Nidecker Supermatic Carbon Review

Hello and welcome to my Nidecker Supermatic Carbon snowboard bindings review.

In this review I will take a look at the Supermatic Carbon as freeride snowboard bindings.

As per tradition here at SnowboardingProfiles.com I will give the Supermatic Carbon a score out of 100 (based on several factors) and see how they compare with other freeride bindings.

Overall Rating

Bindings: Nidecker Supermatic Carbon

Price: $529 (USD recommended retail)

Style: Freeride

Flex Rating: Stiff

Flex Feel: Stiff (8/10)

Rating Score: 83.7/100

Compared to other Men’s Freeride Bindings

Overview of the Supermatic Carbon’s Specs

Check out the tables for the Supermatic Carbon’s specs and available sizes.

Specs

Who are the Supermatic Carbon Most Suited To?

The Carbon Supermatic are best suited to those looking for stiffer bindings, but still want some level of forgiveness - i.e. not as stiff as possible.  For those riders who value carving and high speed performance over maneuverability, but still want reasonably good slower speed turning performance. 

Particularly suited to those who want the above but also want quick entry, to get away as quick as possible after getting off the chairlift. 

Definitely not for beginners. Too stiff for that, IMO. If you're a beginner but really want to go with a Supermatic system, then the OG/regular Supermatic would be the better bet. Still not what I would recommend for beginner bindings, but a better option that these.

For intermediate riders who want Supermatic I would recommend going with the OGs. These should be used in the realm of advanced to expert riders only, IMO, unless you're a particularly strong/athletic intermediate rider. 

Test/review details for the Supermatic Carbon

O.k. let’s take a more detailed look at what the Supermatic Carbon are capable of.

Demo Info

Binding: Nidecker Supermatic Carbon 2025, M

Date: May 8, 2024

Mounting

Pretty standard in terms of mounting them to the board. If you try to do it with the strap done up, it can be a little tricky to get to the screws, but if you open the strap out, it's all good. 

I found there was quite a bit of space around my boots, initially but once strapped in, my boots are held well without moving around or anything. 

Flex

In Hand: The highback on these things is super stiff. I found it really hard to get any twist out of it, either laterally or medially. And there was no give when pulling straight back on it either. Up there with with the stiffest high-back's I've encountered. 

The ankle and toe straps aren't overly stiff though. The ankle strap is stiffer around the outsides and quite soft and malleable on the inner portion. Feels the same as the regular Supermatic and the straps looked the same too - so I assume they use the same toe strap. 

The ankle strap is different though and a touch stiffer, but still a good bit of malleability to it.

Of course the ankle and toe straps are connected, but they work in isolation to some extent. 

On Snow: Despite that ultra-stiff high-back (and I find high-back flex is seldom a good measure for how stiff they will feel when riding), they weren't mind bogglingly stiff or anything. They were stiffer than average for sure, but I've definitely ridden noticeably stiffer bindings. They were stiff enough I could get them to 8, but I was debating even 7.5. No stiffer than an 8/10 by my feel. 

Responsiveness

They felt really good for carving, offering really good support and improving my overall carve feeling with board vs with my control bindings. 

That wasn't too surprising, but what was surprising was how good they felt at slower speeds. Now, they weren't top tier slow speed turners or anything and I preferred my control bindings for slower speed riding, but for how good they were at high speeds and big carves, they were surprisingly good at slower speeds. 

Board Feel/Butterability

Again, much better than I thought they would be. I found them to be really decent for board feel. 

Pop/Ollie Power

It was a touch harder to initiate pop with/ollies with the Supermatic Carbon vs my control but not by much and overall power for pop felt the same. 

Adjustability

Heel Cup: No

Stance Width: Disc runs horizontally and there are 3 hole spacing options – full size disc. Good stance width micro adjustability. More on the disc below *. 

Highback Lean: A good breadth of angles you can go with. But not tool-less - needed a screwdriver (regular Supermatic is tool-less). Not a big deal, as most will only set it once, but a bit of a pain, if you're looking to experiment with your high-back lean or if you like to adjust your lean, depending on the day. 

Ankle Strap Position: No

Toe Strap Position: No

Ankle and toe strap length:  Tool-less. 

