Shopping for Alpine Touring Gear

Staley":1qwo0r99 said:
Except when it's Salomon, which makes defective AT boots, destroys a person's leg and life, and then does nothing about it, except release the boot again the next year.

That's both disingenuous and factually inaccurate. They're not the same boot. What failed was the tech insert in the toe lug, not the boot itself. Those toe lugs have been recalled and this year's boot is not Dynafit compatible as a result. As for the incident in question, I understand that the matter is currently being litigated by the injured party and we don't know what settlement discussions may or may not have taken place prior to litigation.
 
If you check out the website they are actually offering tech inserts as an option still. Also, settle negotiations did not break down, as Salomon never tried to settle, but instead tried to hide the situation as best they could. Quite simply, they took short cuts on engineering and testing, messed up really badly and are now trying to avoid the consequences (although I must admit, this is simply how most big businesses work). For more information, look at these threads:

The TGR thread: http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/show ... p?t=191256

The Wildsnow post that really shows how bad the Salomon tech fitting was: http://www.wildsnow.com/2888/salomon-qu ... s-failure/
 
Staley":17evlam3 said:
If you check out the website they are actually offering tech inserts as an option still.

Really? Where? Link, please.

Staley":17evlam3 said:
Also, settle negotiations did not break down, as Salomon never tried to settle, but instead tried to hide the situation as best they could.

I'd like support for this statement, too. Were you one of the parties involved?

Staley":17evlam3 said:
Quite simply, they took short cuts on engineering and testing, messed up really badly and are now trying to avoid the consequences (although I must admit, this is simply how most big businesses work). For more information, look at these threads:

You're making big assumptions here. They may be true, they may not be...that is the purpose of the litigation where a trier of fact will decide the issue, not you, me or TGR blow-hards. I hardly consider TGR forum threads to be a bastion of reliable reporting.

Staley":17evlam3 said:
The Wildsnow post that really shows how bad the Salomon tech fitting was: http://www.wildsnow.com/2888/salomon-qu ... s-failure/

Lou, on the other hand, is reliable and his testing clearly showed the failure that resulted in Salomon properly recalling the toe lugs with the tech inserts.

I return you to your original statement that I took issue with:

Staley":17evlam3 said:
Except when it's Salomon, which makes defective AT boots, destroys a person's leg and life, and then does nothing about it, except release the boot again the next year.

I agree that Salomon's tech inserts exhibited failure. However:

  • It has yet to be conclusively demonstrated that said failure was the cause of this plaintiff's injury;
  • It's untrue that Salomon "did nothing about it" -- they recalled the suspect tech fittings and have not reissued them; and
  • They did not release the boot again the next year. The boots that failed were pre-production test models that were handed out to barely more than 100 industry pros and media, including yours truly, to try before they went into retail production. They released the first production models of the boot this year without the suspect tech fittings.
 
I saw that they were still offering the tech inserts yesterday in the TGR thread. I just looked again today and it has been removed. Here's a screenshot that someone took 2 days ago:
sollypad.jpg


I'll admit I obviously have no inside knowledge of the settlement proceedings. All I know is what was posted on TGR; however, the guy who was injured, Dalton (thin cover) has posted a bunch in the thread. I wish I had the time to go through that thread and find quotes, but the thread is just way too long.

It has yet to be conclusively demonstrated that said failure was the cause of this plaintiff's injury

Come on... I don't know what type of evidence a court would need to prove that the poorly-designed fitting caused the injury, but we're not in court here. We all know what caused his injury.

They did not release the boot again the next year. The boots that failed were pre-production test models that were handed out to barely more than 100 industry pros and media, including yours truly, to try before they went into retail production. They released the first production models of the boot this year without the suspect tech fittings.

Not true: they sold these to normal consumers (such as Dalton). Even Salomon admitted this: "There are very limited quantities of these boots and pads in the market. While most of these products were distributed without charge for trial purposes, a very small number may have been sold." (from http://www.wildsnow.com/2899/salomon-quest-boots-announcement/). I'm not sure why they say "may have been sold" since there's plenty of evidence to show that they were sold.

