Bont Rowing – The Inception Story

Bont Rowing have established themselves as the undisputed provider of rowing shoes globally. With a foothold in most of the national teams and leading performance centres, Bont Rowing’s shoes lead the way in terms of innovation and product quality.

We sat down with founder and CEO, Istvan Nemeth, to discuss how Bont Rowing came to be and what his plans are for expansion and evolution.

How did Bont Rowing come about? 

I had just purchased a single and wasn’t overly impressed with the rowing shoes in it. I felt they lacked in a number of areas and were borderline counterproductive. Having been involved in technical shoe development in cycling for around 15 years, I believed we could improve on what was available.

What was your connection to rowing before setting up Bont Rowing?  

I basically grew up in rowing sheds and started rowing around the age of 10 or 11. I was out of the sport briefly a few times dealing with life, but always kept in contact. Rowing has always been my escape from the world, my sanity break.

What was your original vision for the company and how has this evolved over the years? 

We didn’t go into this with a grand vision. As with our cycling shoe brand, we have some absolute rules to how we operate. On the design side, basically any design/launch of a new product has to conform to a simple question – ‘does the product improve performance and injury prevention?’. If yes, the product is released. If I had to pick any vision at the start it was simply to design products that made a functional difference, a positive experience for the rower. Today, this same vision stands, but we are now expanding into other areas such as club technical clothing, etc.

What have been your highlight and lowlight whilst running Bont Rowing? 

Lots of highlights. The positive feedback and smiles on customers faces always makes my day better. If I had to pick some real special moments, there would be two.

First was a rower that had purchased some shoes from us. She had been rowing most of her life and suffered knee injuries and back problems for years which resulted in a number of surgeries. After moving across to our shoes, her knee stability improved and her ongoing issues were resolved.

The second is a company achievement.  I have been in the cycling industry for many years, but rowing has always been my first passion. Seeing our products make a difference and being used at the highest level of the sport is special. Our cycling shoes have been used to win some of the biggest events in sport; Tour De France, World Championships, Olympics, Ironman World Championships, BMX, etc,. Watching athletes use our rowing shoes to win World and Olympic titles was a real special moment.

In regards to frustrations, I would say sometimes the reluctance of the sport to embrace new technology. When I hear people say ‘we have always done it this way, why should we change’, I get a little annoyed. The sport is going through changes in our area and people have been conditioned at no fault of their own to perceive the current norm as right or acceptable. It takes time to change, educate and show people what is possible and how it can improve their experience and enjoyment of the sport.

I know your original connection to sport was cycling. How has that influenced your work with Bont Rowing? 

I have had rowing in my life for over 40 years. Cycling came later and was initially a way of getting to rowing training. As a kid I used to ride 25km+ to training, complete a rowing session and than ride home. During some breaks I had from rowing I rode to keep fit and raced a little.

In cycling, we have always been known for technical innovation and are often used as a benchmark. We have done a lot of work on connection points, studying the effects of various shoe technologies, support structures and how they relate to various skeletal groups in the body. It’s not rocket science, rather simple biomechanics, but this is something that we have brought across to the rowing division and really focus on. If you talk to rowing coaches most will talk about boats, oars, athletes technical and fitness abilities. Very few ever talk about the connection between the boat and athlete. Oar grip, seats and shoes are well down the list of important factors. This was the same in cycling 15 years ago, but today cyclists are acutely aware of connection points and their importance to both performance and injury prevention. You mention seats to rowers and coaches and they generally think and talk about comfort factors. Comfort is important, but what about a seats ability to assist in correct pelvic positioning and its benefits.

The same is true with shoes and in some ways it is far worse. Having the correct size shoes is seen as a luxury rather than a necessity. 2000 meters is more or less 200 strokes (depending on conditions, age, ability, etc). If your shoes are one centimetre too long, your feet will move up to one centimetre inside the shoes before really engaging in driving the boat 200 times. That is quite a bit of lost leg drive. Apart from size, there are other factors such as correct structural support from shoes. Having correctly designed shoes will have a direct benefit to increasing surface area of drive platform and accurate knee tracking which in turn will help with pelvic and lower back stability.

Whilst oars and boats are obviously very important, connection points are factors that need to be understood and focused on.

What is your strategy for the brand moving forward? 

In simple terms, it is to continue with our science-based product innovation. We continue to always look at ways of improving our shoes and listening to customer feedback. We are moving forward with our clothing launch after spending around four years developing and testing our product. This will involve lots of high-tech materials from other sports and designs focusing on our core principles.

What do you think is the target customer base for Bont Rowing here in the UK? 

Interesting question. We don’t target particularly segmented customers. We offer an innovative, technical, high quality product. If you are a rower who appreciates innovation that makes a functional difference and improves your rowing experience than I would invite you to contact us.

Bont Rowing are the world’s most technically advanced and anatomically correct rowing shoes. How do you go about accomplishing that?

It has taken a lot of work and research over 15 years. For starters, our shoe shape is designed around a last (shoe shape/form) created from 20,000 laser scans of people’s feet. Our shoe shape is not designed from an aesthetic perspective, but rather on functional requirements. What looks cool and great on your feet on date night is not necessarily going to make your rowing experience great. You don’t have to look very hard to see the resemblance between the shape of our shoes and human feet, something you will only find with Bont shoes.

Once you get past the general shape, there are other technical difference such as heel counter design to stabilise the heel and stop heel slip. When your heels start slipping in shoes, your toes will automatically start gripping to hold your foot in the shoes which in turn tightens your calf muscles. There are numerous other factors such as medial longitudinal arch support (also unique to Bont Rowing shoes) which minimises foot pronation assisting with knee tracking and pelvic stability.

For us, developing our rowing shoes did not start from picking a standard shoe shape off a rack in a third-party factory and adding a flexible sole with a Velcro closure.

At Bont Rowing, we started with the information we had from all the laser scans of people’s feet, looking at the biomechanical requirements of rowing and how a shoe could assist in providing better stability, improved connection and performance. Simply put, it’s a commitment to driving a boat forward. We worked with pressure sensors inside shoes to measure various effects through the drive and recovery phase. We studied the effects of various foot placements and positions to ensure we could provide the best connection and stability. We looked at the direct effects of foot stability on pelvic rotation and back stability. We spent the best part of 12 months designing and testing the final product in our own factory.

Which events will Bont be attending in Europe this year? 

We will look to attend some of the World Cups, Henley Royal Regatta, etc directly.

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