TPS Archives

Reprints From The Professional Skier

Fall 1997 - "The Truth About Boots For A New Age" by R. Mark Elling

This article is reprinted from The Professional Skier. All copyrights apply. Please see our copyright and disclaimer notice page.

Super sidecuts, radical-width dimensions, and shorter lengths have taken hold of current ski design, enabling skiers to carve quicker, deeper, and more easily. Not surprisingly, boot form has followed function to suit carving with some interesting design changes for the 1997-98 ski season, marking some of the biggest departures from traditional boot-making schools of thought since plastic usurped leather. Is nothing sacred? Will our entire snow-sliding existence be altered by weird-science, carve-crazed engineer types? Yes. Put your new Scott race shafts behind glass--poles are probably next.

My interest in exploring the evolution of boot design was piqued this spring at Mount Bachelor ski resort in Oregon, where I had the opportunity to work as a boot tester with Steve Cohen, editorial consultant at SKI magazine, Jeff Rich of Master Fit University (a boot fitting and alignment services company), and about 15 other testers for SKI magazine's annual boot test. With their help I was brought up to date on current boot technology and features, then had a chance to jam my dogs' into over 20 different boots and ski them in a range of conditions, using various adjustment settings but on the same pair of skis.

What I discovered about boots surprised me (an admitted gear-geek who thought he knew it all) and this inspired me to do some follow-up research. My goal: compare the sensory information I received from skiing in these new boots with what designers and salespeople are saying about them, and try to place all of that within a framework that might help other instructors understand a little more about what we, and our students, will find in the boot world this year.

As someone who'd never before had a chance to "demo" boots before purchasing them, I'd always selected boots under the assumption that if I found a boot that was comfortable, fit well, had the desired flex--and offered some gadgets--I'd be golden. My opinion was that high-end boots all skied similarly as long as they fit well and didn't inflict debilitating pain. I was flat wrong. Good boots are like fine wines or good microbrews--they're all solid products, but each is quite different to a discerning palate. Many of these boots fits perfectly, flexed similarly, and had the same kind of features, but I was blown away at how differently they affected my skis' performance. Some of the boots I could have easily purchased in a shop without a second thought, but had I skied each of them, I would have rapidly narrowed my selection to one pair.

Rather than focus on comparing one particular boot with another, I'll relate my sensory experience with different design features. This was the most interesting part of the boot-testing experiment-feeling how different aspects of the boot's construction altered the performance of the ski. I'll also include some design information provided by boot makers to accompany my more anecdotal data. Let me preface this discussion by mentioning that I mainly skied on "shaped-ski" boots, and that most of the new design trends are showing up in these carving-type lines. Since few instructors have the chance to demo boots, my hope is to share this information as a way to give them an understanding of what's going on with this new design movement. Of course, this is only my take on things, and subject to debate.

It's important to remember what has happened to skis when you look at the design changes occurring in boots this season, as the two are directly related. Shaped skis are shorter and softer, in general, and this lessens the need for a stiff boot with a tall upper cuff. A skier simply doesn't need that kind of leverage to make a shaped ski work on groomed surfaces. These skis have more dramatic sidecut profiles, which let the ski make a carved turn without requiring the skier to bend the ski as much. This means skiers need to use less vertical and more lateral movements, therefore requiring a boot that's stiffer to the inside. The increased sidecut also enables skiers to generate fairly extreme edge angles at slower speeds. This makes "boot-out" (the loss of edge grip caused by the boot making contact with the snow) a problem for more skiers than ever before, and some boot manufacturers are trying to address this as well.

By far, the feature that most affected my skis' performance as I moved from boot to boot during the test was the boot's flex, fore and aft. A softer forward flex was the norm for the carving boot lines, brought about by a reduced need to pressure the shovel of shaped skis at turn initiation. I would estimate that 85 percent of manufacturers offering a shaped boot line are promoting a softened forward flex. Some others, like Raichle, don't advertise it but traditionally produce a softer flexing boot. According to Dalbello's director of sales and marketing, Clint Lyon, softened forward flex prevents "overloading" the hovel of skis with more radical sidecuts, thus avoiding the "hooky" feel that can come with using a stiffer flexing boot on such skis. Some manufacturers exhibited a softened aft flex, for supposed ease of turn exit. Many of the carving boots offered a wider-than-average range of flex adjustment settings as well, a trend that Lyon explained is emerging as a means to let the boots adapt to a broader spectrum of shaped ski designs. "We're trying to create a product with diversity built into it," he said.

The softer flexing boots made all-mountain ripping a snap--the increased ankle flexion allowed for a wide range of movements and aided smooth lower body flexion and extension, which made it easy to vary turn sizes and shapes. I noticed that when I went from these softer flexing boots to stiffer ones during the test, the reduced ankle flexion in the stiff boots limited my ability to vary the size of turn, and at times I found myself "locked-up," unable to adjust to terrain changes when I needed to.

