A bit more then a week ago it was once again time for what I like to call “the pilgrimage”. You fellow readers, who have been following the blog for the last few years will know that at the end of January, we European “sports enthusiasts” always have a fixed date in our calender. The ISPO in Munich. The worlds biggest sports fair. For our American friends it would be the equivalent to the SIA trade show only bigger, as it is not merely limited to snow sports. Like the previous year, as time is scarce the older one gets, I had only one day to spend at the fair and like every year, I had already eyed a few companies that had garnered my attention in one way or another. This year I went around the fair and took a look at whats happening @ Ferrino, Stubai, Icepeak, Carinthia, Shred and Slytech and SWIX. The side program also included the legend that is the SP Lounge and a off the hooks two point winch contest with a kicker and a jib setup where Bavarian LiftlaOalm buddy Tobi slayed it. Since ISPO is always an adventure, lets start at the beginning.
6 AM. Sunday. My alarm goes off in Innsbruck. I had arrived on Friday for a bit of skiing before the big fair in Munich. Winter was nowhere to be seen. Friday quickly escalated into a beer at Flos and ended on the bar of the Endstation for a friends birthday party. Saturday meant getting rid of a bit of a hangover mixed with a whole week of sleep deprivation riding park with friends at the Vans Penken Park in Mayerhofen. At that point powder seemed like a dream far far away. So did the big fair day. I did not have a lot of time to prepare this year. With all the work at home I made a quick schedule for meetings. Would it work out?
I got out up. Packed my stuff and off I was. Munich. My old home from Erasmus exchange days past. It would be a quick visit. Full moon was out and I had another appointment for a full moon tour later back home in Slovenia. Later cloud cover would foil that plan, but at that point I was still determined to make that happen too. Like clockwork. I made it to the fair. Since this was my fifth or sixth visit to the ISPO it was all smooth. I knew where to park and had the experience to find the booths I wanted to check out with relative ease. Quickly I ate some chocolate at the car park, took my trusted camera bag and was off to my first meeting.
FERRINO
Our dear friends from Italy. Ferrino will probably be known to many of you if you were camping with your family as kids. But the Italian outdoor specialist does not only make tents and sleeping bags. They have a wide range of backpacks and clothing under their HighLab product line. Center piece to this is the new series of FULL SAFE Avalanche Airbag systems. Aside form Ferrino`s well known design that allows to actually store 30l in a 30l backpack it is the only system on the market to feature three protection devices in one pack. A light ALPRIDE airbag, a AIRSAFE air respirator and a RECCO Reflector. All of these safety devices are found in the Flagship model the FULL SAFE 30. Then going trough the line you can select what you prefer, either just the airbag or the respirator with the SAFE 30 joining the lineup with just the airbag and Recco. Ferrino launched these last year and I will defiently be taking it for a test run in the near future when some powder finally comes our way :).
Ferrino also makes good general backpacks. So since I had broken my old mountaineering pack at our glacial workshop at the Grossglockner a few weeks earlier (read more on that in one of the upcoming posts). I asked Syliva to supply me with one made for the Italian alpine rescue. The Sierra Alpha. I will write a short review, after some rigorous use over the coming year about that one too :). But to my surprise this year Ferrino had a completely new high-tech line of Backpacks to replace the X.M.T. line that used to be the mainstay mountaineering line in their product portfolio. It`s special feature was apparent. Minimalist design but all completely waterproof at minimal added weight and at around the same price point as its predecessors. These packs will be the once to look out for next season.
Another interesting thing will be nice for all the climbers of you out there. Two years ago Ferrino acquired a small climbing brand called Rock Slave. They include everything you will need for your climbing needs from trousers jackets, shirts, chalk and rope bags. Take a look at them. Prices are ok and the designs look nice too. Only problem for Slovenia here will be a distributor. I myself use a lot a few of Ferrinos jackets and our Italian friends from Pillow Lab recently reviewed the very versatile Malatra jacket for winter climbing. Very interesting read so check it out here.
Last but not least I ended my little Ferrino excursion outside at the tent park. After all the roots of the company are also an area of their premium expertise. Since I am preparing for a biwak project I am happy to say that we will also be using some of these specialized gear to sleep and live in, when we tackle outside survival in the hunt for better powder in the near future. Here the one to look at was the Snowbound 3 tent with welded seams to make sure it stays light and doesn’t lose too much heat.