Also, they' must have taken shortcuts of some sort while designing the fitting. Here's a quote from Lou, who I agree is the most trustworthy person in all of this: "I applied a reasonable amount of force to the pry bar and boot, nothing extreme. The fitting almost immediately deformed and pulled part way out of the boot, then the boot ejected from the binding due to the fitting going out of alignment. In other words, a skier could easily do this by simply leaning back in a pair of ski boots."
Edit: Photo Removed

Here's a comparison of the Dynafit vs Salomon fitting. Considering Dynafit is so obsessed with keeping weight down, you'd think they wouldn't make the fitting beefier than necessary.
Edit: Photo Removed


Another MAJOR issue: Salomon knew there was something wrong with the tech fittings BEFORE Dalton's accident occurred. Here's a page in French: http://translate.google.com/transla...orums/sports/ski/sujet-105712-100.html&anno=2
I'm not good enough at French to translate is well. Maybe someone like Patrick can help out. Here's a translated excerpt from that page:
On a French ski forum, a Salomon rep has been publicly stating that the Quest shoes indeed have problems with its Dynafit fittings, that this was something known but that the products won’t get recalled b/c there was not so many people using the shoes with tech bindings. He also stated that you would be able to “fix” the problem by locking the bindings. Eventually he mentioned that the shoes sold this year were a pre-serie and you cannot expect a perfect product from a pre series.
 
Staley":253sd67m said:
I saw that they were still offering the tech inserts yesterday in the TGR thread. I just looked again today and it has been removed. Here's a screenshot that someone took 2 days ago:
sollypad.jpg

Note the country: Sweden. I'm guessing that someone failed to remove the pads from the Swedish version of the website, which makes even more sense now that the link is gone today. Also note that the boots are pictured with touring pads mounted and that those touring pads do not have tech inserts. There's no evidence at all that they could have been successfully purchased at the time. No one bought them via that link and had them delivered in hand. I discussed this very issue with the appropriate parties at Salomon in July and was advised at that time that the boots would enter retail for 2010-11 and touring pads with tech inserts would not be available.

Staley":253sd67m said:
It has yet to be conclusively demonstrated that said failure was the cause of this plaintiff's injury

Come on... I don't know what type of evidence a court would need to prove that the poorly-designed fitting caused the injury, but we're not in court here. We all know what caused his injury.

No, we don't. It's possible, for example, that he hit a rock and the sudden deceleration ripped the boot from the ski, which could happen with any binding/boot combination. Neither you nor I, nor anyone else at this time, has an analysis of the forces involved in this incident to determine if the same injury could have occurred with Dynafit's tech fittings. You and I both know that there are numerous other possibilities as well. The fact of the matter is that we do not know with even the slightest degree of certainty what caused the injury.

Staley":253sd67m said:
They did not release the boot again the next year. The boots that failed were pre-production test models that were handed out to barely more than 100 industry pros and media, including yours truly, to try before they went into retail production. They released the first production models of the boot this year without the suspect tech fittings.

Not true: they sold these to normal consumers (such as Dalton). Even Salomon admitted this: "There are very limited quantities of these boots and pads in the market. While most of these products were distributed without charge for trial purposes, a very small number may have been sold." (from http://www.wildsnow.com/2899/salomon-quest-boots-announcement/). I'm not sure why they say "may have been sold" since there's plenty of evidence to show that they were sold.

Let's see now...is it possible that someone who was given a demo pair, for example a shop, simply resold them? Others, for example, could have put their pair on eBay. That's the gist of Salomon's statement. Do you know where Dalton purchased his boots? Do you know for a fact how the seller of Dalton's boots acquired them? No, you don't, and neither do I. The irrefutable fact is that at the time of the incident Salomon had not input the boots into the retail chain. I discussed this at length as well with the appropriate parties at Salomon in the aforementioned July conversations.

