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A year into the evolution of the new sole designs WTR and GripWalk, the dust is starting to settle. As was discussed in The New Sole of Skiing?, it is reminiscent of the old VHS-Betamax and Blu-ray-HD DVD wars: it will come down not to what is the best design, but to who sides with whom. As a refresher (and for the folks who to don't like to click on links): WTR, or Walk To Ride, could be called the French Resistance since it is the norm coined and adopted by the French brands Salomon (along with its sister company Atomic) and Look. Marker, zee German company, went all in with GripWalk. The other major player in the binding world, the Austrian Tyrolia, stood back in a wait-and-see mode to see where the momentum would shift.
So, how was this to be decided? Well, the fat lady has yet to sing, but a leader is emerging. Will the final call be decided by the binding brands or by the boot manufacturers that have partnerships with the binding brands? Would the Tecnica Group, which owns Tecnica and Nordica, and the new private equity firm that just bought K2, Dalbello, and Full Tilt boots be the deciders? All of these brands are affiliated with Marker bindings ... and thus GripWalk. Marker also ingeniously made its new GripWalk-compatible bindings toolless so that it is possible for someone to step into a SoleID binding with either a traditional boot or GripWalk design and ski off safely. If a skier is going to use a WTR boot in a Sole.ID binding, adjustments by a certified technician will need to be made. Or, will Salomon and Atomic, the brands under the Amer Group, and the other French group with Rossignol and Lange win out?
IMHO, as the dominoes started to fall, Tyrolia made a calculated call to support GripWalk on its system skis and Attack2 collection. Look, one of the original WTR companies, also revealed that its Dual toe piece can accommodate GripWalk; like the Marker, there is no adjustment needed so a GripWalk sole can be used in the alpine setting. Confused? Don’t worry, you are not alone. Maybe this will help a bit:
As you can see, this not a discussion about whether WTR is better than GripWalk or vice versa; it is about who will control the market and which design will be the norm. With more ski-boot-binding combinations being GripWalk-compatible, the logical conclusion is that GripWalk will become the design of choice -- but we have been wrong before, and we will be again. At this point, however, if you are wondering which boot sole will have more options in the future, I would err to GripWalk. Please remember, too, that neither of these designs will work in a traditional race binding or the vast majority of bindings produced before 2016.*Please note the diagram was updated on 11/22/17 with changes.
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