[WeaponZero]

those of you currently watching the market for safety gear have probably noticed that Fieldsheer has redesigned their ENTIRE lineup and everything left over from the prior model years is up for sale on closeout.  The differences between the old and new gear are very minor, however, in most cases, so you may be wondering why they did this.

Fieldsheer is a European company and their US distributor decided to not sell their stuff anymore.  Because of how import laws protect the US-based distributors, Fieldsheer had to give all of their gear a redesign in order to continue selling in the US through a different distributor.

You may also have noticed that Teknic went through something similar last year (which, according to Aaron from newenough.com, is why they no longer carry Teknic gear at all).  Their US distributor pulled the plug on the contract prematurely, but because of how laws protect the US-based distributor, Teknic had to revamp their ENTIRE line in order to continue selling in the US through a new distributor.  Hence the reason why so many jackets they debuted in ’08 were given the axe or redesigned after only one year.

[eon]

So Teknic’s US distributor breaks the contract and Teknic have to redesign their entire product range to sell in the US? Are you sure? If that is correct it is the most f***** up thing I have heard in a long time.

Also, I see Teknic gear on both NewEnough and MotorcycleSuperstore. And not the knocked down clearance prices either. The jacket I bought for $170 last year is selling for $315 today.

[WeaponZero]

What jacket would that be?  And all Teknic gear on newenough.com is on closeout

[eon]

It is their Freeway jacket. MotorcycleSuperstore have it in stock but maybe they are just emptying out their current supplies. They ran out of this jacket not long after I bought and got another shipment in at the start of the year and bumped the price up to the MSRP. They are still selling it at MSRP.

[WeaponZero]

Motorcycle Superstore tends to be a bit behind the times when it comes to closeouts.  Alpinestars recently announced they are discontinuing a bunch of their jackets and other retailers are selling them at closeout prices, but MS is still selling many of them at full retail.

Anyway, Teknic’s entire model line was revised for ’09 and not a single ’08 model was carried over.  All this because of their distributor screwing them over.  Apparently they’re eliminating the middle man now and handling their own distribution.

It really is too bad because there were some really nice jackets they came out with at the beginning of the ’08 year (Hellion, Impulse, Rage, Diablo) that they were forced to discontinue.  They still make a jacket called the Rage but its completely different, essentially an updated Freestyle.

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