The short answer is: Burton bindings are guaranteed to work on the ICS boards if you have the retro-disk. If not, it’s going to be a little more difficult. These are your options (if you know of more, do let me know in the comments):
- Drake Bindings makes a kit compatible with ICS, which you can get (I think for free) just by e-mailing them: info[at]northwave.com. Include your name, shipping address, and contact phone/email.
- You should be able to get a kit for Forum bindings (some Forum boards run the ICS system, too).
- Or, you can try to do it yourself (here is one method but I’m not certain it will work). As a rule I recommend keeping power tools away from your snowboard gear unless you really know what you’re doing.
- Otherwise, call your binding company and see if they have a kit which is compatible with the ICS system.
Early rumors indicated that the B was going to try and license their mounting plates and hardware out to other manufacturers (for a fee, of course) but more recently I’ve heard that Burton is switching up the hardware in the 2011 line so that bindings from other manufacturers will be compatible with the ICS system. if true, this is win for snowboarding consumers across the board. (Note: this will probably not be backwards compatible with ’09 or ’10 model snowboards.)
In addition to these, Nate from Shred Soles informs me that the popular and affordable Union bindings will be compatible with ICS for the 2010/2011 season.
However, the real benefit of ICS is to use it in conjunction with the B’s “EST” bindings, which are baseless. If you’re not going to use EST bindings by Burton, unless you really have your heart set on a Burton snowboard you’re probably better off buying a different brand snowboard, and that way you don’t have to worry about this problem.
