Montbell‘s new traction offerings are just rebadged Chainsens from Snowline.
Earlier this month, Montbell announced their new traction (chain spikes) lineup, including their aptly-named and outdoor-focused Chain Spike. They listed the country of origin as Korea which immediately made me suspicious since Snowline, who make the Chainsen line of traction devices (and, I believe, were the original manufacturers of Kahtoola’s Microspikes), are headquartered in Korea. I used my meager image compositing skills to put together this side-by-side comparison:
Snowline makes a number of Chainsen models, however, it appears that the Montbell offering is almost identical to the Chainsen Pro. Note that the only significant difference is the size of the wishbone-shaped plate near the bottom of each product: it’s slightly smaller on the Montbell. However, there’s even more evidence that these are both manufactured by Snowline: if you look very closely at the inside upper band you’ll see that they’re both marked with US patent 7428788 B2, which is currently held by Snowline Co Ltd.
Montbell claims that the weight of their offering is 345 grams, however, they do not list the corresponding size and choosing from among the various sizes on their website does not update the weight. Digging further, they list the range of size large as “25.5-28.5cm” which is more or less the 260-285mm range for size large quoted on Snowline’s site, which pegs the weight at a slightly heavier 356 grams. Given the smaller wishbone, would it be possible to shave 11 grams by ordering your Chainsens through Montbell? Or is this reflective of a universally updated design and the assets on Snowline’s site just need updating?