Photo courtesy of Mikey Schaefer and Patagonia
Two comments that took a few minutes to write and I thought worth repeating here with an additional link from Patagonia.
Patagonia and water proof down?
"I've seen a lot of nice down jackets in the past couple of years.
And the industry has a twice yearly "game changer" @ OR. Some real and some imagined. Here is what I have been told. YMMV. I simply don't know enough to comment any further. But call me skeptical. Water proof down goes back to/comes from the fly fishermen. I have not talked with any of the current proponents of water proof down directly. But I did happen upon two of the major manufactures that have decided not to use a treated down in their garments. The reasons as I understood them? Not hard to turn 700 fill down into 1000 fill down by this process. Just hard to keep it 1000 fill down in long term use. Not hard to make water proof down. Just hard to keep it water proof down long term. My opinion? Down garments and bags will last generations and fully functional if properly cared for. The good ones are and have always been expensive. I want mine to last and work as expected from day one till I decide to ditch it. I understand the reasoning behind wanting water proof down. Great idea. And it may well be a game changer. But when two of the best manufactures in down gear currently decide they want to wait...and for what seems like good reasons. I'm hesitant. The flip side to all that? I've had the chance to spend the winter in the newest Patagonia alpine line of clothing. Guide, Mixed Guide, North Wall and Knife Blade/Piton combos. Gotta say I am really impressed with every piece of the line. The designers and the athletes have obviously come together in the alpine line with some amazing synergy. I really am impressed. Even though I think it might better be described as a dh ski line as easily as a "alpine" implied climbing line. It works for both and looks pretty natty All of which bodes well imo for the new down. Just not convinced yet." Much more here from Patagonia and worth the read: http://www.thecleanestline.com/2013/03/the-patagonia-encapsil-down-belay-parka-an-origin-story.html
Black Diamond Crampons again:
Keenan:
"the heel piece that I just received used a harder alloy and different plastic design than previous generations....on first glance they look much better. the plastic piece is designed to pop onto the heel with more accuracy"
My response:
Only two known failures? The first in public mid Dec 2012. Nice of Joe to give us all a heads up on what to look for. And your second warning Keenan. An anomaly I am sure. Now a new heel piece design from BD. Hard to keep up on all the problems and the resulting redesigns/fixes.
You seem to imply this is only a larger size boot issue? 46 and larger by your implication? Or just not an issue...until it is an issue? I only ask because you and Joe brought the heel lever failures to the public. Joe ended up dumping his from what he said in his last public accounting. You now seem satisfied with yours. Seems what I get from this is we are back to, "inspect your gear" and some gear just requires you to "inspect it more often". May be the lesson is gear fails, complain on the Internet until the company calls you and fixes their shite. Then go back on the Internet and make nice. Tell us how good the stuff really is once fixed. Side track here..in case there is any misperception. I have no loyalties to any gear manufacture. And no bone to pick personally or professionally with any gear manufacture. Much to the consternation of a few that have commented. I simply keep track. And I rely on my own gear to not fail. Two BD heel levers obviously fail. 2 months later we get 2nd hand word of may be a new design to solve a problem that may be is caused by using bigger boots. Not sure where that leaves me with my heel levers but OK...I've been warned anyway, thanks to Keenan and Joe. And the Internet. All too familiar territory and scenario imo, if you are keeping track. The flip side? One broken connecting bar on a well worn (worn out!) Grivel G20 comes to light at Grivel. No Internet fuss. Just a simple email to Grivel. Grivel replaces the entire crampon in trade for the pair with one broken connecting bar. Couple of months later totally new design on the connecting bar. Grivel makes a public statement of the improvement and offers free replacements for anyone in the older G20s or G22s. Just to go a little further. I still own BD Sabertooth and Serac crampons. If I could simply trust them to NOT FAIL I would climb everything from hard M to WI6 in Sabers. I like how they climb and have done both in them. But in the current stainless versions, from experience (remember I keep track) I simply don't trust them to be reliable. That started with the first failures reported back in the winter of 2010/2011. I continue to read reports of their failures today. Never been any word as to why they fail. May be it is the big boots, soft boots, beginner climbers, walking in them, climbing in them (seriously?) or the other paltry answers BD "officially" pronounced early on. But never a faulty crampon...just more "fixes" never acknowledged, that are still failing on occasion. Now folks (such a gentle term) on the Internet tell me that horizontal crampons are not made for technical climbing and that big feet cause crampon failures. Which of course defies history and common sense. Or that some of the best and most well respected alpine climbing boots ever designed are NOT appropriate for use with that crampon. Better yet some want to quote the statistical failure rates based on the manufacturer's information. If the company had a history of being open and transparent I might take those numbers to heart. Grivel and Petzl for example..seem pretty open about gear failures. Only statistics that concern me are the ones I generate from my boots and my crampons. Those numbers I trust and are the only ones meaningful to me when I clip on my crampons. I may have fallen of a turnip truck. But thankfully I didn't fall off yesterday." http://coldthistle.blogspot.com/2012/02/it-is-dead-horse-more-on-stainless.html | |
11 comments:
http://www.gravsports-ice.com/icethreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=13906&page=1
And more than that with Grivel athletes on soft boots. Grivel has just done a good job of keeping it quiet.
