Phantom M6 Bindings & Cleats (hard boot)
Price
M6 Bindings - $419.95 (2022/23)
Cleat options:
Adjustable Split cleats - $219.95
Solo cleats (splits, fixed angle) - $109.95
Adjustable 3-1 cleats (solid boards) - $219.95
Brand // Manufacturers
What we liked …
Bomber; Canted; Beautiful; Super easy operation; Reduces board play under the binding.
What we didn’t …
Needs some micro-adjustment of the bail placements for boot sole-lengths and centering between edges; L/XL binding size is long overall, and the locking tabs extend over the edge of even wide boards.
The Verdict…
OUR RATING
4 out of 5
THE SHORT READ…
An elegant and robust cleat and binding combo that locks you in, yet has enough give to contribute something towards a surfy feeling. Nice and simple operation, nothing fiddly in big gloves. Like any binding will attract ice-buildup in places but it’s easy enough to clear. The canting angle is comfortable. They allow macro forward/back adjustment for centering your boots but that is a bit fiddly to do manage and the boot adjustment positions are somewhat limited. The only actual issue I had on the mountain was locking-pins seizing up in extreme cold - but Phantom say a bit of lube can prevent that.
(If you’d like to read about the wider range of hard-boot kit on offer these days, you can check out our “Going Hard” article, here.)
THE LONG READ …
The Build
True to Phantoms design ethic, the M6’s are beautifully milled aluminium, using Torx screws throughout (like the Phantom Slipper boots), and stainless steel for the bails.
Unlike most other hardboot binding plate designs, the M6 is curved - this saves a bit of weight in what would otherwise be corners, but also gives a bit more room to fit, as the M6’s rotate into place.
Just as per other hardboot splitboard binding makers, the plate then has stainless steel bails front and rear to engage with the crampon attachment points.
Toe lever - One good feature of the M6’s is that this is plastic rather than metal. Yes, there is definitely enough plastic in the world, but in some cases it’s a much better choice than other materials. Using a hard and dense plastic here protects your boot shells from damage as you secure the lever, which to be solid fit does require a tight fit against the shell. Time will tell how well that plastic withstands the stresses and strains, but after 30 days riding so far, all is looking good.
Sizing, Adjustability & Comfort
There are two sizes of the M6 available:
Small/Medium - Fits BSL 258-308mm - 860g per pair
Large/ExtraLarge - Fits BSL 298-348mm - 960g per pair
The two sizes are the same width, but are notificeably different in overall length (see pic below right).
Binding adjustability - Given that these two binding sizes have to accomodate a whole range of different boot sizes, the bindings have some adjustability, to move the heel and toe plates forward and back to allow for different boot sizes, and for centering of the boots over the board.
It can be a bit fiddly to make use of though. In the pic below, you see that the stainless steel bail, in the left-most of it’s two possible positions within the upper assembly that the toe and heel of your boot is in contact with. And that upper plate assembly itself can be moved forward and back in 3 screw positions
To adjust the bail position, the screw underneath is undone, letting the upper plate come free. But moving the bail to it’s other position can be tricky as the foot of it that sits inside the plate assembly is spring-fit quite tightly. Once you pop it out of one position, getting it back into the other can require the use of quite a lot of body weight, or strong pliers/grippers. In this particular set, even once in their new resting place, they were prone to popping back out again before the plate could be screwed back into position. All doable, but was a work out, on my set anyway.
The three screw positions underneath are not reguarly spaced, from rearmost ot middle it’s about 6mm, then middle to frontmost is about 4mm. The upper bail positions are about 15mm apart. So trying to do double move of bail and plate position had me scratching my head at the results.
The test is, putting boot in and doing up the toe lever - even a few mm off in the plate/bail adjustments can mean you can’t tighten the lever, or it’s just too loose when done up.
In the end, I stuck with the Phantom default bail & plate positions as shipped to me with the Phantom 290/295 HD boots, and that is the perfect bail tightness for my boots, even if I’d prefer the boot centering to be 2-3mm more toward the heelside - I didn’t seem to quite be able to achieve that myself.
Canting - fixed at 5 degrees. This has proved to be very comfortable with both the Slipper and Disruptive boots. We’ve not felt any sensation of the boot uppers digging into the insides of our calves.
Cleats
Adjustable split cleats - These are the default splitboard cleats, adjustable between +/- 30 degrees - 291g per set.
These are a lovely milled design and give loads of easy adjustability, effectivley an infinite range within the +/- 30 degree limits. The M6 locking pins engage with the “V” that projects towards the board edge.
Adjustable split cleats
Phantom make two other cleat styles:
Adjustable 3-1 - For solid boards - Angles are adjustable per cleat, and work with boards having the 4x4 bolt pattern. 315g per set.
Solo cleats - For splitters who want the same fixed angle for both feet no adjustment, to save weight - These come in a range of fixed angles, from +/- 3 degrees (per set) up to +/- 30 degrees (per set), in 3 degree increments, and average a skinny 148g per set.
Phantom 3-in-1 Adjustable cleats - for solid boards
Phantom Solo cleats - fixed angles for max weight savings
Cincing the board together - The locking tabs push the binding pins into the cleats, which can cinch the two board halves together. But the maximum extention of the pins is when the locking tabs are at about 45 degree, not when flat. Even so, if you set your cleat positions up carefully, you can still get some some useful cinching together of the board halves.
Assembly for riding
Step 1 - Baseplate attachment - Take the M6's out of your backpack, drop them over the cleats at an angle to them, make sure the locking tabs are UP (so that the locking pins are retracted away from the cleats); then rotate the M6 to line the locking pins up with the “V” in the cleats and press down the tabs so the pins go into the “V”. Hey presto.
