From racing glory to bleeding Flo - 1970 to 1973

For the 1969-70 season Lange was offering three models; the Lange Standard with a blue liner, the Lange Pro with a red liner and the Lange Comp with a yellow liner, and a riveted upper cuff. The liners were simply glued into the shells and were not removable, and the buckles were the state of the art with micro-metric adjustment. The boots had a severe negative cant, and it was absolutely necessary to correct it by either grinding the sole or gluing a wedge shaped cant to it. The cuff was also too low and didn't offer much support, which open-up a market for the "Jet-Stix" a useful accessory (see further details on this page) as well as an after market "Lange Spoiler" that was marketed by the Boulder company and attached by means of screw-rivets. On the other hand the rubbery Adiprene polyurethane was totally impervious to abrasion and would seem to “last forever…”


At he 1970 Val Gardena world championships, not less than 16 teams were in Lange boots. By 1971, Lange’s business was producing 60,000 pairs of boots a year at its plants in the US, Canada and Italy. The sky was the limit—the market for Lange boots, it seemed, would expand forever. Bob started to see big; he signed an agreement to manufacture and distribute Dynamic skis in the U.S.

Bob Lange began to make the ski in Broomfield and signed up Jean-Claude Killy at an annual retainer of $50,000. Killy helped push Lange’s European sales to over $7 million. At the same time Lange built a second factory in Canada to make plastic hockey skates—another invention… By some accounts, Bob Lange also offered Jean Beyl one million dollars to purchase Look bindings which the French inventor turned down. Jacobs resigned from Lange in February of that year to start HotGear, his first clothing company, but remained as a director.


In spite of its high racing visibility, Lange’s main challenge remained very close to the skier’s foot, and that was plain old comfort. The tongue was a major offender, often applying excruciating pain on the shin-bone that came to be known as “Lange-Bang.” The first liners were also devoid of comfort as they could not provide for a decent transition between the skiers’s feet and the punishing, stiff plastic shells.

Since Bob wanted to expand his market to recreational skiers, he licensed a“flow material" invented by two brothers, Chris and Denny Hanson. The flow took the hardness out of the boot by making the inside conform to the skier's foot, a real breakthrough. Bob called it Langeflo; this miracle material was inserted into the new vinyl liners that Bob Lange developed for that purpose. That winter a barrage of complaints came rocketing in from frustrated purchasers. The Langflo proved to be chemically reactive with the plastic liners that held them within the boots, literally digesting the liners.

"Worms of red Langeflo squirted into skiers’ socks like so much raw hamburger,” recalls Nick Hock, then Lange’s marketing director. Unfortunately, the liners were not meant to be removed. Lange offered to remove the Langflo at no cost to the owners and reline the boot. Tens of thousands of boots came flooding back to the Lange factory in Broomfield to be reamed out, relined and reshipped. On another front, Lange desperately needed cash to complete the Canadian plant, which was scheduled to produce the hockey skate. Dynamic was contesting its distribution agreement, and the Broomfield plant was not yet up to speed. Cash melted away. In 1971 Lange’s ski boot operation lost $1.5 million on $12 million in sales. Chris and Denny Hanson quit and started making their own ski boots in Boulder. Lange sued.


In spite of all that development continued and new audacious designs were introduced, like the women’s Competite model, that was more an exercise in styling than a practical female ski boot. For the 1971/1972 season, the dysfunctional, one-piece shell “Comp II" and "Pro II" versions were introduced to the market; the "Comp" with its significantly higher back being the very one that Gustav Thöni had the fortitude to use while emerging on the international racing scene.


Bob Lange loved the aura of ski racing and the partying that was built around the sport of skiing. He couldn’t get enough of it. It was during a time when skiing and a sexy lifestyle went together very well. This “joie de vivre” would lead the way to the regular and successful publishing of “Lange Girls” poster that would become a tradition and have continued to this day with significantly less creativity as time went on. The first of its kind, using a Norm Classen's photograph, was produced in 1970 while Nick Hock was in charge of advertising and sales promotions...

The company was technically bankrupt and in 1973, the Garcia Corporation, a major sporting goods conglomerate that distributed everything from Rossignol and Fischer skis, Carlo Gruber sweaters, Marker bindings and Mitchell fishing tackles, stepped in, offering operating cash in return for control of Lange. Bob accepted, taking a contract to work for the company. But Bob was not a good corporate soldier. “A lot of stupid rules, a lot of forms,” he recalled. In July 1974, Bob Lange left the boot business.

TECHNICAL NOTES
In 1970, Bob Lange patents the first slalom ski with fixed or removable offset ski tip.
In 1972, Bob Lange patented the first plastic boot with a flex-cut sole.

RACING NOTES
The 1972 Lange trophy
The Lange trophy or Lange cup was a premier professional ski racing event that was created after Bob Beattie, a former U.S. Ski Coach revived the dormant “pro” circuit in 1970. The $50,000 Lange Cup, held for the first three years in Vail, was by far the Pro Tour’s most prestigious trophy and a magnificent gesture by Bob Lange.

ODDS & ENDS
The Jet-Stick, a timely accessory:
For the 1970-1971 ski season, Jack Nagel, from Enumclaw, Washington (father of ski racer Judy Nagel) offered a new ski boot accessory developed to assist in executing “avalement,” the latest of modern ski techniques. It also helped complement the low cuff of the current Lange boot design before the company would offer its own after-market "Lange Spoiler." The device consisted of a fiberglass "gutter" shaped to fit the lower calf and strapped under the top buckle. Billed as “great for powder snow, (sit back and let 'em go) tremendous on packed, moguled slopes for taking up the bumps in skiing ‘low and loose’," the Jet-Stix was designed for most levels of skier, all the way to the competitor. It offered support to the back of the leg without restricting forward movement. An introductory “Pro-Form” offer made before October lst, 1970 priced one pair of Jet-Stix for just $6.00. After that date, the price jumped to $7.00…

Eyewitness Account:
As a young man instructing in Avoriaz, France, I was lusting for my first pair of Lange boots. For the 69-70 season, only Hofstetter Sports in Geneva was carrying the product (with the Comp offered at more than 400 Swiss Francs!) Unfortunately, I still had to “amortize” my almost brand new pair of Molitor ski boots, purchased the year before. I wouldn’t make it to the “Lange Club” until the 70-71 season when I got my first pair, with a "pro-form" at the French distributor in Grenoble. I also hand-painted a large Lange sticker that I placed on the back of my Citroën 2cv. JF Lanvers