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Battle of the Titans...Report
from the front II... part one...
NTN Hits Store Shelves in Norway,
Rottefella Says Release Function is Dialed, Garmont Pulls Out
of BD Binding Project, Will Rejoin Scarpa and Crispi in Building
NTN Compatible Boots
Shop in Norway reportedly
sells some 100 pair of NTN bindings in first weekend of availability.
Garmont expected to have NTN boots ready for fall '08 sale.
NTN: The production model
(click for larger image)
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October, 25, 2007-- Rottefella's ground breaking New Telemark
Norm (NTN) binding system hit the shelves last weekend in one
of Norway's largest shops in what has been described as a very
successful "test sale." Amid much excitement, local
freeheel skiers are said to have snapped up more than 100 pair
of the long awaited NTN bindings and boots. "After so much
effort, we could not be more pleased to see the NTN launch so
strongly," said Rottefella president Ulf Bjerknes in a phone
conversation earlier this week."It was a great feeling to
finally be getting the NTN into the hands of enthusiastic telemark
skiers."
News of the test sale came on the
heels of confirmation of Garmont's decision not to wait further
for Black Diamond Equipment to complete development of a competing
boot/binding system announced by the Utah-based industry leader
last winter. "Garmont¹s decision is based upon the
fact that Black Diamond was unable to develop and bring to market
the new system to match our business cycle and business plan,"
said Garmont head John Schweitzer. "We understand that this
was due solely to the project¹s complexity and we thank
BD for giving Garmont the opportunity to be involved in this
project. We wish BD and it's team future success on this project."
Commenting on Garmont's departure
from Black Diamond's program, BD head Peter Metcalf had this
to say, "There are many variables at play and rather than
speak to speculation, BD will focus on building a new binding
that will be a significant improvement to the current marketplace.
BD has a long history of innovative products which help advance
the sports we serve, and this is our resolute goal." Addressing
his plans for future alliances, Metcalf continued, "if and
when others join us to distribute the binding as the project
becomes more finalized remains to be determined, and we will
discuss these partnerships when they are more concrete and relevant."
Although this has yet to be confirmed,
indications are that Garmont's goal is to have an NTN boot ready
for retail sale by fall 2008. Like Scarpa's Terminator-X, we
expect Garmont's initial NTN offering will be Dynafit compatible
as well.
Ironically, Garmont's announcement
came at almost the same time that we were hearing from an independent
source with knowledge of the situation that BD's binding program
has turned the corner on a key feature of the new system. "The
DIN release function has progressed nicely, exceeding expectations
for a predictable release, work remains on the step-in function,
although this too has begun to look promising" said the
source. "Hard lessons were definitely learned as a result
of their experience with the Skye Alpine binding a few years
ago, and these lessons haven't been forgotten. BD will not rush
this new system to market, and they are choosing to be very conservative
with regard to both function and durability." Our source
continued, "the current goal is to have the new binding
ready for fall '09 sale, but BD won't launch the new system until
the design has been thoroughly refined. Bringing an advanced
and mature product to the table is how they plan to compete with
what will already be available."
As if all of this news were not
enough, details of Rottefella's somewhat surprising claim of
a dialed NTN release function have emerged as well. "We
probably should have done a better job of communicating our plans
to include a release function in the production version of the
NTN," said Ulf Bjerknes in our long conversation. "Getting
the release values dialed in was our focus for nearly all of
last winter, and the release function itself has been something
we have been working hard on for nearly three full years. But
we could not include this function in the demo version of the
binding last year until we completed work on calibrating those
release values."
More on this in part two.
Stay tuned
A top view of the NTN production
model (click to enlarge)
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