Staley":253sd67m said:
Also, they' must have taken shortcuts of some sort while designing the fitting. Here's a quote from Lou, who I agree is the most trustworthy person in all of this: "I applied a reasonable amount of force to the pry bar and boot, nothing extreme. The fitting almost immediately deformed and pulled part way out of the boot, then the boot ejected from the binding due to the fitting going out of alignment. In other words, a skier could easily do this by simply leaning back in a pair of ski boots."

Which is why the touring pads were recalled prior to retail production. Clearly, if Lou was able to do this test -- and I trust him implicitly -- adequate product testing did not occur during the design phase of the inserts, I agree with you there. However, I return you to your original statement which I've tried throughout this thread to correct you on -- they didn't simply release the same boots to retail this year, it's not clear that the design resulted in Dalton's injury, and you have absolutely no evidence whatsoever that Salomon didn't attempt to make good on their design shortcoming. The fact of the matter is that Salomon's tech fitting design has absolutely no impact whatsoever on the Quest boots put into retail this season, so this whole mess has no bearing at all on Tony's consideration of this season's Quest boot except that he can't use them with Dynafit bindings, which he's apparently not thinking of doing anyway.

And FYI it's seriously uncool to hotlink someone else's images as you did with Lou's. That's why Lou has implemented hotlink protection and the images failed to appear here. Doing so uses Lou's bandwidth to pay to display the images here. I have implemented similar hotlink protection at FTO for the same reason.

Staley":253sd67m said:
Another MAJOR issue: Salomon knew there was something wrong with the tech fittings BEFORE Dalton's accident occurred.

That's one person's Monday morning quarterbacking. Neither you nor I know if this individual has any reason, beef or grudge to fabricate or exaggerate his story. You may also note that his indication is that there were "problems" with the tech inserts that remain unspecified, and that this "problem" only occurred for him in touring mode, not skiing mode. He also accurately points out that, counter to your assertions above, the tech inserts involved were a pre-production demo unit and not on a retail boot.

The bottom line here is that you're jumping into the TGR lynch mob without knowing the facts first.
 
Sorry, I had no clue about about the hotlinking of images.

I know major retailers were actually selling the boots last year: at least Backcountry.com and Bent Gate Mountaineering. That's probably the biggest issue here. Not many boots were sold, but a few definitely were.

The best known failure of the tech fittings prior to Dalton incident did occur during while touring: some guide in Alaska ripped the fitting out of the boot while touring during a mountaineering guide exam. From that event, you would have thought that Salomon would have performed some kind of test like Lou did and discovered that the fitting were extraordinarily weak.

Concerning what caused the accident, from Dalton we know he was skiing on a moderate angle slope at slow speed when the boot ripped out of the binding. Dalton said he didn't hit a rock, and considering other people also saw the accident, it seems reasonable to trust him.
 
Staley":3pd78h8n said:
Sorry, I had no clue about about the hotlinking of images.

No worries, that's why I took a moment to explain it. A lot of folks don't realize the effect of doing so.

Staley":3pd78h8n said:
I know major retailers were actually selling the boots last year: at least Backcountry.com and Bent Gate Mountaineering. That's probably the biggest issue here. Not many boots were sold, but a few definitely were.

And how do you know this and when was this occurring? Do you know with certainty that they weren't 2010-11 retail units shipped in advance (which were different from the demo units that Dalton had)? Do you know for a fact that they included touring pads with tech fittings? Are you sufficiently so certain in each of these convictions that you'd be willing to testify under oath in court to their accuracy? If not, they're not certain, they're a belief rather than fact.

Staley":3pd78h8n said:
Concerning what caused the accident, from Dalton we know he was skiing on a moderate angle slope at slow speed when the boot ripped out of the binding. Dalton said he didn't hit a rock, and considering other people also saw the accident, it seems reasonable to trust him.

