OSLO, Norway (March 20, 2009) – Rottefella AS, a leading manufacturer of bindings for Nordic skiing, this week announced that it will close Naxo AG, its wholly owned subsidiary that produces Naxo alpine-touring bindings. The move will allow Rottefella to refocus all of its resources on the Nordic and telemark skiing market, where it dominates ski binding sales worldwide and has introduced 13 new binding designs in the last five years, including the innovative New Telemark Norm (NTN) binding system. “Despite strong sales and marketing support for Naxo since Rottefella purchased it in 2006, the bottom line is that Naxo hasn’t achieved the critical mass worldwide that we needed in a very crowded market,” said Torbjorn Ragg, Marketing and Sales Manager for Rottefella.
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23 comments
I like Naxos, but they seem to have suffered more problems than the competition. Any innovation in the AT binding market is welcome, in my opinion, and things like the double pivot toepiece certainly are innovative.
This isn’t going to make me sad. I shattered the heel piece last season.
Crowded market? Markers, Fritchis and Dynafits are the extent of their competition, no? I hope there’s a secret supply of heelpieces somewhere, otherwise my touring partners are gonna be bummed (or upgrading to Dynafits) in a year or so.
It’s unfortunate any time a major competitor leaves the marketplace, though it’s probably best that it’s Naxo and not one of the better competitors. They’re the sloppiest bindings in the AT market, and anything other than dukes or dynafits doesn’t make a whole lot of sense at this point. Fritschi’s only advantage is the ability to lock down and release with your boot still in.
We used NAXOs as our AT binding of choice when conducting our annual ski tests for Couloir for one simple reason: ease of adjustment. No tools are required to change the position of the heel piece for different sized feet. However, the average user could care less about that feature.
Too bad, but in a tough economic climate, it seems a prudent decision for Rottefella. I wonder, however, if they don’t have a bit of NTN fever and their vision isn’t as clear as it should be. The AT market is an order of magnitude larger than Tele.
It’s a surprise they haven’t tried to sell the Naxo business unit – I thought it was a separate Swiss factory etc. If Rottefella want to stick to there core business (or what ever other business speak you can think of), why not sell it – market conditions allowing?
Frame, I’ll take a stab at that. The latest model Naxo I have here is a complex piece of machinery. They look incredibly expensive to manufacture, and have so many moving parts and potential failure points they’re also a possible challenge for customer service. Add to that the fact that they’re not the most stable binding on the down, and not exactly easy on the up for kick turns and such, and you have some sales and marketing problems. I thought it was weird at the start that a what’s basically a Nordic binding company would buy a Swiss AT binding company, and sure enough, it comes out in the wash. RIP Naxo, but I’ll give them an A for effort and an A for innovation. I’m pretty psyched to have their last iteration for the WildSnow collection, but would have liked to see them keep going and improving.
One other thing. I’ve heard tele binding sales are flat and now a confusing mess because of two different boot interfaces, could Rottefella be working on their own AT binding? After what they’ve been through with NTN, they could do it in their sleep.
I don’t doubt that they tried to sell Naxo.
But if you hadn’t noticed it isn’t a good time to be selling things – especially businesses that probably need money spending on them.
I have been using the Naxo since it came out in the US in 2003. It would be a shame if Naxo disappeared from the market. It really fits into a different category than Dukes or Dynafits.
Dukes/Barons – Alpine binding that can tour
Naxos & Freerides – Touring binding that can use alpine boots
Dynafit et al – Specialized touring bindings that need specialized boots
Naxos/Frerides are very different from Dukes/Barons. On the fly ski/tour switching is key and though the list weight of the Dukes isn’t that much heavier, much of the binding weight is concentrated in the heel piece and so must be lifted with every step so in the real world they are much more of skinning performance blow than the list weights would suggest.
Naxos were the perfect binding to have on that ski you wanted to be able to use your alpine boots on for inbounds pow days, but otherwise used them for touring. That’s why they are on my DPS Lotus 138s. Before that, they were on my Gotamas. I also have Dynaftis on my DPS Lotus 120s.
I really liked the Naxos because of their touring motion and because they didn’t seem to get sloppy loose with 30 days of use like my friends’ Freerides. However, I did blow up 5 heal pieces last year, all of which were speedily replaced (often with extra replacements). They had a bad batch of plastic. The new batch held up great and eventually BCA gave me brand new NX22s just to make things right.
