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Sweat Shoppe

I'm sorry for the fact I'm about to generalize but I am really offended by some of the posts that suggest that manufacturing overseas, and especially Asia means 'sweatshops'.

I have worked and run these 'sweatshops' in Asia for 7 years so far and would question the ethical trading policy of many European businesses before I would Asian businesses.

The reason being that because the 'public' believes that manufacturing in Asia means sweatshops, then the companies that need to manufacture overseas due to the fact that the market forces them to, (i.e. the price you are all willing to pay for goods), have to ensure they are 'whiter than white'.

Now I understand that there are some companies that do not trade in an ethical fashion, for example some of the big branded clothing manufacturers, but in general, manufacture in the far east does not mean shit quality and unethical trading.

There is one simple question that I often find myself having to put to people with this rather sad and narrow view point and that is, 'If you go into M&S to buy a pair of pants and you have a choice of English made pants, using English fabrics, elastics, cottons etc which cost twenty pounds, or a pair made in Sri Lanka or China for 4.99, then which do you chose?' Then multiply this question by all of your possessions, your car, your climbing gear, all of your clothes, not to mention the computer you are reading this on and you may see why UK-centric, bigoted views are disliked so much.

Here's a question.... why, when we constantly search for the highest quality and highest integrity hard gear (case in point the market leading Petzl or BD) do we not value climbing shoes in such similar fashion? There can be no question that shoes made in Italy or the Czech Republic (under the hands of experienced guildsmen) are of higher quality than mass produced "sweat-shop" variety. You just can't put factory line-ups and real craftsman on the same stage (unless you hype the belivin Bob out the garbage as we now see). Those of you around long enough know what happened to 5-10 quality when they went overseas for production....it shit itself. Now we all trip over ourselves to pick up the latest craze crap made in China. I've had a pair, by the way, and there is just no comparison b/w MadRock and say Sportiva, Bufo or Scarpa. Whether it's an ethical choice or a quality choice it's a no-brainer... unless of course you are

I heard an interesting story from someone in the supply chain for shoes.

5.10 are not a company that manufactures, but has other companies make shoes for them. The team at Mad Rock used to be the company that made shoes for 5.10 for a long while and after long term negotiations decided that they were not getting a good deal on manufacturing shoes for 5.10 and so took the lasts, production methods etc from 5.10 and started their own shoes under the name Mad Rock.

They added a little to the shoes to make them different from the shoes they had been making for 5.10 but basically as you will have noticed by not they are very similar to some of the 5.10 range.

This left 5.10 with a problem. They had great sales on shoes that they had to re-source and have the new manufacturer make shoes from scratch - new lasts etc. This flux in their manufacturing explains why their shoes have gone through problems - soles coming unstuck, and why the new shoes are slightly different from the old ones - look at the latest production Anaztazi Velcro.

I imagine this is basically true, and so it means that the Mad Rocks are more or less the same as old good quality 5.10's

I'd be interested to know who Joe Gartland really is? As that is obviously a piss take of the U.S. Sales director of Mad Rock (Joe Garland). Could he be from a rival company who are a bit worried about their sales?

In reference to the bad press Mad Rock have received in this thread which mainly refers to them wearing fast, I would say that the shoes are you are talking about are from the first batch with a softer compound, which although very sticky did wear very fast. The subsequent batches (i.e.. the ones in the shops at the moment) have a harder rubber which wears much the same as Stealth C4 and in all lab tests performs slightly better than C4, although in my experience it has about the same performance level.

We have sold a large number of these shoes and have had very few returns, a lot less than other manufacturers I can think of, so I would say that the general build quality is as good as your going to get in a performance rock shoe.

Finally the point I think is very sad, is the slur on the factory conditions which is utter nonsense. I know for a fact that Nelson Sports (the company behind Mad Rock) own all there own factories and pay twice as much as most other far eastern factories, as such there is a long waiting list of people wanting to work for the company.
 

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