Perhaps it is. But we also have not seen a biomechanical reconstruction of the accident to know with a reasonable degree of certainty what forces were involved, what specifically caused the injury or how it might have been prevented. How do you know, for example, that it wasn't a result of a failure in the Dynafit bindings to release as they should? And before you give me some eyewitness account to the contrary, this is only one of a plethora of possibilities. I really don't care to go back and forth each time you think that you're refuting one of those possibilities. The fact of the matter is that we have absolutely no confirmation whatsoever that Salomon's tech fittings directly resulted in the injury sustained. That has yet to be determined as the matter is adjudicated and tests are conducted during the discovery process. And until that occurs, everything else is merely conjecture.
 
And how do you know this and when was this occurring? Do you know with certainty that they weren't 2010-11 retail units shipped in advance (which were different from the demo units that Dalton had)? Do you know for a fact that they included touring pads with tech fittings? Are you sufficiently so certain in each of these convictions that you'd be willing to testify under oath in court to their accuracy? If not, they're not certain, they're a belief rather than fact.

These were available last year through retail stores. Here's a quote from Jonathan S., who seems to be a trustworthy guy: "If Bentgate really has at least two pair currently for sale (as the website would seem to indicate — sizes 26.5 and 28.5)..."

Another, albeit nonspecific, quote from Jonathan S.: "*MAY* have been sold? At least three U.S. retailers definitely sold them. (A very small number, yes, but they were definitely sold.)"

From Beyond in the TGR thread: "I just bought a pair of Quest 12's, so consider me and what's left of my knees educated by your experience."

Directly from Dalton: "a few retailers in the US had them, evo,bc, bent gate, maybe a few others. When I heard bent gate had a few in( 3 sizes) this spring, they were billed as this :http://www.bentgate.com/saqupropeatb.html

but said quest 12 of course

but they only have the pro left now, The 12 sold out I am sure due to the stiffer flex.

as you can see clearly not a test or beta, just early for next season is all"


You're right that we should end this debate, as there's no way we'll come to a conclusion. You want actual proof that would stand up in court. I obviously cannot provide that. I do not view this forum as a place where you can't say anything that you wouldn't be willing to under oath in court, but rather a place to voice opinions and spread skiing related news and reports.

Let's get back to the Duke vs. Baron question. Should I just get the Duke and feel totally secure or save a bit of weight and money to get the Baron?
 
Staley":6xwg7mff said:
And how do you know this and when was this occurring? Do you know with certainty that they weren't 2010-11 retail units shipped in advance (which were different from the demo units that Dalton had)? Do you know for a fact that they included touring pads with tech fittings? Are you sufficiently so certain in each of these convictions that you'd be willing to testify under oath in court to their accuracy? If not, they're not certain, they're a belief rather than fact.

These were available last year through retail stores. Here's a quote from Jonathan S., who seems to be a trustworthy guy: "If Bentgate really has at least two pair currently for sale (as the website would seem to indicate — sizes 26.5 and 28.5)..."

Another, albeit nonspecific, quote from Jonathan S.: "*MAY* have been sold? At least three U.S. retailers definitely sold them. (A very small number, yes, but they were definitely sold.)"

I know Jonathan personally and appreciate his integrity. However, there's absolutely nothing there to indicate that they were 2010-11 retail units and not demo units, which was my point you quoted above, nor is there anything to indicate that they had touring pads with the recalled tech fittings.

Staley":6xwg7mff said:
From Beyond in the TGR thread: "I just bought a pair of Quest 12's, so consider me and what's left of my knees educated by your experience."

Same response. Where did he get them and who did he buy them from, and how did the seller get them? You quotes don't answer that, and you're becoming deaf to my earlier points.

Staley":6xwg7mff said:
Directly from Dalton: "a few retailers in the US had them, evo,bc, bent gate, maybe a few others. When I heard bent gate had a few in( 3 sizes) this spring, they were billed as this :http://www.bentgate.com/saqupropeatb.html

Same response.

Staley":6xwg7mff said:
but said quest 12 of course

Which didn't come with the tech inserts or even touring pads. The Quest 12 came only with alpine DIN pads. The touring pads had to be purchased as an optional accessory, but that accessory was recalled before hitting retail.

Staley":6xwg7mff said:
but they only have the pro left now

With touring pads that don't have the tech inserts.

