F2 bankrupt???

[nils]

Heard rumors about F2 going bankrupt...? fake or true...? anyone????

If its right its a huge bad news for the community...

N.

[pokkis]

viewtopic.php?t=4567

[fivat]

If they have financial problems, I'm afraid they will close their minor departments like the one about alpine snowboarding.
I don't like the F2 boards, but I love their bindings...

Patrice Fivat

[nils]

http://salzburg.orf.at/stories/273347/

http://www.wirtschaftsblatt.at/home/oes ... 0/index.do

it is likely not only the alpine dpt will stop but the whole business !

N.

[starikashka]

my first alpine board was F2. And they produced very durable and breathing clothes under their brand.Very sad news if it is a true.

So, Patrice...you can use other bindings or create a stock. I think with your weight and technique bindings should last longer. Cateks are good as well

[fivat]

Cateks are good as well

Well, some guys on Bomber Forum call them "board breakers"! That's for any type of board.

I have no statistics, but maybe the problem is related to the low surface base plate that provides huge levers and efforts in the inserts region. It's even worse with intec bindings: it's far too stiff laterally (that's why we do NOT recommend intec bindings for EC).

The F2 bindings give the lateral freedom required for EC, but still with a good precision.

Patrice Fivat

[starikashka]

Patrice, i know IMHO that`s not bindings broke a board. Bindings could just help rider to broke the board. I not wonder if we can find the pictures of broken board under TD2 on the Catek forum I suspect that board producers have both on their forums

BTW - who knows if F2 has a separate alpine shop from the main business. The article has no clear message like apline dead.

[harald]

In my opinion F2 is a strong brand name and the company has good products both in windsurfing and snowboards, even if not all of us prefer all of the F2 products. What might happen is that another company takes over and buys the brand names. However, in such a case it is always uncertain which products that will survive and which that will be terminated. I would guess that the alpine binding product line is a minor contributor and in danger of being terminated, but we could always hope for a miracle. One strategy for us is to buy all the F2 bindings that we can to have a private stock, as what happened when the Northwave harboots ceased its production.

[Willow 15]

I don't know if its related but World Cup racer Andi Prommegger was riding F2, but towards the end of the season he had a Kessler in his hands on the podium. Could be he was not getting his pay checks from F2 (if a company is in financial trouble the athletes wages are last on the list of things to do) or maybe he just wanted to ride Kesslers.

[Felix]

I think already last summer they "got rid" most athletes.
Bozetto is on Kessler since this season - and out of basically nowhere the year before he got 2. in the world cup overalls this year.Prommi (4.) and Patrick Bussler as well as Manuel Veith were basically the only F2 riders remaining on the worldcup (Stanislav Detkov is more on Europecup level). I don't know what they had under their feet, but wouldn't bet on F2. At least for Prommi it was Kessler, and I'm prettya certain that also Veith won in Limone in December with a Kessler - resting only Bussler?
Compared to previous years, that was allready minimal investment (remember the times when F2 topsheets (you never knew if it really was an F2 underneath) ruled the worldcup with Bozzetoo, Prommi, Huet, Bruhin, etc...

Wat's sad about it is, that F2 boards were so mainstream that you could find them for very long in all big sportstores (at lest in Austria) thereby providing many newcomers with boards. For top raceboards it's been a long time, or at least 3-4 years that their boards weren't competitive anymore. Also as an amateur racer it was easy to score good deals on F2 (around 150-200 Euros for new boards).

After all F2 was mainly a brand, and not a producer, so they're products might survive. Clothes were made a Salewa, boards at GST, bindings at??? (I thought SP - Snow Pro but on their website they say made in Germany and not Slov/Austria). I think that at least boards like the Eliminator, Silberpfeil and Speedster will be continued, but who knows?

With such high debts, I don't think anyone will buy F2????
However I do believe that the alpine products will be sold for some more years.

[yyzcanuck]

I couldn't post the PDF (due to size) so hopefully you can read the digital image.

[nils]

thnx dave, did not find the time to do it...sry thnx for your post!
nils

[The Blitz]

F2 french dealer : (in french)
http://www.windsurfjournal.com/virtual/ ... il2008.pdf

[Ohawa]

And they've made a new version of Speedster race (the one with World Cup logo and 183/162 lengths only) for this season... sort of a competition to Kessler, Oxess and SG.

[RicHard]

And they've made a new version of Speedster race (the one with World Cup logo and 183/162 lengths only) for this season... sort of a competition to Kessler, Oxess and SG.

They didn't have just 183 and 163 but even 169 and 15x (i don't remember).
Anyway, it's true that for next year they planned RS 170 and SL 158 (if I'm not wrong).
This was BEFORE the news of bankrupt...
:/