Salomon’s boot business (Part One)

After writing the blog comparing Nordica to Salomon, I decided to add some thoughts about Salomon and its remarkable influence and legacy on the entire ski business. 

From artisan to industrialist,  Geoges Salomon was focused on scaling up his metal ski edge business into, at first, bringing to market rudimentary safety ski bindings with releasable toe-unit and cable system before ushering in modern ski bindings as we know them today, while at the same time, hiring Roger Pirot to run his marketing department. Simultaneously, this appointment turned his already efficient manufacturing company into a juggernaut marketing machine. 

The development of the Salomon ski boot was part of a growth plan capable of offering bindings, boots and skis as part of a whole package. It also coincided with a vanguard company's focus on its all-powerful retailer network that could make or break any ski supplier as the market was then fully dominated by ski or sport shops. 

The bindings and then the boots were developed with ease of selling, installing and adjusting in mind and not necessarily with a deliberate focus for on snow performance as this was totally secondary. With this consideration in mind, its sole boot division was expected and able to pay for developing the ski, the third component of its plan.

Only Austria’s Marc Girardelli heavily modified it to bring a semblance of functionality to it. No reliable source gives a detailed, technical list of the exact modifications made to Marc Girardelli’s boots. The “bucket” that Salomon rear entries were, had to be “tortured” by adding lateral stiffness through internal stiffening plates, reinforced cuff pivot using stiffer plastics. 

Girardelli’s liners were foam‑injected liners with heel‑hold reinforcements. Flex also had to be improved as the SX series were way too soft for racing in stock form. Salomon’s race‑room stiffened the rear spine and added flex‑limit stops. Forward lean, boot-board angle and canting were also modified. Closure and buckles were also beefed-up with shorter and stiffer cables, high‑tension cams, reinforced heel‑retention mechanisms that improved the biggest weakness of rear‑entry designs. 

The talented Austrian racer made up the difference. Salomon had no other option but totally transform a boot never meant for racing use in the hope to create its non-existent performance image. In the next blog, we’ll see how this fairy tale of sorts ended.