However, one major problem I had with softened flex was the idea that rearward flex is somehow useful for exiting carved turns. I exited a few turns on my can on account of a too soft aft flex, particularly in Dalbello's Carvex Freeride, which incorporates a "walk-carve-ski" switch into the boot (which I hear has since been improved). While the "hang-ten" stance resulting from the softened rear flex was impossible to ski from, I'll hand it to Dalbello for providing enough flex and ramp angle adjustment to enable me to salvage a functional stance. This was an interesting lesson in Gadget Trial and Error 101 because many of the shaped boots have wider adjustment ranges in forward flex and inclination, heel lift/ramp angle, and lateral upper-cuff adjustments. There are more ways than ever to "get it wrong," so more skiers than ever will need help finding that "right" boot setting for use with their gear.

One related benefit for skiers that seems to have come from increasing forward flex without rendering the boot unstable is a vastly improved tongue and instep fit. Most of the new designs felt great and flexed in a comfortable way, and this comes from someone very well acquainted with shin-bang.

A popular catch-phrase one often hears from product reps describing shaped boots is "increased medial stiffness," which is designed to transfer energy more directly and powerfully to the inside edge of the ski to enhance carving. Most of the manufacturers are promoting their use of stiffer materials and more rigid designs that bolster the medial half of the boot shell. Raichle has gone so far as to eliminate the lateral, upper-cuff adjustment on its Carver series in an attempt to reduce one more weak point in the medial stiffness "power train," so to speak. Though I was skeptical that minute variations in medial stiffness mattered, I discovered that these forwardly soft-flexing boots maintained a very tenacious grip over the inside edge during a carved turn. Still, I wasn't convinced--medial stiffness isn't something you can see. So I asked Raichle's Peter Gale, vice president of sales and marketing, how this type of boot's medial stiffness is any different from that of good, high-performance boots we've seen in previous years. He simply said, "The carving boots are even stiffer."

But is that really any breakthrough? "What does all this mean?" countered Al Marino, alpine product manager for Salomon. "Does it mean that all the race boots out there weren't designed to carve?"

Scott Mellin, Nordica's product manager for winter sports, echoed Marino's skepticism. "We never really designed the Grand Prix to skid," he said. "What works in carving is what has always worked." Their comments bring up the essential split in the movement toward boots for use with carving skis, and it's a division marked by a basic question: What exactly is a shaped/carving boot?

The consensus I reached in speaking with several different industry-types was that the true shaped design ensemble would include a boot that is medially stiff, softer flexing, have a range of adjustment for at least flex and inclination to suit the myriad shaped ski designs out there, and provide a way to reduce the tendency toward " boot-out. " I found the first three ingredients to be widely implemented, but this last point of reducing boot-out is still up for grabs and--depending on who you talk to--the defining element of the shaped boot. It stands to reason that the less a boot sticks out from side to side, especially down at the lower boot, the less it will tend to come into contact with the snow and cause boot-out. So a boot could either be made very slim, or it could be elevated off the ski to provide greater clearance during radical edging.

Consequently, the industry is seeing an emphasis placed upon some boots' "skinny factor." But this seems more a marketing tactic than any major change in design. For example, Raichle has made the most of the situation, now labeling its characteristic low-volume, narrow profile as a "boot-out preventer," according to Gale.

Skiers also have been implementing "lifts" or "plates" beneath the bindings or incorporated into the bindings themselves to gain such clearance. Now Dolomite is introducing a line of carving boots with lift built directly into the boot board--elevator shoe-style--to prevent boot-out, and the company has sunk a lot of capital into creating new boot molds for this, according to Paul Angelico, the company's vice president. Dolomite's CYB-X Super Carve boasts 15 millimeters of lift underneath the foot and claims that this provides the benefits of greater leverage and better boot-out clearance, without the additional use of plates mounted beneath the binding. When I tried the Super Carve the lift factor tended to function as billed, laying some very stable arcs--once I'd stepped into my bindings. Getting used to walking around in a lifted boot was a bit strange though, and I'll admit I felt a little like Paul Stanley of Kiss for a minute or two there in the lodge.

Citing that lift plates can negatively affect a ski's flex and performance, Angelico is convinced that incorporating lift into the boot will be the design wave that catches on. "In the future we may see plates disappear altogether, and all the boots produced will be made to work with these (shaped) skis," he said.

Of course, a boot manufacturer's stance on lift depends somewhat on whether or not it has a lifted binding line to sell, so naturally Salomon's angle of attack on lift is one of "versatility for the skier." This means Salomon will keep the lift separate from boots, according to Marino. This matter of versatility gets to the question of "Who are shaped-ski boots for?"

Among others, Dalbello and Dolomite are targeting skiers who are purely into laying it over on smooth surfaces--your "trench warfare" crowd--and while this is the craze, it begs the question of whether these boots are just as suited for all-mountain, recreational skiing. In skiing several different carving boot lines, I noted that many of them were implementing a lowered cuff height-lowered to supposedly enhance the highly lateral movement patterns of carving on shaped skis. This lowered cuff, though comfortable and functional when carving on smooth surfaces, made the boot feel a little slight in bumps and unpredictable crud where greater fore/aft support comes in handy. At times it felt as if I might twist my ankle if I wasn't careful to remain centered while off-piste in the lowered cuff boots.