STUBAI
Next stop was Stubai. As you guys know, because of my affinity to Innsbruck and also the close powder spots in the Stubai valley I must have passed the Stubai factory a million times. The company used to have an extremely good reputation in Slovenia for making very durable and reliable mountaineering equipment. Here and there you can still find an old Stubai ice pick or crampon that still works. Trough my “real world” job, a few weeks back I got an inquiry about the climbing gear market in Slovenia. Soon after we set up a meeting at the ISPO to see what our Tyrolean friends had in store for the coming season.
Some of you who follow the market know that a few years back Stubai had patented an interesting glue on system for approaching the old snow problem on crampons. The system worked so well that they extended it to the the improved version of the proven Tirol model. New for Ice climbing is the modular X-CHANGE PRO and Flex model crampon. These are meant for the hard hitters among you, the PRO being super modular, looking quite extreme and the Flex going into a more traditional route with a more classic adjustable heel system for all shoe sizes, set up on the fly.
Another new product I am happy to announce that we will be testing is the new all purpose 70 meters 9.5mm rope. The rope comes in the classic red Stubai color so you won`t be able to miss it in any wall. Look forward to a review on it with Stubai`s expresses as we get our hands on them at the beginning of spring.
Another trend, more in Austria then in Slovenia, are via Ferrata routes. Here Stubai developed a unique clip on system that solves the old problem when you are just a bit to small to clip directly to the next section of a route. Also for the laides a climbing harness in white 😛
All in all Stubai has a lot of interesting things to offer. In Slovenia it seemed that they overslept the changes in the market a little but with new products and focus in their marketing I`m looking forward to seeing more of them not only in Tirol but at home as well 🙂 I also like their slogan “NUR BERGE IM KOPF” – Only mountains on your mind.
IcePeak, LUHTA, TORSTAI
A week before ISPO I got an interesting press invite from a brand that had recently come to my attention. My father had bought a nice down jacket for a really good price at the local Hervis store. As I went climbing in one of those December days that seemed like summer in the sun and winter in the shade I had left my jackets in Ljubljana and had to borrow that one form my father. I liked it and it was from ICEPEAK. I had not payed a lot of attention to the brand aside from noticing it in a lot of the local Hervis stores. I did not know that since it`s beginnings in 1996 Icepeak had become one of the biggest European outdoor brands.
The key to it`s success can definitely be found in their business model. Produce good quality for a affordable price. Usually at this point we all get the “Chinese” third party manufacturer goosebumps, but in this case the Fins were smart. Now around 1.600 people are employed at Icepeak. The production is mostly done in China with the twist that Icepeak owns it`s own plants there. The staff is mixed and so the quality control is not the standard batch based nightmare of sending your people to check every other shipment. Of course adding to that the quality of work has improved substantially in china over the last decade as more and more know-how is implemented in the fastest growing economy in the world.
The collection of ICEPEAK is really huge with more then 70 pieces with variations. I focused on technical gear that would be interesting for you, dear reader. Here I found a wide collection of technical garments using in house developed materials with a high water column of 10.000 mm called ICETECH. They are very breathable and elastic. Mid layers with primaloft filling are the norm. Functional details seem to be well done and the design looks nice for 2016. I would really like to see how well the ICETECH shell performes in comparison to GORE or Sympatex materials.
On the premium side, looking more at what you would find in St. Anton or Lech is the LUHTA brand. As a powder hunter this is not my style but as we all know brands like Spyder or Bogner have their respected customer bases and they are considered “ski fashion” rather then just regular ski garments. Little details in design here make quite the difference.
Another area where ICEPEAK`s parent company is active is Fairtrade. As the first sports brand in the Fairtrade Cotton Program the company strives to increase cotton form Fiartrade regulated sources by 100 % in the 2016 collection. Fairtrade is an alternative approach to conventional trade based on partnerships between producers, traders, businesses and consumers. The TORSTAI brand is 100% in on this and it specializes in urban cotton first layers and urban outerwear.
As all brands with good growth prospects ICEPEAK is expanding. The next step is to enter the shoe segment of the outdoor market with ICEPEAK FOOTWARE. The idea is an outdoor shoe collection for every-day. Innovative use of Nylon, Lycra. rubber and other technical materials for water resistance and light weight while hiking. With other brands being very strong in this segment I recon this is going to be a hard one. Oh and speaking of new markets, they also produce outdoor stuff for your bellowed pets :).
CARINTHIA
With my biwak project taking shape doing a lot of research I was also looking at specialty brands that might not be so well known in the regular market but offer hight-tech gear.
