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February 2, 2006--
In this first part of our recent wide ranging interview with
Rottefella's Marketing Manager Torbjorn Ragg, he introduces the
binding and discusses some of the advantages of getting rid of
the asymmetrical 75mm telemark boot with its "duckbill"
toe.
Key points include:
- Scarpa, Crispi and Garmont are now showing
boots to the trade designed to work within the new norm and utilize
Rottefella's "second heel" design.
- The new norm Rottefella and the three
boot makers are attempting to establish what can be considered
to be an open platform at the heel and the toe, allowing other
freeheel binding manufacturers, to design and build models of
their own to accommodate the new duckbill-less, symmetrical and
standardized NTN boots without having to license the "second
heel" method of attachment from Rottefella.
- Rottefella feels that its new norm and
second heel concept, with it's standardization of tele boot geometry
and reduced stress on the system, gives binding makers the opportunity
to begin to focus more on performance issues and advanced features
instead of just durability.
Author's note:
This latter point, if true, would represent a sea-change in the
telemark binding market. Just last week, during a presentation
at the Outdoor Retailer tradeshow, one freeheel binding maker
had this to say, "we feel that a big advantage of our binding
is that a skier can walk into a shop anywhere, even in a tiny
town in Idaho, and find a wall full of spare parts."
Sadly, that is an all too accurate snapshot
of just where we are currently at with the telemark 75mm toe
boot/binding interface --Mitch Weber |
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