My boot-testing experience has led me to wonder if some boot basics might be warped out of proportion in the rush to capture carving customers. We're seeing more lateral adjustment range appear in some boots' upper cuffs and other boots are using medial cuff wedges, both as a means to allow skiers to alter their normal alignment in order to ride farther on their inside edges. Sanmarco's Cyber line offers such cuff-adjustment range, and product manager Don Stehle suggests skiers be careful with extreme alignment manipulation. "This feature is for advanced skiers who want to experiment with high-performance carving," he says.

According to Marino, Salomon feels the full-on carving boot design is restrictive. "We don't feel that permanent, radical boot features designed for carving help the average skier," he says. In response, Salomon has developed a convertible-type boot line that uses removable wedges that both stiffen the boot medially and can be used to manipulate the inside edge angle for enhanced carving applications. The wedges can be removed for a return to a traditional high-performance boot design. Similarly, Nordica has implemented a convertible system in its GP C-Xtreme line that uses wraparound spoilers to beef-up medial stiffness and accessory heel wedges to alter ramp angle. "While skiers may tend to own several pairs of skis, we don't see them purchasing more than one pair of boots," Marino says. "Why would a skier want to end up with a built-in lift that he may not need for his traditional or powder skis?"

It became clear to me after testing a wide range of boots and then speaking with representatives from boot companies that the carving, or shaped-ski, boot movement breaks down into two basic factions that are defined by market share. The big players whose sales consist of the largest piece of the financial boot pie appear to be doing the least to their boots in terms of design changes. For example, after the boot test I placed Lange's G Force line boots and the Tecnica Innotec boot into the "High Performance" category rather than the class for "Shaped Boots," even though they're being marketed as such. While they were great boots that carved like the bejesus (in fact, they were some of my favorites), they basically seemed like regular, good boots. Neither Salomon's nor Rossignol's shaped-ski boots seemed that radically different from the norm either.

My guess is that those manufacturers with the least to lose are taking the risk and trying to snatch the carving customers first with more permanent and substantial changes in boot design, while the others may throw in a wedge here and a spoiler there in a response to market demand, then wait to see what happens to sales.

But what does all this mean to instructors as it relates to their students who may be showing up on shaped-ski boots? More stuff: more features, more adjustment range, more variables. I was surprised by how badly some boots initially made me ski, and a lot of that loss of performance came from adjustments that were out-of-whack for how I wanted to ski on my particular equipment. Imagine how many of our students will be similarly failing to reach their performance goals without somebody's help to get their new-school gear dialed in correctly. Instructors are in a position to help foster a willingness in students to experiment with their gear--a tough sell for skiers who spend only five to 10 days per season on snow.

Meanwhile the debate rages on about which theories will take hold and set the standard for the next round of design manipulations. Perhaps this is merely a phase that will serve to establish the design extremes from which we eventually retreat, back toward more conventional trends. On the other hand, this may be just the beginning of increasingly radical adaptations yet to come in ski boots.

Nordica in particular feels the aesthetic shape of boots may change substantially with the advent of dual-density shell molding technology, which has led to the unorthodox exoskeletal appearance of their Expopower boot line. "In the long term, we may see a real deviation from what we know as the ski boot," Mellin says. What sort of secret, sci-fi weirdness we might be wearing on our feet in the near future is still anybody's guess.

Not surprisingly, in this environment of technological evolution, a few of the boot manufacturers take part in some muted finger-pointing regarding which competitors are true innovators in the shaped-ski boot arena and which are simply playing shrewd marketing games to jump on the carving-craze bandwagon. But skiers are the beneficiaries of this technological competition for the same reason that travelers love a fare war. This renewed drive to improve the ski boot will no doubt continue to produce improvements in comfort, fit, and adjustment systems even in lower-priced models within manufacturers' lines, which can do nothing but promote the growth of the sport and people's enjoyment of it, so long as instructors can help them figure it out.

And as a case in point, every basement alignment technician needs to take a look at Dachstein's Servo Curving System. Dachstein has developed a nifty, pivotal heel plate that can be adjusted to shift medially or laterally on the boot itself. This, in essence, allows a skier to manipulate whether the skis point more toward each other or away from each other, according to an individual skier's alignment or style needs. You say your right ski always tracks away? No problem, let me grab my screwdriver! Keep your eyes peeled-it's a great time to be a gear geek.

R. Mark Elling is a Level III certified alpine and Level II certified backcountry instructor at Mount Bailey Snowcat Skiing in Oregon. His instructional skiing book, The All-Mountain Skier: The Way to Expert Skiing (McGrawHill/Ragged Mountain Press), will be available in bookstores this fall.