish rider. His Clickers failed way up the mountain while he was riding very hard and he had a long hike home. Fortunately his were only a week old and got replaced sharpish.

So Clickers can fail out of the box or after 40 days usage.

The lesson is don’t rely on them. They seem fine for rental usage on intermediate slopes but taking them backcountry is not a good idea. If their is a sudden component failure it is difficult to jerry-rig a temporary fix. A friend of mine was plagued by a series of exploding heel cups on his Flows but there was always enough of the binding remaining to use strapping to tie his foot down. He was able to side slip down the hill.

I've posted info about this site on rec.skiing.snowboard and other newsgroups. The response has been good. One resident of Vashon Island, home of the K2 brand (but not corporate HQ) did some sterling telephone work and got through to the guys at K2. Here's his note.

"After having a little bit of a hard time getting responses, I finally heard back from K2/Vashon yesterday about Nick's situation. The guy that called said that they'd looked at his website and sympathized with the situation, but said that he couldn't do anything as K2/USA and K2/Europe are two different companies without overlap. I was a bit disappointed that they couldn't reach out and deal with the situation as a matter of good faith, or that they couldn't give the names of some contacts to talk to. I'll try to call the guy back and get some more info, but I reckon the moral of the story is to stay away from Clickers and K2. Perosnally, I'd go for straps and Burton -- their customer service is unreal."