Jones Mercury FASE Snowboard Bindings Review: The Best Fast Entry System

Saves time and energy getting in and out. Every bit as responsive as standard two-strap bindings. Can use any boot you like with them. Solid build quality.

Can be a little tricky to step into on steep slopes. Boots sometimes jammed. No SkateTech. Footbed seems to ice up more than usual.

The current landscape of snowboard bindings is a story of trade-offs. On the one side, you have the traditional two-strap bindings that offer maximum control and hold but are notoriously slow (skiers love to point that out). They require a fair amount of bending or sitting when you want to get in or out. On the other hand, you have step-on bindings, which have no straps. That allows you to stomp in and go, but it forces you to use specific step-on compatible boots. Unless they fit perfectly, you could have control issues.

In the past couple of years, we’ve started seeing hybrid solutions—systems that provide faster entry and exit but allow you to use your favorite boots from any brand and can provide the locked-in feeling that two-strap adherents demand.

The latest entrant into that category is the Fast Entry system (FASE), a new technology that has been licensed to legacy snowboard brands such as Jones, Rome, Bataleon, and ThirtyTwo, all of which have introduced models with it for the 2025-26 season. I spent the bulk of this season testing the Mercury FASE binding from Jones, and here’s what I found.

How FASE Works

At first glance, FASE bindings look like a standard two-strap system. While it does indeed have two straps, the toe strap is different. It has a locking mechanism on it, so once it’s set to your liking it won’t move again until you manually adjust it. The ankle strap (which FASE calls the FastStrap) is much longer than is typical. It has the standard ladder teeth for the ratchet lever to grab onto and hold, but it also has an extension that’s totally smooth aside from a bump at the end that helps keep it from disconnecting entirely. That’s so it can open wide enough to allow you to step in and out with your boot while staying a closed loop. This will be important in a second.

The biggest change is in the highback of the binding, which is called the AutoBack in the FASE system. While it can still fold all the way forward for travel and low-hanging chairlifts, when it’s open it leans much farther back than your standard highback. On the bottom of the highback, on the inside, is a sturdy plastic lever.

When you step into the binding, your boot presses down on that lever. That shunts the highback up into its full, upright position, pressing it into the back of your calf like normal. Then you just tighten the ankle strap, and off you go. When you want out, you just reach down and open the ratchet on the ankle strap. It releases, and you can step right out.

The Jones Mercury FASE binding I tested shares a lot of DNA with Jones’ standard Mercury bindings. It’s a fairly stiff binding, designed primarily for freeride (i.e. off-piste) and powder rather than the terrain park, but it works well as an all-mountain binding. It has a layer of foam padding both on top of and underneath the foot plate, which does a nice job of dampening vibration and giving you a little cushioning from hard landings.

Jones highbacks aren’t known for their customizability, and that trend continues here. You have two settings for forward lean, but that’s it. If you’re used to Union bindings, which allow you to tweak the rotation of the highback, you may find that disappointing, but for me, these highbacks fit my calves like a glove. They are stiff, which provided great responsiveness, but they’re lightly padded at the top, and I found them to be very comfortable.

The biggest departure from the standard Mercury model is that most of Jones’ traditional bindings use something that the company calls SkateTech. There's a fulcrum in the sides of the binding that lets you put a little more weight on your edges for more control. I’ve become a big SkateTech convert over the years, so I was disappointed that it wasn’t included here, though I adjusted quickly, and they still felt very responsive while using them. However!

In Use

I tested these bindings on a snowy road-trip through British Columbia and got them into a wide array of conditions, from steep and deep powder to icy groomers of death. I also got to try them while cat-skiing and heli-skiing in the backcountry, which is where I’ve found quick-bindings usually fail me. I tested them using the Jones Hovercraft 2.0 (which I spent two seasons on and reviewed for WIRED), as well as the rather hardcore 2025 Jones Flagship Pro, which is my new go-to for sketchy, scary, or mixed terrain.

That board is so stiff and aggressive that I worried the lack of SkateTech might make it tougher to drive, but the Mercury FASE system provided more than enough leverage. I wore the ThirtyTwo BOA X Sweetin boots, which are the most comfortable stiff boots I’ve ever worn.

