What goes into product innovation in climbing? Bill Belcourt shares insights from over 30 years in the industry.
Passion, conviction, obsession. Heart and soul. Words to describe the devoted. Those driven to produce what had never existed before — a crusade to push the sport forward.
When Bill Belcourt talks product, you listen. The former head of R&D at Black Diamond, Bill helmed the department during the heydey, when anything was possible and all roads led to BD for product innovation. Chances are, if you’ve used BD climbing gear in the past 30 years, you’ve used Bill’s work.
Now, Bill leads Blue Ice - North America, where the work continues.
In this episode, we chat about:
Resources and links:
Bill isn’t really active on social media, so no point in sharing links. We didn’t talk about it in the episode, but Bill has been at the vanguard of paragliding in the U.S. for decades (and has several long-distance records). If you’d like to learn more about that facet of his life, this is a good podcast episode.
If you’d like to dive deeper into the (mythology?) of Black Diamond, I enjoyed this article from Outside, “Welcome to the Mutant Factory”.
And of course, if you’d like to support a climbing brand who is continuing the work, check out Blue Ice at blueice.com.
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📸: Cover photo by Barry Blanchard.