Scott Cosmos – Adiós Garmont and Mod those Tech Fittings
According to an inside source, Garmont has been dissolved within the US to a large degree. The only Garmont products we will see stateside will be hiking boots and crampon compatible high alpine boots. Rebranded, their flagship AT boot is perhaps a Cosmos no more. But it does have a badge that says Cosmos. More soon on that. And what about those tech fittings that became so controversial? Read on, boys and girls.
The first day of the OR Show kicked off today in Solitude at the outdoor gear demo. It’s safe to say this is again the year of the boot!
Atomic, Fischer, K2, Scarpa, Dynafit, LaSportiva, Black Diamond, Tecnica and Scott all have tech compatible boots for 13/14. I’m probably missing a brand, sorry about that, whomever — Crispi perhaps, or Dalbello?
They're calling this another version of a tech fitting. To us it simply appears they drilled out or otherwise modded their stock ones so they perform better (note milled metal at edge of outer lip). The need for a better radius on the lip was perhaps one of the problems, but if I recall correctly the depth was also off and caused some play. If the modded version works that will be good news. Perhaps we'll get to test them. Click to enlarge.
Another view of the modded tech fitting. Some of our readers were able to homebrew this. Now you guys are validated!
Modded tech fitting, a power strap and some Scott graphics, otherwise a Cosmos. If the fittings work now, that'll be wonderful since these really are performance boots that combine stiff and light in an effective way.
Brief boot review:
I was able to ski these boots for one day at Snowbird on hard surfaces under bluebird skies with the a temperature of 20 degrees in the morning subsequently warming up to 40 degrees in the afternoon. I was paired up with a Kastle BMX 108 in a 188 length.
For the morning I was in the Pebax version with Intuition liner and switched over to the PU version in the afternoon. The majority of our runs were down Snowbird’s Mineral Basin in hard-charging style(following Davenport nonetheless). I had the boots buckled to the max on my forefoot and very close to that on the upper buckles. I would definitely say these boots are aimed at your slackcountry/resort charger that puts in hikes every now and then. That being said, I did not tour in them or hike in them at any point throughout the day. At lunch I switched over to the PU version, while keeping my original Intution liner from the morning boot. Immediately I noted that it felt roomier as did several others who swapped at lunch. I believe it was the liner packing and molding but can’t truly be sure.
Comments
24 Responses to “Scott Cosmos – Adiós Garmont and Mod those Tech Fittings”
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No wonder I couldn’t get replacement liners for my Radiums in December…
This sounds like one of those corporate cock-ups in the making. Guess I’ll have to look for another AT. Boot brand…
Tuck, we covered this changing of the guard in detail some time ago, did you miss that?
I saw it, and expressed concern in the comments. You said, “and it all looks good in terms of keeping the cool boots coming from Garmont.”
But a merger “over time” quickly turned into, “Oh, you can’t get liners from us, have you tried Intuition?”
Not a great start…
I like the Garmont liners more than the Intuition ones, btw.
Crispi makes good boots. You ought to get a pair and test them.
And the Dalbello Virus has been signifantly updated and has a new name (Sherpa?). I liked — and still like my original pair, though I must admit that now that I have TLT5′s I rarely bother to the Dalbellos them unless it’s an inbounds day.
Tuck, sorry about my misperception. Doing the best I can, main thing is the nice boots appear to continue, and perhaps they’ll get their customer service in line eventually. Lou
Lou, you do a great job. My frustration with Scott and the corpse of Garmont doesn’t gave anything to do with you or your best efforts at reporting.
Keep up the good work, and hopefully one day I’ll buy you a beer in a hut in Austria!
Wow that looks ghetto. I’ll pass on being the test dummy on this one
Looks like an old Scarpa Denali shell- flower pot.
Wow. Those tech fitting really inspire confidence. I’m with Lee Lau. Let someone else perform the beta testing (or is it alpha?).
I can’t wait to see your review of the Scott Cosmos, and how they release. If they do perform as they should, I’d love to see you get a Garmont Cosmos and a Scott Cosmos side by side, and take some measurements on the machining they did on the fittings.
I made the mistake of buying the Garmont Cosmos (great boot for my Fritschi Freerides, but hadn’t found your review yet), and would love to know how they modified them, because I’m handy enough with a drill press to consider doing the same to mine (Because, really, what’s the worst I’ll do, make them unusable for tech bindings? They are already)
I don’t think this will make Garmont’s customer service any worse. I tried to get replacement soles for two years from Garmont. Garmont said it was no problem, but I had to go through a dealer. Dealer said Garmont didn’t have any. Repeat. Haven’t had any issues with my Zzeus yet.
