Over all I think using regular boot bindings with a mono-ski is great. It makes mounting and un-mounting the ski a snap. Literally, you just snap right in. No more nut's and bolts falling in the snow, no more lining up holes, banging on skis and freezing your fingers. The ski can flex under the boot the way it was designed to resulting in longer lasting skis and less breakage. With the system I have been using I do not pin the front binding, I have a stainless steel fork that locks to the binding and ski, preventing the toe binding from releasing. Only the rear binding in pinned and I keep the DIN setting low enough that I can snap the mono in and out my self. I use a 1/4" stainless steel quick release pin, the pull ring style. When I remove the pin, I can easily release the binding with push of my hand.

RANT:

This brings me to an issue that came up time and time again over the season in e-mail I received for some of you. The issue of DIN settings. Some of you find it difficult to mount the ski from a sitting position with the DIN set to it's max. And then to try and release the binding with out standing on it can be another problem. I did a little experiment to see how important the DIN setting is on a pinned binding. My finding is this: If the binding is pinned correctly the DIN setting is nullified. To test this theory I lowered the DIN setting to about 4 on a used Marker M38 binding. Then I skied it like a mad man. Over jumps, through bumps, hard wipe outs and fast carving turns. It never released, it never moved. When the binding is pinned correctly, it can not release, It's pinned. If what you are doing now works fine for you, by all means keep doing it, but if you have difficulty mounting and un-mounting your ski, lighten up the DIN!

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