The first plastic buckle boots - 1964 to 1969

By 1964, Bob Lange built a complicated molding machine dubbed "Mickey Mouse," to inject adiprene into the molds and the Lange boot company produced 1,500 blue-and-white Royalite boots, and 2,000 black Adiprene boots. That same year, the first Lange boot equipped with buckles was introduced to the market. One year latter, Dave Jacobs, the founder of Spyder skiwear, who was at the time coaching the Canadian ski team, was contacted by Bob Lange and asked if the Canadian team was prepared to test the boots. They were and they did, and while Dave Jacob said that "they were really bad boots," he traveled to Dubuque and suggested a number of technical improvements to be made on the product.

In June 1966, three pairs of re-designed boots incorporating the required changes were made available to the Canadian team who came to train at Mt. Hood; Gerry Rinaldi, Rod Hebron and Nancy Greene tried them on, went skiing, and they thought they were great. That year, Lange sold 10, 000 pairs of adiprene boots, mostly to top skiers and racers in a locked-hinge, competition model. At the 1966 World Championships in Portillo, Chile, that summer, ”Lange arrived with half a dozen pair. Racers, coaches and trainers crowded around to inspect them. That was the breakthrough,” says Lange. Rod Hebron and Suzy Chaffee of the U.S. team both unexpectedly almost won medals in the “Boot from Dubuque." Bob Lange carried a tape recorder around to the Portillo races, dictating suggestions from the racers.

Changes in design resulted from that effort; further improvements came from his research on foot, walking around in other people’s boots at Portillo. He repaired and rebuilt racers’ Lange boots then and there, and wrote copious reports home to the factory. As a result, the boot evolved, growing higher and stiffer to handle the new avalement technique introduced by the French. This is when the boot started to be become popular with top racers. Nancy Greene started wining on the brand new World Cup circuit wearing Lange. That same year, Lange-Jacobs Inc was formed and in 1967 opened a small factory in St. Jerôme, near Montreal, to assemble the boots.

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Meanwhile, in the United States, the boot became the hottest thing in the business. In 1968, Bob Lange wanted to go public with the company and moved the operations to Broomfield Colorado; that same year, Lange boots claimed five medals at the Grenoble Olympic Games, with Nancy Greene getting three of them. The Lange Corporation sold 25,000 pair to the general ski public that year. Lange went public to finance its move from from Dubuque to a brand new factory in Broomfield, Colorado, outside Boulder.

In 1969, Dave Jacobs moved from Montreal to Colorado to become director and vice-president responsible for the international operations and the company's expansion into Italy, where a plant was established in Mollaro near Trento, and in Japan, where Lange Far East was formed. At that point, sales were up to $12 million annually.

TECHNICAL NOTES
In1968, Bob Lange patented the first self aligning swivel post for buckle in ski boots.

RACING NOTES
At the 1968 Olympics in Grenoble, 72% of the alpine ski competitors wore Lange boots and won five medals.

ODD & ENDS
At the Grenoble Olympics, Loris Werner was on the US Ski Team and I met him while in the military; Loris was Bud Werner's brother who tragically disappeared in the 1964 St-Moritz avalanche. My division, assigned to the ABC television network, was assisting with setting up the cameras and the studio at the downhill venue, in Chamrousse. Loris was always tagging along with Jim “Moose” Barrows, another skier from Steamboat Springs. During the non-stop, Moose took a spectacular spill just in front of the camera where I was stationed and ended up injuring himself quite seriously.

I helped the ski patrol get him down to the helicopter that took him to Grenoble. He was wearing a pair of Lange that made me drooling. They were the very first plastic ski boots I'd ever seen (quite different from the Trappeurs that we re-enforced with fiberglass at the time.) “Try them on” Loris told me “Moose won't need ski boots until next season anyway.” Since they did fit me like a glove, Loris assured me that I could keep them. Needless to say how proud I was when I showed them off to my mountain regiment buddies in Annecy; I had the very first pair of Lange in Haute-Savoie!

Patrick Wahle, Toronto