"We assembled 1.2 million single parts in three months."

We began production at the beginning of August. In our latest YouTube video from our production facility, we have shown you how our bindings are assembled from scratch. It is important to us that we not only talk about 'Made in Germany', but also show you that every CLEW binding is produced by hand in Miesbach (Bavaria).

Now, at the end of autumn, we have successfully completed this year's production - almost at the same time as the release of our new model on 01.10.2021. The first October weekend was quite a success already - not only in terms of the sales figures of the first days, but also the promising number of sales countries that we now supply to. 

Furthermore, we have significantly increased our CLEW Rider team in the last weeks. Exciting riders from Norway, Italy, Holland, Poland, Austria as well as the USA are now riding for and with CLEW! So, you can look forward to lots of great videos and pictures on our social media channels. We'll introduce our new CLEW team riders in short portraits in the upcoming November edition.

Mid-October marked the anniversary of our appearance on "Die Höhle der Löwen". In the CLEW history, the German TV show in 2019, counts as an early, as well as groundbreaking milestone. On page 2, we will share with you the first steps of CLEW and how everything has developed since then. Sometimes we can hardly believe it ourselves, in how many different areas we have grown and where we stand today compared to then. 

In the current month we were able to reach another and important milestone: Sending our first shipping container with brand new CLEW bindings to our own fulfillment center in America.

In fact, the many requests via Instagram and email from the US motivated us to increase our originally planned quantities once again, despite Corona. Our American website, clew.us will go live in just under a week.  

We are already looking forward to our first sales season in one of the largest and most important markets in the world. In addition, we have also gained a second, smaller, but still very interesting sales market with Israel in October.

Our exclusive snowboards, which we produced in close cooperation with the guys from Moonchild, will be delivered to our fulfillment center in Bavaria at the beginning of November. We will start directly with the delivery, so that all those who pre-ordered will receive their board right on time for the start of the season. 

Lately, we've been asked again and again if we wouldn't also sell CLEW beanies and hoodies. In fact, it's not that easy to find high quality merchandise with our quality standards. After an intensive search for suppliers and producers in Europe, we can finally bring you some good news: From now on, hoodies and beanies made of 100% organic cotton are available - including high-quality CLEW logo embroidery. However, we only have a small collection available - so it's totally limited. 

Story of CLEW   

We, Jakob, Johannes and Matthias, three former students, founded CLEW. We had one thing in common: We wanted to save ourselves the trouble of buckling and unbuckling after every lift ride, while still not giving up the unsurpassed riding experience of a buckle binding. 

Until then, there was no snowboard step-in binding on the market that satisfied us. 

Thanks to the university module "Methods of Product Development", in the last semester of our mechanical engineering studies, we were able to develop our first idea of a new type of snowboard step-in binding using 3D printing processes and make it feasible. 

The idea: The binding should consist of two parts. The base should be firmly mounted on the snowboard. The decoupleable highback should be able to be strapped to any soft boot and firmly anchored to the board by a click system. With the possibility to keep the classic ratchet, we wanted to keep the traditional riding feeling. 

At the idea competition of the Munich University of Applied Sciences, our concept was awarded as "Best Business Idea from a Course".

In the first step, we tested more than 11 different prototypes on the track ourselves. And we submitted our first business plan to the Stracheg Award and won the first place.

We presented the first fully-functional, but still unsalable prototype of our binding in January 2019 at the ISPO sports fair. 

At the beginning of 2019, we embarked on a months-long search to find the right suppliers, producers for individual parts, as well as machines and a production site. When it came to the production site, we all agreed right from the start. Our entire production was to be based on quality work "Made in Germany". To this end, we wanted to use the know-how gained for our further development and rely on one hundred percent control, by ourselves. 

In March 2019, the episode of Höhle der Löwen was recorded. With nearly 3 million viewers weekly, it is one of the most successful TV shows on German television. The show aired on 10/19/2019, and in the course of the show, we not only had over 90,000 store visitors in October 2019, but also numerous pre-orders for the upcoming winter. 

In the late 2019, we produced our first small batch - the Pre Rider model. Friends and family helped in production so that all bindings could be delivered on time. 

In January 2020, 42 jurors from 13 countries voted the CLEW binding the ISPO Award Gold Winner, making it the best and most innovative snowboard binding in the world.

We spent the entire first half of 2020 on product development. 

The result of months of testing was the CLEW20 model. 

In winter 20/21, the CLEW20 model has brought us a lot of important and positive feedback from our customers and pro riders. In addition, we were able to convince the German Snowboard Association of our technology and have since then their full support. This helped us to grow quickly in the D-A-CH region at first.

In spring 2021, we scrutinized every part of our CLEW20 binding again, and incorporated the many feedbacks, quite a few missions of our team riders, into the months-long development phase. 

And due to "Made in Germany" we had a high flexibility and responsiveness in this year's production and could, despite worldwide supply bottlenecks in the wake of the Corona pandemic, carry out our production on schedule. Furthermore, this made it possible for us to once again include the workshop for people with disabilities in Miesbach in Upper Bavaria in our production processes.

With the new CLEW Freedom 1.0 binding, we will transform the snowboard sport for good and continue to write our history. We are ready. 

Outlook

A little preview of what's coming up for us in the next few weeks. In November not only the clock changes while it gets cold and wintry outside - for us the hot phase starts now and we will finally go to the mountains again, there will be some shootings with our team riders! We will of course show you the latest pictures and videos - as always on our social media channels. 

Until then, we are looking forward with great anticipation to the launch of our USA website.  

Until then, cheer on, winter is coming soon! 

Your CLEW Team