Bishop Telemark Full Product Walkthrough (Blister Summit Interview 2024)

This interview took place at the Blister Summit in Crested Butte in February 2024

BLISTER: Well, I am here at the Blister Summit with Dave Bombard from Bishop Telemark. We are very psyched to have you here, and we're psyched to learn not only about the brand as a whole but also about several of the specific products you guys are offering these days. But I think, for starters, let's kind of peel the curtain back on the brand. Can you tell us a bit about its origins and how it came from that to what it is today?

DAVE: Okay, well, thanks for having us. It's a bit of a long story, but the name Bishop actually came from a company that got started in Silverthorn, Colorado, back in, like, I guess around 2000, 2001. They came up with a binding called the Bishop. It was actually Bomber Industries, and they made this Bishop binding. It was similar to these, but not quite the same—similar in terms of the knuckle and some of the other stuff. But they only made it for four or five years. It had a real big cult following—big, CNC-machined, really bomber binding. Then they stopped. I met him—I'm a product design engineer. I was in medical surgical instrument design for a long time, and that's a long story, but I met him, and we started working together. Then he was going to do some other things, so I basically kind of took over the brand 10 years ago. So it's been 10 years. We started with re-releasing what we call the Bishop 2.0, which was really that original binding with some improvements while I was designing these bindings—the BMF/R and the BMF/3. We released those in, I guess, 2015 or 2016.  

So we started with the bindings, and then I got into skis because I realized there really wasn't a true telemark-specific ski. Again, through some contacts, we had an opportunity to make some skis, and I always really wanted to innovate on the ski side with telemark. The bindings have some really unique features; the skis have unique features. Then we also picked up this lurk we call the San Juan Stick. It's a fun pole that kind of goes back to the real origins of skiing, which telemark really does—it's a way of traveling through the mountains, mostly walking, and then downhill when they had to get down. They'd break off a branch or something and try to hold on to get down to wherever they were going, so we have a modern version of that.

BLISTER: Gotcha. Well, I think in terms of specific products, we might as well start with bindings. You mentioned the origins of the brand—that was the start—and there's obviously been a good bit of innovation since then. First off, I guess, could you go through the product lineup as a whole and what differentiates each version?

DAVE: Sure, yeah. So we have two major types of bindings. One we call the BMF/3, which is really kind of a continuation of the very first Bomber Bishop 1—we called the second one the 2.0—and this is the BMF/3. It's really for resort skiing; it doesn't have a tour mode. Then we innovated and came up with a tour mode for this binding (the BMF/R), so this binding has a free pivot tour mode with climbers, and then you can lock it down. It really performs the same as this binding (the BMF/3) once it's locked down. 

And there's some really unique features with that. We're the only binding (to do a few things…)—so in telemark, there are two kinds of boots… It's a bit confusing, but there's an older standard called 75mm, which is the length of the pin line, and it's a duckbill, so it's much longer. Then Scarpa, along with Rotefella, in, I guess, the early 2000s, came out with NTN, the New Telemark Norm, which struggled for a long time. It's really moving over to that now. The new boots actually took the front end of a tech boot, and a lot of them actually have tech fittings in the front—there are Telemark Tech bindings. So they had a new standard, but it didn't get adopted very quickly, and even today, a lot of people are on 75mm boots. What we did when I designed this (the BMF series bindings) is I allowed it to be a 75mm version, and then you have the same binding—it's a step-in with a brake, it's a modern telemark binding—but you can switch it from 75mm to NTN, which is completely unique. 

A lot of people buy our bindings because they have 75mm boots, they like them, they're comfortable. Also, the other big thing is it goes to the back heel. Generally, an NTN boot binding goes to what's called the second heel or the duck butt—there's the duckbill and the duck butt. Ours doesn't; it actually goes to the back heel, which a lot of people also like because it flexes the boot a lot more progressively, and it's really powerful too. Our 75mm binding is super rigid and powerful, and it also flexes the boot in the way they're used to. When they go to their NTN, it almost feels the same. In fact, I skied with a 75mm boot on one foot and an NTN on the other with one of the bindings—one 75mm, one NTN—and after a few turns, I was like, "Oh, I'm just skiing." It didn't really make a difference. So that's really unique. 