Looking at sleeping bags for our project, packing light and only the bare minimum would be the norm. 45 L max. Sleeping bags need space and the more compact they are the better.
And this is exactly an area where Carinthia shines. As mostly a producer of military and expedition grade outdoor gear even for the harshest climates, they have the know-how and technology for these things. It was quite puzzling to me that they are not that well known. The G-LOFT insulation technology they developed seems to be quite a tad over Primaloft and since it`s all mil grade their outdoor section has a lot of interesting products.
I took a look at the G490X G-LOFT sleeping bag that has a comfort limit of -21.4 Degrees Celsius and is in comparison by pack size like a -10 artificial filling bag from the competition. The G350 on the other hand seems like the one I would go for with -14 comfort and even more compact.
Of course if pack size matters to you, down still reigns supreme and here we have the D600 and the D600c with a pack size of 17×20. After checking the whole market I have yet to find comparable data form other manufacturers.
One thing that has to be said thou is that this kind of outdoor equipment comes at a price. You will definitely not be selling these kind of bags to someone who buys a sleeping bag at a local Intersport for 70 bucks. But you get what you pay for and Carinthia seems, even thou mostly focused on military, the right brand for such an investment. We might get some of these babies to test out so look forward to a full on review once we start biwaking in a few weeks :).
SHRED OPTICS AND SLYTECH PROTECTION
After a long day and running around from one booth to the next I had one more meeting left. After all while skiing deep powder you need to see where you are going and when you fall doing the gnarliest 50ft drop, it is good to have some form of protection on zour head and specially your back.
Here SHRED, the company co-founded by skiing legend Ted Ligety and popularized by Tom Wallisch, Henrik Harlaut and Gigi Rüf had become very present in the freeskiing world. I was interested in what differentiates them from the rest and what makes then so innovative.
As CFO Federico Merle explained the brands core value are its riders. They are the ambassadors and their feedback shapes the brand and it`s products. In short: “By the riders for the riders”. A philosophy that has helped SHRED explode in terms of growth in recent years. So what does the brand offer next to a good image?
First the Goggles. SHRED has a patented technology that keeps a vacuum between the two goggles lenses. By keeping it there this eliminates chromatic aberrations. As a photographer I know how annoying these can be at times. It’s a bit of an opposite to what you see at Oakley where the prizm technology makes for a great lens but the chromatic aberration seems to be ever present in an extreme that seems to create the illusion of sharpness. After testing the PIRZMs back in Kaunertal I did like them but I was not a fan of the chromatic problem. So here in my book Shred scores.
As a freerider I am also annoyed with the fogging up of my lenses on the way up hill. To solve this problem shred partnered with 3M and produced a foam layer for the side and top of your goggles that is breathable and even repels water and snow. Innovation. I would be curious to see how that works in the long term. As we all know most goggle foams last around two to three seasons before starting to fall apart.
But these innovations do not end with the goggles. The other part of the company, slytech protection offers unique back protectors and helmets with a special honeycomb structure and foam to spread out possible impact. For Helmets think of it as a special version of the standard 3D impact system that lowers the severity of impact. Also on the creative side you can get the back protector with a bit of added weight in a Ninja Turtle look courtesy of the creative Henrik Harlaut.
SALOMON
Since I did not get into contact with anyone from Amer this year I just took a quick look at the Salomon booth before heading back home. Salomon seems to be going trough quite the brand refocus doing more on the running and trekking side then skiing. The lines of skis have been reduced a lot with only two park models left and the rockers getting discontinued. Instead we get a complete new line of QST skis that should unite the characteristics ob both my beloved rocker series and last years quests. These will be fun to test on next years openings in Kaunertal and Stubai.
The contest
With all the meetings and a long drive back home ahead of me I decided it was time to eat and meet up with my buddies from the LiftlaOlm. As it turns out DJI had sponsored a nice snowpark in the middle of the ISPO fair with a few rail obstacles and a nice kicker. All served by a two point winch setup.
My friend Tobi was riding the contest and doing some switch fives and stuff so I took the opportunity to take a few picture before visiting the legendary SP Lounge for some snacks and then heading back home.
And that was the ISPO 2016 for me. A great day meeting lots of motivated people doing cool stuff for us all to enjoy :). I might have skipped the awesome parties this time but leaving the fair every year leaves me with a wish to have more time to check out and learn more about all the innovations and ideas shaping the industry.
