Lendal has been pulled from the 2010 Johnson Outdoors catalog. Rumors abound about their eventual purchase by another larger company *SKUK*?. For those of us that bought a Lendal before Johnson Outdoors prior to the purchase, they made a fine paddle that lots of us used to go places, surf, run rivers, and even lily dip through a few ponds. While I really like my Werner paddles, I don’t think a marketplace dominated by one manufacturer is ever a good thing (see Google, Microsoft, Apple et al).
Lendal kept Werner on it’s toes. Certainly Werner would never have even attempted to make a 4-piece take apart unless Lendal was dominating that space. Unfortunately Lendal’s move to Maine and management at Johnson Outdoors has tarnished their brand a bit. For the sake of the sport, I hope Lendal re-emerges from this period as a serious contender again. While my posts on Lendal quality problems probably did nothing to help their brand image, my intent was to point out that bigger isn’t always better. Johnson Outdoors didn’t help a small company and brand do anything better. It didn’t market the product any better, it didn’t help them innovate the product line at all, and they certainly didn’t help manufacture them any better. So now Lendal is down, hopefully not out, and Johnson can move on without really caring about the wreckage they left behind. Not sure how any of this helped paddle sports at all…
Good luck to Lendal, and I hope we get to see a few more on the water.
You still got blades available? I recently broke a Kinetic XTI blade and am looking for something to replace it, so I don’t have a worthless stick 🙂
Ted
John
I think you were the person who replied to my reply on Derrick's blog. Derrick sent me a cryptic message that lead me to believe he was passing my email onto you– add that to me being a rep and not being at home too often. Did I promise something? Or was that someone else?
Anyway, I don't have any XTI blades. SORRY. I do have, and am willing to get rid of:
Kinetik Power CF Blades
Fusion CF Blades
197 XPS Shaft (two piece of course)
And I'm sure I have a pile of keys around here somewhere.
I haven't heard anything back, so I'm covering all the bases…
Somewhere, somebody has some!
John,
Weren't you promised some blades on Derrick's blog?
Keith, you have both our emails – could you please put us in touch? I think I can help sourcing these blades.
I'm STILL looking for whitewater blades for my XPS shafts. There are none available in U.S. stores; Mountain Equipment Coop still has some, but is not allowed to ship to the U.S.
Hopefully somebody will come up with some XTI blades – maybe someone reading this blog???