In the interests of full disclosure, the purveyors of realskiers once served in product management roles at Salomon, although our tenure was so long ago that the company we toiled for bears little relation to the Salomon organization of today. All that remains on our end is a lingering respect for Salomon’s meticulous R&D methodology, which resulted in a series of landmark product introductions that completely upended the established order. Their first boot, the rear-entry SX 90, introduced to modest applause in 1979, morphed into the SX 91, which led the brand to overtake Nordica in total dollars by 1985. By the end of the decade, there were hardly any overlap boots left in the market: the Nordica line was down to one 4-buckle boot and even Lange made a couple of half-hearted stabs at a rear-entry configuration. Meanwhile, Salomon’s SNS Nordic boot-binding system caught the sleepy XC market by surprise, running up a dominant market share. When Salomon debuted their monocoque skis they made such an impact that within two years, if you were a ski brand without a cap ski, you didn’t sell any skis.
Today, while Salomon remains a dominant player in the alpine boot market, their mantle of market leadership in skis has lost some of its luster. Their last shot at a game-changing ski, the BBR, didn’t achieve the traction they hoped for; instead of creating a whole new genre of surf-inspired skis they were treated as curios and largely overlooked by ski buyers. Salomon error-corrected with their second-generation BBR 10.0, a more relatable ski for the traditional, technical skier, but it still got lost in the well-stocked, viciously competitive 100mm-waist market. So in 2013 Salomon introduced a 98mm All-Mountain ski that didn’t try to outperform the world in some newfangled way. Instead, Salomon shot to outmaneuver the market by street pricing the Quest 98 at $499, $200 below the leading models in the category. It’s like getting a free binding, which is pretty cool. And the ski is no slouch, particularly for the Finesse skier who’d rather make pretty turns than schuss à toute vitesse.
The Salomon product development juggernaut of the 1970’s and 80’s was financed by a simple idea: make a ski binding easy to step into and out of. If there is a unifying trait underlying almost all Salomon gear, it’s an emphasis on convenience and ease of operation. The accent on ease, coupled with an aggressive pricing policy, continues to be the primary Salomon ski family trait.