Staley":6xwg7mff said:
You're right that we should end this debate, as there's no way we'll come to a conclusion. You want actual proof that would stand up in court. I obviously cannot provide that. I do not view this forum as a place where you can't say anything that you wouldn't be willing to under oath in court, but rather a place to voice opinions and spread skiing related news and reports.

But you must exercise great care to avoid disseminating false, misleading or inconclusive information as fact, whether it's here or elsewhere. I'm merely fixing that.
 
But you must exercise great care to avoid disseminating false, misleading or inconclusive information as fact, whether it's here or elsewhere. I'm merely fixing that.

Yep, you're right. I should have taken much greater care in choosing my words, especially in my first post on the subject. After all, it's because of the general trustworthiness of this forum that I prefer it over all others.
 
Still waiting for the Fritchis..supposed to ship the 29th or there abouts...then I have to find a place to mount them..one that knows how as there isn't a lot of call for these round my parts. Might have to go to Eastern Mountain Sports in the city where I got the boots..oy.
 
I tried on 4 AT boots at Mammoth Mountaineering this week. A question for the AT folks out there: how much does it matter for skinning up the hill if the boots weigh 9 pounds vs. 7 pounds? They thought I should be looking at boots on the lighter side because they considered the Verdicts and Barons heavy by AT standards.
 
Tony Crocker":yblti3t0 said:
I tried on 4 AT boots at Mammoth Mountaineering this week. A question for the AT folks out there: how much does it matter for skinning up the hill if the boots weigh 9 pounds vs. 7 pounds? They thought I should be looking at boots on the lighter side because they considered the Verdicts and Barons heavy by AT standards.
Depends what your needs are and intended use.

I recently did a gear weight in of all my gear. I found my heaviest setup (alpine boots and bindings with fat skis) was 31 pounds (give or take) and my lightest weight setup (Radiums, Dynafits, Watea 94) was 21 pounds (give or take). Two pounds is not insignificant if that is the difference between two different AT boots. What you gain in weight savings, you may give up in performance, I suspect--without knowing the boots you tried on.

Weight can't be looked at in absolute terms either since there are essential floors and ceilings to how much a given rig could possibly weigh while staying within a given set of parameters. So two pounds may not look like much in my example, but given my parameters, 21 pounds is essentially the bottom floor of weight for potential performance sacrifice I am willing to make. So two pounds is pretty significant in my case. The difference between my AT boots and Alpine boots is about 5 pounds (345 BSL) and the difference is night and day.

Essentially, I would say when touring, every pound counts but I don't count anything less than a pound.
 
When skinning, 2 lb on your feet is like 10 lb in your pack. Think about it -- you're moving that extra 2 lb forward with every stride.

Like river, I've pretty much separated my touring rig from my resort skiing rig. Over time I found that my lightest ski setup (G3 Reverends mounted with Silvretta Pures) is too light for everyday resort skiing because they're so light they get tossed around easily by cut-up snow. Unlike River, however, I'm using one pair of boots for everything.
 
East Coasters, be aware that Whiteface is having an alpine touring/telemark demo day this Sunday including both skis and boots with $35 lift tickets.
 
I tried weighing my different boots and skis last night..of course the scale gave me varying weights...but it looks like I saved about 2 lbs on the boots..Garmonts vs nordica 120's...it feels like a lot more though..huge difference. The skis ...not sure , the scale was off each time but the s3's with fritchi pro's feel a lot lighter than my Sultan 85's..yet the scale shows about a 4 lb difference..feels like more though..the Sultans are tanks. I really noticed it when skating around on the flats and in the bumps. I was thinking of trying out the alpine soles on the Garmonts but don't feel like removing all the screws...so I just might have to change the bindings on the Sultans some day..maybe Barons as they will be used frontside only...and I really like the rubber soles on the Garmonts for walking around...and it looks like I'll have some powder to use them again in.
 
I tried on the Garmont Shogun at a shop in Hakuba. First lightweight AT boot that was fairly comfortable. Anyone know anything about it?
 
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