Stunning New BD Boot Line Could Upset the Industry

Had a nice ski tour in Austria today, but before talking about that and more Dynafit stuff I have to slip in some info about the new Black Diamond boot line that just went public.

Pictured below are a few of BD’s new AT boots. Interestingly, each AT boot (more than those pictured) has the option for AT rockered sole blocks with “tech” inserts that accept Dynafit bindings (these are attached with a sliding, four-screw system) or alpine blocks with no-slip soles, which are alpine DIN.

What is wild about all this is that I just got a look at the new Dynafit freeride boot, and it too has a nicely engineered removable sole system, of which one configuration provides the Dynafit fittings. Great minds think alike?

Also interesting is that the older style (without lead-in notch) Dynafit boot fittings went out of patent, so now BD can have their own fittings made and installed, so long as they call them “tech.”

We’ll of course be interested if these non OEM Dynafit fittings work as well as the OEM from Dynafit. An engineer friend tells me there is no good reason they won’t, but the analysis of metal hardness and dimensions has to be taken to a good level to have that happen.

In the end, we see the new BD boot line as an incredibly positive development for consumers. We hope that by having boots made in the far east instead of Europe, BD will have prices that are less stratospheric than the type of Euro exchange rate boot MSRPs we’ve been seeing. More, it can’t hurt for boot makers to get into a feature war. All that said, I’ll be surprised if any of the BD boots have the performance/weight ratio of the Dynafit Green Machine. But I’d say that’s something to watch for.

BD sent me a PDF of the new boots, but it’s too huge for web publication.