I really hope somebody buys the rights, plans, and tooling because the more competition the better. I think its a good binding with lots of potential and I think it was equal or superior to the Freeride in every way except initial tightness (first 7 days of use) and max heel elevator height (Freeride has the insane setting). If nobody continues the Naxo, I predict somebody will come out with a competitor to the Duke that does do tour-on-the-fly and maybe doesn’t have a 4 pound healpiece.
I’ve got to ask for those “breaking” these bindings… what DIN are you using and are they adjusted properly to the boot? I tour, BC, teach (all my bindings have to be din tested each season), inbounds, etc on my naxos and have never had an issue of any sort, this is three seasons on them. One on a pair of Seths the other a pair of crossbows (newer style) To me, it’s like the complaint of Freerides toe breaking all the time, when 90% of the time it was due to poor adjustment. IDK… Seems odd, maybe I got the best pairs?
Loved the binding until the heel pice blew and caused catastophic failure. When I saw how thick the plastic was I couldn’t believe it. Ski these bindings cautiously!
I recently broke my second generation NX01 toepiece wing when ski tip caught a trough on a track. (And ejected me from ski. ) Alpina, current distributor, does not have part, per my dealer, and wants $60 for whole new toepiece. Wondering if anyone here has taken apart the toepiece. When loosening the screw for toe height adjustment it has a stopper of some sort. So currently am snookered. Once that screw can be totally backed out a replacement toe wing can be installed. I may have access to a used one.
The dealer (Marmot–Bellevue, Wa) does not know how to do this. Apparently they feel that the toepiece din/reliability is compromised if it can be taken apart.
Help Naxo mechanics?
Same problem as NickD from his March entry … I also have a broken NX01 VRS toe piece wing, though I haven’t had any luck finding an available replacement toe piece from either local shops or internet searches.
I also noted the toe piece stopper problem that challenges replacement.
So, Lou or anyone, is there helpful info not posted here for those of us searching for Naxo toe piece replacements and instructions?
It seems a shame to abandon the binding for a broken toe wing that’s otherwise been great. Any help on this would be really appreciated – the snow is starting to fall again.
I’m not quite sure when they are planning on discontinuing the NAXO line, but it doesn’t look like it’s happening in the near future.
I say this because I work at a Nordic center in Vermont that sells Rottefella bindings. When we were sent the 09-10 season catalog there was a separate 09-10 NAXO catalog. On top of that I am 90% sure the bindings are new colors, distinguishing them from the previous years.
Next time I’m at work I’ll try and scan the catalog, for some hard proof.
This was the party line when we received the information. If they’re actually manufacturing the binding and not selling remainders, we’ll be happy to report. Let us know.
My heelpiece blew apart on soft snow and only after 11 days (although they were branded Rossignol).
JohnF,
I think our shop has an NX02 toepiece available. If you’re interested, just post that and I’ll get further details to you.
NickD,
Likely you’ll have to replace the whole toepiece (if you haven’t already since it has been a year.)
I am the owner of NAXO NX 21 binding in Hungary. The rear end of the binding is broken. Othervise the binding is O.K. I would repair this binding, therefore I would buy the necessary heeling section from somebody or from the producer. (An old test peace would be also good for me.)
Please help, this nice binding type is rare in Hungary.
All The Best, Gyorgy
Gyorgy, sorry to say that’s an orphan product with no support or official spare parts.
Perhaps someone here has some parts? I’ve also heard there may be spare parts here and there in Europe, so you might ask around on some EU forums and websites.
My advice is to throw those bindings in the trash can. The whole story of Naxo has been a tragedy. The first ones broke, then they still broke on ocasion, then they orphaned a bunch of consumers.
In the ski industry, my advice is to be VERY leery of new companies and their products, especially in the present economic climate.
Heal peice failure this weekend! Looking for a replacement heal for the Naxo21. Have been skiing it for 3 or 4 years now as my one-ski quiver, 3/4 inbounds. Maybe time to look at other bindings but I’d love to find a heal and put off the $$ pain of a new setup at least for another year or so…
Lou,
what do you think about swapping a later Naxo01 and Naxo21 rear spring so I can get the higher release tension out of the 01 heal peice? My Naxo21 heal peice failed and I was lucky to find a used Naxo01 heal peice from Neptune today but the DIN only goes to 9 (compared to din 13 on the nax21). The springs are the same size and I thought I could goto a shop and have them set this one just as the other since the scale increments will be off. See any other problems with this idea?? Mostly, I’m just glad to put off buying a new setup for another year (I hope!)
Thanks!
I like my NAXO bindings but just broke the anti friction toe plate. I live in CT and ski VT and NH. Any suggestions for spare parts? This seems like an easy replacement.
Thanks,
Mark
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