Gas pedal/toe ramp extension: Yes, 3 positions, giving you roughly 1.2cm of adjustability total.

Highback Rotation: No

Compatible with: 2 x 4 | 4 x 4 | The Channel | 3 hole

* They also use an offset disc – so you can adjust boot centering even when you run the disc horizontally. You can run vertically if you want as well, if you need more adjustment for boot centering and don't need the stance width adjustment to be as precise. Running the disc horizontally gives you about 4mm (0.4cm) of space to help with boot centering. Running the disc vertically gives you around 13mm (1.3cm) of help with boot centering. So, still more toe/heel centering adjustability running vertically, but if you need just a little bit of an adjustment and still want that stance width adjustability of running the disc horizontally, then that offset disc allows you to do that. 

Shock Absorption

There's a good amount of padding in the footbed. The heel piece has some good padding and then just forward of that is decent. And then gets a bit harder under the forefoot and toes. Thought the underside of the toes, has more padding than anywhere else – just harder on top.

On snow they absorbed shock and chatter well. I'd say still just off from my control bindings, but really close. Above average shock absorption, by my feel.

Entry/Exit

Ankle/Toe Ratchet Smoothness: Not really that relevant with these.  For most people getting these bindings, you would be leaving the ratchets alone once they’re fully setup – however, sometimes in deeper snow, you might use the ratchets to enter/exit. They’re fairly smooth, but not ultra smooth, but good enough. Ankle strap a little smoother than toe. They are harder than most to just place them in and push. I could do it on the toe strap, but on the ankle strap actually had to crank the thing to get the ladder to grab – couldn’t just push it to get the initial grab. But again, for the most part you only have to do it when you're setting them up and then set and forget them. 

Entry/Exit Process:

Given, the entry/exit of these bindings is half the reason you get them, I will dedicate a bit more to this section than I typically would. 

If you haven't seen or heard how Supermatic works, these are rear entry step in bindings but work a little different to others. There is a floating heel that is loose when you open the binding up. It uses active strap technology, like Flow bindings do, so you get plenty of space to get your foot in.

So you set up the strap so that when you step on the floating heel that it will give you a good fit, snug enough for good response and ankle support, but keeping it loose enough to get your boot in easily. There is a sweet spot you can find here but can take a bit of trial and error, I have found.

There are 3 straps you can make adjustments to – the ankle strap and toe strap have a third part connecting them which has it’s own adjustment. I found the key to being able to get a good solid fit but still having enough space to easily get your foot in when opened was to make sure not to have that middle adjustment too tight.

Once set how you like it you can just step into it and click the heel piece in place. There is an audible click, but because of how easy it was, I found myself, the first couple of times I did it, lifting my foot up and down to make sure it was in place. After that I gained more confidence that they had locked in place securely.

Comfort

Ankle Strap: Conformed well to my foot and no strap-bite. 

Toe Strap: Ditto ankle strap.

Canted Footbed: Yes (helps with reducing fatigue).

Padded Footbed: Good amounting of padding (see shock absorption section above for more). 

Highback: The top half of the high-back has some good cush to it. Cush but nice and springy feeling. Good rebound to it.  No padding bottom half of high-back. Most importantly I didn't get any calf bite.  

Ankle Support 

Despite making a good effort to tweak these, I still felt there could be more ankle support. They weren't bad, by any means, but also not amazing. With a bit more trial and error could maybe have been able to make it better without affecting the easy in/out too much. 

Score Breakdown and Final Verdict

Check out the breakdown of the score in the table below.

I can definitely see the appeal of quick entry bindings, like the Supermatic Carbon - and the Supermatic system is one of the better options, for quick in/out, in my experience. But I'm still not sure I'll ever be a convert. The quick in is nice, but I still find it easier to exit from strap bindings - probably mostly because I'm so used to it. But I also actually like the strap-in ritual. 

Ignoring the exit/entry part of these bindings, the Supermatic Carbon are really good bindings offering a great carving experience and I found them to be comfortable, with good shock absorption and surprisingly good board feel. And for their flex and given their carving prowess, really decent for slow speed turns too.