The other big thing we have is this switch kit. Every binding comes standard with this kit that gets drilled into the ski, and then the binding actually uses machine screws, kind of like a snowboard, and goes into the switch kit. So you buy the binding once, but you can also, if you have a quiver of skis, buy just the switch kit and put that on your quiver, and move the binding from ski to ski. 

BLISTER: That's exciting. I think the compatibility thing is a struggle in any industry when you're dealing with standards that seem to be changing or sticking around just long enough where you still have to work for those standards but also for the new ones. So it seems like a pretty slick system. Any other specific components, construction methods, or materials that you want to highlight? 

DAVE: We have this patented sliding plate system where, as you lift your heel, the heel goes back. So there are these springs inside the tube—you can adjust them too, so they're quite adjustable. We have a regular stiff spring that it comes with, and you can also buy a soft spring. You can adjust these little spring adjusters in the back, moving them in and fine-tuning it between the stiff and the soft spring. The step-in is nice because it's also like an alpine-style step-in. A lot of patrollers like it because you don't need poles or anything—you just use it like an alpine-style step-in and step out. Those are the main features of it.

BLISTER: You mentioned that from the start, it sounded like durability and long-term reliability were pretty key focuses. Has that continued to be one of the primary things you think about today with the latest versions? 

DAVE: Yeah, absolutely. As an engineer and designer, we did everything we could to try to anticipate the forces, but telemark has a lot of different forces going on in the binding. We actually iterated the first three or four years it was out. We were able to change and tweak the part designs, and just last year, we said, "Okay, this design is really bomber." We're backing it with the only lifetime guarantee. We guarantee these bindings for the lifetime of the product. Some things wear out, but we'll fix them and take care of them. But we're at the point where it's really bomber, and it's a big part of the brand—that we're bomber, we stand behind our product, and we've got great customer service. Tom down in Denver is awesome, and he really takes care of our customers because we really want to stand behind it.

BLISTER: Well, sweet. With that, I think we could move into the ski side of things. Maybe we start on the narrower side and work our way up from there?

DAVE: Yeah, sounds good. The narrow ski is 90 underfoot, the Gonzo. It's a full camber ski. It's a really fun ski. I use it here in the Mountain West when it just hasn't snowed in a long time, and I want to ski a lot of bumps. It's quicker turning. I forget exactly the turn radius, but it's like a 15 or 16-meter turn radius. Full camber—you can carve really well on it. It's got a flat tail as well because if you do want to use it in the backcountry, we wanted to put a flat tail for skins. It's really our most popular ski in the East, for East Coast conditions. It's a really fun ski, even in some softer snow. It's a really fun ski.

The next one up is the Chedi, and that's kind of our quiver-of-one ski. It's the one I'm on probably 90% of the time. I was just skiing today on it. There was a little bit of soft snow, but there was some firmer stuff out there today too. But it's actually really nice—chalky, good stuff. It has a fair bit of camber underfoot and an early rise rocker tip. If there's some powder, it keeps that tip up, especially for tele, where you want to make sure you're not going to go over the handlebars. It likes to charge. It's probably like a 22 to 24-meter turning radius, and it's comfortable at higher speeds, where you can kind of drive it a little harder.

And then the powder ski is the other ski we have—the Powder Hound. So that one is really a modern-shaped powder ski. It's 115 underfoot, a good size, but I also designed it with a lot of rocker, both tip and tail, though not as much in the tail. In tele, I find you can't really go forward too much, but you can go back a little bit, so I don't like too much rocker because you can just wheelie out, basically. So it has a rocker tail, but not a ton—a fair bit of rocker up front and camber underfoot with a tighter turn radius. It's really fun; you can slash it, you can pivot it. But also, it's nice because when the snow gets a little skied out and you come back down on something firmer, it will carve because of that nice camber, so it's really kind of fun, even on a groomer.

So yeah, that's the lineup, and they all have dog-related names because we definitely have a dog-centric culture. In fact, Bishop was the name of the original owner's dog. The Chedi is named after my dog—I had a Bernese Mountain Dog named Chedi. The Powder Hound was named after our operations manager's dog, and the Gonzo is just… the Gonzo.