Speaking of boots, make sure you get the right size bindings to match your boots, as that’s more critical than ever with this system. I wear size-11 boots but accidentally got the medium bindings at first, which was a mistake. My boots were jammed in there so tightly there was no ease to this easy-entry system. I was about to write these bindings off as a total failure until I swapped them for the size large, and suddenly everything clicked into place (pun intended).

The FASE system was incredibly easy to use. I stepped in and out of them a handful of times just to practice and dial in the tightness for the toe strap, then I just took off. The ride feels great, with fast turns and great edging, and I instantly felt I could trust them and push hard. There was no wiggle within the binding, but I didn’t feel like I had to overtighten the straps to keep my boots from shifting around. When I got to the bottom of the run, I just popped the latch on the ankle strap, lifted my heel, and stepped right out, which was as quick and effortless as any other quick-binding system (more on those in a second).

When it was time to strap back in, I’d just gently slip my boot into the toe cap, press down with my heel, and pop! The highback snapped into place easily. Once I got the hang of it, I could just step in with my front foot, then back foot, then bend down once to tighten both ankle straps simultaneously, one in each hand. That still uses a bit more energy than one of the systems you simply stomp into, but I found this one to be far more stable and locked in. You don’t need much pressure to get the heel lever to engage, which meant I rarely had issues stepping in, even in deep powder. That has always been a problem with systems like the Burton Step-Ons.

I will say that if you don’t get your toe far enough forward, it can be tough to get your heel in, and it can also be challenging to get in when you’re on a steep slope and don’t have a great angle, but in those cases you can just undo the toe ratchet, sit down, and use it like a standard two-strap binding. Similarly, stepping out can sometimes be a challenge, especially on uneven terrain, in powder, or if I got my boot accidentally wedged in a little too tightly.

But those issues were rare enough that the conveniences outweighed them. In incidents where I wound up in the flats (or a gully full of trees I had to climb out of) I was much less begrudging about unstrapping and re-strapping, because it really is a lot easier.

A Few Other Considerations

I did have a couple incidents where snow or ice built up on the footbed, which made stepping in all the more difficult. Usually I was able to pick it off with my gloved fingers, though on a couple of occasions I had to resort to a stick or my friend’s ski pole. They were still usable even in that condition, but if your boot doesn’t make proper contact with the foot bed then you lose some control. This is true of any binding, but you do notice it more when you're trying to get in and out quickly.

The toe and ankle straps (and the ratchets on them) are the best Jones has made. I’ve used the standard Mercury bindings for years, and while I love them, I have had the ratchets slip down the teeth of the ladder. On these bindings, they simply didn’t budge. The one annoyance is that sometimes the extended, smooth part of the ankle strap misses the guides that keep them flush against the top of your foot while you’re riding, which made me worry that they might snag or a branch or drag in some deep snow.

It’s worth comparing these to other fast entry systems. Probably the closest to this would be the Nidecker Supermatic system, which debuted in 2022. The Supermatics are also a two-strap system that you can use with any snowboard boot, but with these the whole footbed is the lever. The highback opens wider and you can simply step all the way in, it closes around you, and both straps are already done up. To exit, you pull a lever on the side and step out.

I was really excited about these when they came out, but in my testing they didn’t live up to the promise. They’re big, bulky, and heavy. In order to get my boot in, I had to keep the straps looser than I like, and then there was a lot of play within the binding, so I never felt solid in them.

The Burton Step-On system is the lightest and the easiest to step into. It has no straps, instead utilizing two metal toe cleats and one heel cleat that are installed on proprietary boots. They require less bending down (really only needed when you pull the lever by your heel to step out), so they save a lot of energy if you’re just cruising around a resort.

The main disadvantage is that there are no straps. The only way to control your board is downward pressure from your boots. If your boots don’t fit perfectly, that’s a problem, and there are fewer Step-On compatible boots available. I have to overtighten my boots before I feel secure, and even then I don’t fully trust them on steeper lines. They also require more pressure to click into properly, which is a nightmare when you’re in soft powder or on a steep slope.

Overall, the Jones Mercury FASE bindings are not only my favorite fast-entry binding by miles, but they’ve become my favorite bindings, period. I’d really like to see the SkateTech reintegrated into the next generation of these, as that’s the thing I miss the most. It would be nice to have a footbed that’s less of a snow-magnet, and I’d like to see them improve the occasional catchiness of the entry and exit, but these bindings have been extremely reliable. These aren’t just for casual resort riders (though they’ll like them, too). I trust these anywhere.