I don't know when the problem showed up @ Grivel. Fall of 2011 for sure if not earlier. I do know they have been up front about fixing it and warning the community. Never felt to me like they were trying to keep it quiet. Easy replacement, the repair/fix and warning came directly from Grivel as far as I was aware. The broken connecting bar was noticed in 2011, warrenty replacements available immediatly, a new improved part replacement available in early 2012. And every instance I have heard of, easily replaced free of charge on warrenty. Not what I would consider "keeping it quiet".
No excuse for original bad design work but a laudable effort to solve the problem for the consumer I think.
http://coldthistle.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/grivel-crampons-respect-is-due.html
Thanks for pointing out the Grav Sport thread. I noticed it was from Feb 2013. The info, easy fix and warrenty replacement was already out/available a full year prior to that thread.
Interesting thread on gravsports. If Grivel did recall the crampons in Europe but not in the Americas, and retailers continue to sell the old faulty design that is pretty poor practice. My local shop has the old version available and the sales staff did not know about the critical design change.
Patagonia sold almost all the waterproof down jackets (at least online) so there will be a lot of pissed off customers if it degrades quickly.
(Not the first anon)
I know from experience last month that all it takes in the USA is calling Liberty Mtn (Grivel's US Dist) to get a a free pair of the "new" connecting bars on the way to you. Grivel Italy for the EU. Not sure what those poor Canucks are suppose to do if MEC doesn't have a ready fix for obviously faulty 'pons they have decided to continue selling.
How is it at all reasonable that retailers are still selling a faulty product that was recalled in one set of countries?? That's just negligence on the part of Grivel, Liberty Mountain, and the retailers.
Just because Grivel (or Liberty Mountain) will take care of you with new bars, that doesn't make it reasonable to sell a product that is known to break in the field. In a life threatening way!!
No arguement from me on selling known faulty gear. My question is who is at fault? Grivel, MEC, Liberty or your local retailer. Known problem and a easy fix for over a year. I would have thought this would be a NON issue by now. The Gravsport thread shows it clearly is not.
Grivel is now and has been for the last year or so offering free replacement bars to any that ask. I know Liberty is as well at Grivel's request.
The Gravsport thread is specifically about G20/22s bought from MEC as far as I can tell. Liberty Mtn Sports afaik does not sell to MEC but I could be mistaken on that. I know Grivel doesn't want a known faulty product in the field.
Ultimately Grivel Italy is responsible for the product. Thankfully, we can at least trust they will take care of the consumer.
OK? Reasonable? Not in my book but no one hiding from it that I see...although MEC seems a little iffy there.
Being that MEC moved swiftly to dealing with a Parking Ticket I got in one of their lots, I imagine that their problem would be more due to lack of communication/knowledge than irresponsible business practices. They've always been diligent in my experience.
I was one of the posters on the Gravsports thread.
It makes absolutely no sense to me that an organization as large as MEC seems to have no idea they are selling defective gear. This even after it being pointed out to them!
I could understand it if this was a new problem but if Dane is correct it's far from being something new.
Someone at MEC is not doing their job.
Needlesports in the UK has this on both the G20/G22 pages: "Now includes a set of alternative centre "Twin Bars", designed to cope with modern boots that have a large hollow in the instep."
http://www.needlesports.com/Catalogue/Winter-Climbing-Equipment/Crampons/Steep-Ice-Crampons/G20-GRI-G20#.UTQib4Xpacs
That's a few retailers in separate countries that seem to have faulty information. At least Needlesports is including the new bar unlike MEC, but they are hiding that the fact that these crampons will break if used with "modern" boots.
Hard to imagine all these retailers are independently arriving at this situation.
I received an email notification from Mountain Gear yesterday advising me to inspect my crampons and replace the link bar with the updated design. Good on them. Glad some retailers are paying attention and reaching out to customers.
Very cool! Good on Mtn Gear for showing the way to do it right and taking the responsibility and effort! Bravo to Paul Fish and his crew.
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