Toe unit of a safety ski binding

Toe unit of a safety ski binding, for use with a ski boot and a ski, the ski having a front and rear portion and a top surface, , the toe unit comprising a housing, secured to the ski, including an inclined surface (19) fixed relative to the housing, and including two substantially vertical axes of rotation disposed on both sides of a vertical central longitudinal plane of the housing;

• a sole clamp which supports a front part of a sole of the ski boot from the front of, the sides of and from above the ski boot sole when the ski boot is attached to the ski binding;
• a spring (26) acting between the housing and the sole clamp for generating a substantially forwardly directed spring force;
• the sole clamp being pivotable against the substantially forwardly directed spring force about a respective one of said two substantially vertical axes of rotation such that on an occurrence of predetermined lateral forces at the front part of the sole, the sole clamp pivots outwardly about one of said axes of rotation lying in a direction of such lateral force and releases the ski boot, with the sole clamp being displaceable relative to the housing in a direction of the axes of rotation and being resiliently biased in this direction towards the front part of the sole of the ski boot, wherein the sole clamp further includes a downwardly and forwardly facing abutment (18) in a chosen one of a region between the axes of rotation (17) and on a part movable with the sole clamp along the axes of rotation (17) and cooperates with said inclined surface (19), extending downwardly and rearwardly in such a way that when the ski boot (15) is inserted into the binding, the ski boot sole (14) holds the sole clamp (16) against a downwardly directed spring bias at a level at which the abutment (18) is located at at least a small distance from the inclined surface (19) so as to exert no forces on the inclined surface (19);
• and wherein the ski boot (15) is downwardly yieldingly supported on the ski (22) in such a way that with forward inclination of a skier using the binding, at least a portion of the sole (14) engaging the sole clamp (16) moves downwardly such that the abutment (18) on the sole clamp (16), which follows the movement of the sole (14), abuts on the inclined surface (19) at least during a simultaneous sideways release movement of the sole clamp (16), to generate a counterforce to a sole clamp resetting force generated by the substantially forwardly directed spring force, the counterforce being dependent on an inclination of the inclined surface (19) and the resilient bias of the sole clamp (16) in the downward direction, and being smaller than the sole clamp resetting force.