Rumour over at Telemarktips is that Scott won’t be selling NTN tele boots and will only sell 75mm tele boots.
If that is true it is bad news for NTN. If your feet don’t fit Scarpas or the hard to find Crispis then you are stuffed.
Wow…a 24-hour emotional roller coaster regarding these boots! I tried them on yesterday in Durango, and was elated to discover a boot that fit my boot so well, and weighed about as much as bedroom slippers. Then i got home and checked WildSnow.com for some beta on the Cosmos, only to learn the tragic news about the problems with the tech fittings. Then this morning, i learn that the boot is now rebranded and (maybe) fixed! I guess I will stay tuned to this channel for further updates….
Any word on Salomon bringing back tech fittings in their boots?
Rob, if you can get some with the modified inserts they’re probably ok,but we don’t know for sure. I met with those guys today for an hour, report coming. ‘best, Lou
Seems the story of Scott abandoning NTN boots was a confusion caused by a name change. Garmont had the Voodoo 75mm boot and the equivalent Prophet NTN boot. Scott will only have the Voodoo boot but it will come in 75mm and NTN versions.
So I bought a pair of Cosmos this year; only AT boot that fit my foot. They are like have sneakers on in terms of weight and i can pretty much run up mountains hiking. I ski the Fritschi Freerides so the pin hole issue wasn’t a concern.
While touring out one day I heard this clicking noise in the back of the boot and noticed the lower screw in the back which locks the red bar in ski mode fell out. Noe the entire mechanism is damaged back there. I also noted other screws coming loose as i looked over the boots. I cant get through to Garmont because of the sale to Scott. No dealers have replacement parts or even carry the Cosmo anymore because of the tech fitting issue. Where do I go from here? Is Scott receptive to Garmont warranty issues?
Peter, yes, find a Scott and/or Garmont dealer and see what you can do. Best, go back to the dealer where you bought the boots.
Well Lou, I got directly in touch with Scott out of Sun Valley and they have been very supportive. They sent me a complete set of replacement parts so I could rebuild the ski/tour mechanism. The only problem is the red bar is a slightly different design; the end of the new bar does not have the same “design or rounded end”. The boot now when in walk “neutral mode” now goes beyond the pin that locks you in ski mode and actually gets hung up and locked in a hyper extended forward mode and the only way to get it out of that position is to undo the cuff from the boot and pop the pin that holds the red bar to the boot and pull it out of the mechanism and reset it all and put it the boot back together. I now just leave the left boot in “forward mode” (in fear of that happening in the backcountry again). I have taken video of the action and passed it onto Scott (waiting to hear back). Just thought I’d pass on what Scotts remedy has been and what I am encountering with the remedy.
The saga continues (grin). Best wishes on getting it all worked out. Lou
Turns out Scott IS receptive to Garmont warranty issues – Broke the red heel bar on my Garmont Cosmos over the weekend, and Scott’s going to send me a new one, hopefully in time for next weekend.
Greg, make sure you read my previous post pertaining to the bar that Scott might send you. You can see my video on you tube titled “Cosmo boot walking mechanism”. Scott just sent me new boots with the original red me ha ism and my old boots have been sent back over the pond to Italy for inspection and redesign of the “new red bar” (which is flat at the end; no stopper for hyper extension).
Scott ended up sending me replacement ski/tour mechanisms, so I swapped out the broken one, and found a whole lot of interesting failures in the mechanism:
Failure #1 – Obvious failure of the red bar. Buckled in just about the middle, with a second bend at the hole where it slots over the locking pin.
Failure #2 – The locking pin had enough scraped off of it by the red bar to make me doubt whether it would hold a bar in ski mode.
Failure #3 – Spring that holds the locking pin into the red bar was no longer caught and activated by the lever used to switch from tour to ski.
Failure #4 – The ‘backbone’ of the mechanism, into which the screws go, was bent about halfway down its length.
All in all, I’m not left with much confidence in the mechanism. Thoughts?
Here’s a link to an album with pictures of the various failures:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10100574792922291.1073741834.12002257&type=1&l=af6c56cc63
(Lou – If you’d like, feel free to use the pictures, and/or trim the link from the post)
(Missed this one)
Failure #5 – The side rails bent as well.
Amazing how delicate these mechanisms that we trust our lives to are.