Under the locking pin tab, there is a screw adjustment that adjusts how far in or out the locking pin is positioned, set that once and forget it. That locking pin tab is the only bit of the entire assembly that isn’t super smooth, certainly the binding set pictured below, it can be a bit ‘graunchy’, but I after more use - and lube - it becomes smoother.
One issue faced with the M6’s was on a very cold day, somewhere close to -15C, on taking the bindings out of the backpack, where I’d had them with the locking tabs flat and pins therefore extended, when lifting the locking tabs up to restract the pins, the pins stayed extended - they had frozen in place. It took a few whacks with a variety of bits of equipment to get them to retract, then all was well, they worked fine after that. I spoke to Phantom about this and they simply recommended that for very low temps, some low-temp lube such as Tri-Flow (for you US-types) or similar.
One minor quibble is that it takes a bit of looking to know whether you have the right or left one in your hand, when figuring out whether to put it front or back. You have to basically check the canting, to be able to decide. It would be nice if there was some other more obvious way to tell left from right, front from back. You see that I’ve scratched some little arrows on the rear one, below, pointing to the back (hmm, or should I have the arrow showing the direction of movement?? Dammit).
Another observation is that, because the binding plates need to rotate into position, the positioning of your other touring gear, like the risers and tech-toes can restrict how close you can place the cleats to them. Because you need to rotate the binding into position, you need extra room between the cleats and that kit - you can see this in the picture on left below - see how close the heel risers are to binding place - I would not be able to be move the cleats back even one more position. So there might be loads of room after the binding is rotated in, but before-hand the binding might impact those bits of kit if the cleats are installed too close.
Base plate dropped into place over the cleats, locking pin tabs up and pins still withdrawn…
… Binding now rotated into place with locking pin tabs pressed down engaging the locking pins into the cleat’s recess.
Step 2 - Step in and lock the boots - You have to do the rear first, which does mean positioning the bail at a roughly appropriate angle, then putting your heel on the rear base plate and sliding it backwards until the bail goes somewhere near the rear crampon ‘shelf’. Many times I’ve tried this with the bail at too low an angle, so it hits the lower part of the boot heel, and you just need to start again…
Then for the front, locate the tip of the lever into the front crampon position, put a bit of oomph into it and pull the lever over.
Note that for Arcteryx Procline/Salomon S Lab boots, Phantom offer a different plastic spacer screw - which you can see on the underside of lever in the first image below.
Once you get used to it, it’s definitely a way process than for traditional softboot bindings.
Riding
Well, this is where is all comes together, and it just works. Front and back, if you have the bails positioned well, you are locked in so that there is zero up/down movement of your toe and heel.
As with all hard-boot bindings, I suspect, there is a tiny bit of on-the-fly adjustability because the bails are curved around the toe and heel, so you can add or subtract a few degrees for your foot just by rotating your boot franctionally before doing the lever up.
Some board upper surfaces are more curved, in profile, than others, and we’ve seen a bit of forward, rearward flex possible - i.e. the bottom of the M6 is not sitting 100% flat in contact with the entire board surface under it, but this is not really noticeable. And it helps contribute to a more surfy feeling.
Stepping out - so much quicker than for traditional bindings - the front lever springs open push it down, and then kind of step out, just making sure to clear the rear bail first.
Ice-up - Several times I’ve had ice-build up under the cleats while touring. For riding, rotating the bindings into position can then need a bit of welly and a few attempts, or clear it out with an ice-clearing tool.
Projecting locking pin tab - One interesting design aspect is that seen below - in ride mode, the locking pin tabs of the L/XL binding project over the end of the binding baseplate, and curve slightly downwards, and also stick out beyond the edge of even a 270mm waist board. This seems to pose a couple of potential issues - one is damage to the tab, it is exposed in turns, and secondly, for a slightly shorter boot than shown, it could dig into the snow on a carve before the heel or toe does (though, to be fair, it would have be a hell of a carve). It seems like a design where the locking tab does not project so much, or at all, could be possible one day. So far, this has not proven to be an issue in real life.
Wear & Tear
Nothing serious - after 30 days riding, just a little paint scuffing here and here on the black aluminium parts, and some scratches on the plastic toe levers - all within expectations.
Overall
The M6 bindings though maybe not the easiest to set up for certain boot sizes, work really well in practice. They appear to be very hard-wearing, with no obvious weak point for which you need to carry spares. You will need to make sure you carry good low-temp lube for some parts (the channel the locking pins move in, say) but once all set up and well-maintained, I think the M6 binding and the various cleat options will see you right for a long time.
The (really) good:
Beautifully made, both the M6 bindings and the cleats, light enough yet seem very robust and made to last.
Great canting angle, very comfortable.
Easy attachment/detachment
Plastic toe lever - kind to your boots, plenty strong enough.
Full contact of base plate with board - reduces vertical play between board halves, spreads the pressure and will help the feel of the ride.
The niggles:
Adjustability positions of the M6 binding heel and toe plates / bail position, can be a head-scratcher for certain boot sizes or centering positions. For non-Phantom (i.e. Atomic) boots, it might
Locking pin tabs overhang the board edges with the L/XL binding - unless you go for extreme duck-foot or alpine style - which can expose them to damage (you’d be unlucky), or on hard carves cause them to hit the snow before your boot does.
Need good low-temp lube on the locking pins, but only if you are going out in proper actic conditions.
Rotating assembly onto cleats means you need clearance from your tech toes and heel riser, could restrict choice of position of cleats on the board.
We hope this review had been helpful! Leave a comment if you like, we’d be happy to get back to you.
And, you can check out some more about that in our “Going hard” article about hardboot gear options).
Words - Andy Beale. Photos - Courtesy of Phantom, and author’s own.