75mm Resurrected?

Rumors of 75mm’s death may have been exaggerated as Scarpa’s leaked 2024/25 catalog now shows a curious thing – more 75mm models than NTN.  Is it an apparition, or does 75mm live on?

Sweet, supple, 75mm above Independence Pass, CO. Photo credit Ryan Connolly

The declaration of the capital-D Death of 75mm gear has become routine to the point of cliché in telemark skiing.  Ever since the initial release of NTN – the Nordic Norm’s replacement some 15 years ago – duckbilled boots and their wide toe cage bindings have seemed destined to obsolescence.  Coupled with the rise of the tech toe in free-heel bindings and the late-coming maturity of the New Telemark Norm, the 100-year-old 75mm platform has begun to seem archaic and unnecessary to many.  This gear has seen little innovation in years, and manufacturers have seemed to see the writing on the wall, discontinuing many boots and bindings on the old norm. Now only a small collection of offerings remain on 75mm, the old stalwart.

The long-awaited release of Scarpa’s new telemark boot for the 2024/25 season - informatoin of which leaked on social media in November - is a marked step toward telemark’s modern gear paradigm. Complete with its improved range of motion, better walk mode, and 75mm-incompatible tech toe and NTN connection, the long-awaited new boot marks another decisive move away from the 75mm standard.

But an interesting thing has happened: the leaked 2024/25 Scarpa catalog not only shows the new Tx Pro boot, it contains no Tx Comp – doing away with the heavier, resort-oriented NTN boot – and continues the life of the T2 and the T4, the legacy, soft, and surviving 75mm options from the eminent boot maker.

Was the declaration of 75mms death premature?  Does the platform get to live on in the world of softer telemark?

Screen grab from the leaked 2024/2025 Scarpa catalog - one NTN boot (though the standard and women's versions of the new Tx Pro may indeed have different flexes) and two 75mm boots - sorry heavy resort NTNers, looks like the Tx Comp is disco'ed.

The Norm Wars between 75mm and NTN have dogged telemark for years. While NTN has long promised stronger edge control, potential safety release, and compatibility with modern, alpine-like features, the sensation in the turn has always had a way of turning some folks off. Coupled with backward incompatibility, forcing skiers to buy an entire new setup to join the new wave, the barriers to entry have remained high for conversion to the new norm. 

The schism has become all the more pronounced as NTN vs. 75mm has become an entrenched division.  75mm skiers have loudly decried their preferred gear’s fall, while podcasts dissect the topic, often asking what the big deal is with leaving the duckbill behind.  And in ski shops - the place a telemark skier never knows how they’ll be received - certain employees roll their eyes, casting off as Luddites those who come in for help with broken Targas. Undoubtedly many telemark skiers justifiably love their older gear, though many also unfairly cast off NTN from the onset.

While many still firmly plant themselves in the duckbill camp, NTN gear has indeed outsold 75mm for years now.  Scarpa NA president Kim Miller told Craig Dostie back in 2014 that “No question, NTN is outselling 75mm now. It looks like the future of tele.” Meanwhile other norms and subnorms – like NTN tech, and telemark tech system bindings – have slowly gained traction and brought more folks into the modern telemark gear fold. While many still prefer 75mm steadfastly, their numbers and gear indeed seem as threatened as ever.

And moving away from 75mm has often been seen as not just an inevitability, but even as a necessity to move telemark forward. In the wake of Scarpa’s discontinuation of their last remaining heavy and stiff 75mm boot, the beloved T1, Josh Madsen, owner of Freeheel Life, went as far to say in a February 2022 edition of his weekly podcast that, “this is less about the death of 75mm and more about what opportunities need to be addressed in NTN.”   

Many have worried that 75mm takes production time and resources away from moving the sport toward more footwear options that align with where the sport is headed – Dynafit-style tech-toes and NTN with its ability of added features.  Thus some have taken to celebrating telemark’s long awaited moving-on from the old norm.

But a curious thing has happened: NTN boots of a softer variety haven’t been produced, leaving this style of boot unavailable at retail.  And while more cross-country oriented norms like Rottefella’s Xplore system seem to be the future for the more-overland, less-downhill realm, a tidy little niche has opened inbetween, and at this point is only covered by 75mm – telemark skiing where soft, plastic boots are employed, with a decent to large emphasis on downhill skiing, in essence soft resort or xcD (cross-country downhill with a BIG emphasis on the down).

Could 75mm survive in perpetuity in this cozy little ecosystem?

While the old norm may still enjoy some regard, many feel that is simply a symptom of a lack of options on the other platforms. “I think 75mm survives solely because people are still buying it” says telemark tinkerer laureate Robert Tusso. “It’s a steady revenue stream with the R&D and mold costs long paid off.  And Scarpa is afraid to ‘burn the ships’ as it were, and go solely NTN.”

But some feel 75mm – especially in the 3-pin binding realm – may indeed continue to have a path forward.  Tom Murrel – known as Tom M on his well-followed XCD YouTube channel told me via email “the Xplore system is very different in feel and performance from those [3 pin] setups.   What one considers better or worse performance when comparing these two systems is highly subjective and skillset dependent.  I think that 3 pin will live on for a long time."

What’s yet to be seen is if Scarpa – or any other boot manufacturer – comes to the plate with a soft flexing NTN / TTS boot. Or for that matter if the Xplore system comes for 75mm from the other side and starts producing more aggressive footwear – or if the platform can support aggressive downhill skiing on that level.  75mm is indeed being cornered, but without those advents, the T2 and T4 class of boots cover a world of telemark by themselves, albeit a small and quiet one with questionable vehicles for growth.  Though the adherents may not mind the scene the way it is, the future of T2/T4 consumption is far from guaranteed.

So perhaps this moment doesn’t quite signify the salvation of the old Nordic norm, but maybe more accurately its extended Farewell Tour. And while the time may soon be thrust upon many to finally make the change to the modern gear – especially with Scarpa’s new boot on the way for the 2024/25 – the humble duckbill deserves its long goodbye - and beyond - if it gets that.

The norm indeed offers the sweetest of telemark flexes, and harks to a time when the turn reigned supreme in the free-heel skier’s mind, before the current age dominated by concerns of alpine parity. And soft, lowcut 75mm boots are direct decedents of arguably the greatest revolution ever in telemark gear – the first plastic boots, without which there would be no NTN, no new Scarpa boot.

So for this moment – and maybe beyond – the duckbill survives.