BLISTER: Yeah, one thing I'm super curious about—you mentioned that you weren't really seeing tele-specific skis. From a design and engineering perspective, were there any design elements, whether it's rocker, which you kind of just touched on, flex pattern, materials, shape—anything that instantly stood out like, "Oh, if we change this or that, it's going to be way better on tele"?

DAVE: Yeah, in fact, it didn't dawn on me until maybe the third year we were making skis—second or third year—and I was like, "Oh, we could really make this a true tele-specific ski." So I kind of invented this Telem-Arc Tech technology—it's patent pending because it's pretty unique, the way we do the construction and taper the core. We actually do this on all the skis now. It really can't and shouldn't be used for an alpine ski because we taper the core back where the heel is. On a telemark ski, you never have forces pulling—meaning the only forces from here back are pushing down on the ski. So you don't need the heavier, thicker core that every alpine binding needs to put the screws into because it takes force there. I was able to taper that core differently and change the materials in that area to allow it to flex unlike any other ski. We take advantage of the fact that we only mount in half the area that an alpine ski does, and we extra-reinforce that. We've never had a tele binding come out of our skis because we use really good construction and really good binding elements to make sure it's not going to pull out. So yeah, that's actually one of the really unique aspects of our skis that are tele-specific.

BLISTER: Gotcha. And then, obviously, you have touring-capable bindings. Are you thinking about weight in a particular way for specific models? Do you think one model is targeted towards touring, or are they all kind of all-purpose designed?

DAVE: They're all all-purpose. Like, I was in Japan last year, and I took the Powder Hound and toured on it. It's not light, but honestly, our general motto is "it's about the down." We even call the binding an Enduro binding—it's like mountain biking is my summer sport, and it's an Enduro bike, right? You can climb with it, and it has a free pivot, but you know, you're not wearing Spandex running up with the thing. That's not our demographic. It's about a bomber binding and turns on the way down. But I tour with it, and it's fine. The Chedi is my go-to touring ski because it's just an all-around ski. It's a little bit lighter than the Powder Hound, and again, it's just a little more versatile for the kind of conditions you see.

BLISTER: Makes sense, cool. And then, we have these nice-looking skis behind us. Can you tell me a bit more about the graphics we're seeing on them?

DAVE: Yeah, last year, we collaborated with a local artist, Shannon Kennedy, out of Minturn, a little town in the Vail Valley. She worked on the art with us, and so we're really excited about that. We like the looks she gave us, and we continue to work with her moving forward on the art.

BLISTER: Sweet. With the color palette of the bindings too, I've seen some mounted pairs out there—it looks like they look really sweet together.

Well, I think we can wrap it up with the San Juan Stick. Can you tell me, you alluded to it earlier, kind of the historical significance of this and then your more modern take on it?

DAVE: Yeah, right. So, yeah, we talked about it earlier—when people were just traveling from village to village in snow and had a free heel just to walk around and ski down, they took a stick to balance themselves on the way down. The San Juan Stick comes out of Silverton, Colorado. One of our athletes, Marshell Thompson, he was working on one. He uses one exclusively when he skis in the San Juans, and he hikes with it, so it had to come apart, and we came together and said, "Why don't we bring that on as a product?" I'm a product designer, so we engineered it a little bit, and we came out with what we call the San Juan Stick because that's where he is and uses it. It's great. It's a really fun way to turn. The way it comes apart is nice also for the lift—if you're not hiking with it, you don't have a 12-foot stick trying to get through the lift line. If you show up with a 12-foot stick, the lefties will look at you like, "Whoa… What are you doing?" So it comes apart; you can use it in the line to get through, get to the top, put it together, and it's a really flowy, fun turn. I don't use it all the time, but it definitely gets attention. As a tele skier, you get some attention, and then you have one of these things going down, and people are like, "What is going on?" You get a little more clearance too—you've got a 12-foot stick.

BLISTER: Yeah, you've got a natural shield around you. But yeah, I've seen some people using them, and it looks like a really fun way to get down the mountain in a pretty different way too.

DAVE: Yeah, it's a really surfy kind of feel when you're using it.

BLISTER: Sweet. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to run us through the brand and the products. I've talked to several people who are out trying them at the summit. They're really stoked to have a telemark outfit here and to try your gear. So thank you, and hopefully, you get some skiing while you're here.

DAVE: Yeah, sounds like there's some snow coming, so thanks for having us again. Yeah, thank you.