Telemark Talk / Telemark Tips Forum

While searching for old Telemark boots I have come across a lot of old Black Diamond gear but, in all of the time I spend reading these posts, I've never come across much talk about the Black Diamond stuff. I've even run across mention of a fully-releasable BD Tele binding from some years ago, the Skyhoy. Apparently it didn't do well.

https://www.mountainzone.com/gear/2000/ski/levy_tele/

So what's the story with the older BD gear? Is it undesirable for various reasons or did they turn their back on Tele and get blackballed? I'm sure there's an interesting story here.

Brands go in and out of fashion faster than women’s shoes. Most of it is due to paid ads in print magazine, which were exchanged for gear reviews. Throw in a bit of gnar or shred in a photo and everyone flocks to the brand so they can be just like the guy in the photo.

I don't think their "corporate hearts" were ever into telemark that much. I didn't find their gear particularly compelling from the telemark standpoint.

The BD focus is climbing… and making money of course,

The O2 binding was pretty popular. Still see them around from time to time. For a while deals could be had on boots but the supply dried up fast. And of course still lots of chouinard bindings out there if you count them.

The story exists in bits and pieces, and I am not the definitive resource, but BD was working on a new tele standard at the end. I don’t know if anyone knows the full accounting of why the plug got pulled on the project, but they scrapped everything, quit tele, quit making boots, and started selling rebranded/contract manufactured AT gear. Speculation is that they had something better than NTN, but were unsure of finding the market for it with the explosion of AT gear at the time.

spopepro wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 18, 2023 10:30 am

The O2 binding was pretty popular. Still see them around from time to time. For a while deals could be had on boots but the supply dried up fast. And of course still lots of chouinard bindings out there if you count them.

The story exists in bits and pieces, and I am not the definitive resource, but BD was working on a new tele standard at the end. I don’t know if anyone knows the full accounting of why the plug got pulled on the project, but they scrapped everything, quit tele, quit making boots, and started selling rebranded/contract manufactured AT gear. Speculation is that they had something better than NTN, but were unsure of finding the market for it with the explosion of AT gear at the time.

Interesting. I wonder what happened to the IP? Did they shelve it? Sell it? Someone bought it and shelved it? Heck, maybe it's at the heart of the Rottefella Xplore! BD is 'down' in SaltLake. Someone down there knows. Haha, I have an idea...

It sounds like BD looked at the RoI and stepped back. Or they hit a dead end and didn’t want to start over from scratch. It happens.

Now all we have to do is find somebody who wants to turn a large fortune into a small one and we’re in luck.

Answering my own question:

"In 2006, Black Diamond Equipment Asia was established in Zhuhai, China to serve as both a secondary manufacturing facility, as well as a global distribution hub. In May 2010, Black Diamond Equipment was acquired for $90 million by Clarus Corporation. The resulting corporation was renamed and is now publicly traded on the NASDAQ under the name CLAR."

Cheap manufacturing + bottom line = risk aversion and lower quality

Some of that’s true, but is a really selective reading. Opening your own manufacturing in China is different than contract manufacturing, and there’s some processes that the expertise is over there. BD found that out when they opened a new manufacturing facility in Utah somewhere around 2016 I think and had more QC issues there than overseas.

And BD has always had a cast of brilliant people rotating through. Sure, some have not stuck around because of corporate issues, but it’s overly reductive to dismiss them due to their practices. Remember… chouinard equipment was essentially never profitable.

Not many ski companies that don’t outsource their manufacturing to low cost areas. Mostly Eastern Europe because it keeps everyone more or less on the same page and time zone.

Well over half of BD business is in gloves, boots etc. Pretty much all of that stuff is typically outsourced to Asia, though a bit remains here and there in Eastern Europe. Here’s an example of how that works…

“Hestra found the perfect conditions in northern Vietnam for producing its premium-quality gloves. What chiefly attracted this Swedish family business to create one of the world's most modern glove factories here was the people and the culture of craftsmanship.” [from the Hestra site]

Suspect that low cost labor was part of the deal too… otherwise, wouldn’t Switzerland have been the place to find a culture of craftsmanship? The point is that BD is no different than anyone else.

@spopepro made some very good points in the post above…