I happened to grab a pair of the Union Contacts from the fellas at C3 WorldWide.  As a fan of the Union Force bindings, they recommended I take a look at the Contacts, and I’m glad they did.  I’ll admit, I was skeptical at first, as I’ve heard this binding was just way too soft, and not supportive outside of the park.

Union Contact

First things first let’s talk about build quality.  I own several pair of Union Forces, some of them from year two, where the bindings were made in Italy.  The new Union bindings have some parts that are made in Italy, but then assembled in China.  Does this affect the quality?   I don’t think so.   When I received the Contacts, the first thing I noticed was the weight or lack of with the contacts.  The Contact is incredibly lightweight, a lot of which is due to the baseplate design.

Union Contact Base Plate

Union has designed an injected EVA baseplate design.  Basically this means they’ve replaced a lot of the hard plastic normally found on some of their baseplates.  The injected EVA is a pretty slick design as it does allow the rider to really feel the flex and movement of the board, while also removing some weight from the baseplate and the binding. The Contact is a park/freestyle centered binding making it pretty soft, and playful.  Some people may not like the softness of the highback.

The Contact includes the extruded anodized heelcup which Union is famous for, as well as those infamous magnesium ratchets.  The leather straps are nice and plush, and ultra supportive. The toe-strap is convertible and can be used over the toe, or as a toe-cap, which can be a bit sketchy at times.

Union Contact Toe Strap

So let’s talk about the ride with these bad boys eh?  The Contact is indeed a soft flexible binding, designed for conquering the park and freestyle riding.  While it is a soft binding, it’s not the softest binding I’ve ever ridden.  The highback does tend to feel a bit under supportive if you’re trying to ride the mountain with it, although I will caveat this with, again the Contact is a park oriented binding.  I did ride all over the mountain with the Contacts on my Never Summer Revolver R and honestly  once I got used to them, I kind of adjusted to the riding style of the looser feeling highback.

Union Contact HighBack

My only two real complaints, if they really are complaints, about the Contact are the toe-strap, and the width of the binding baseplate itself.  My 32 Lashed boots were a bit of a tight fit width wide into the baseplate initially, and were a bit wonky getting strapped in.   The second issue I found is that the toe-strap will sometimes pop up and off to more of an over the toe position while riding.  This didn’t happen very often, but when it did, I found it slightly annoying. I think this may be due to the size 13 boots I was riding?

Union Contact

Honestly I was skeptical about these bindings, but I do thoroughly enjoy riding these bindings. Once you get past the few quirks I found slightly annoying, they are great bindings.  I didn’t have any issues with hardware coming loose during my riding, as I’ve had on my older pair of Force DLX’s.   If you’re looking for a park/freestyle orientated binding, that isn’t overly expensive and lightweight, definitely check out the Contact from Union!

*Disclaimer: I purchased these from C3-WorldWide*