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Ultimate alpine TOURING boot?
- Lowell_Skoog
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The sketch below shows some ideas for what could be the ultimate alpine TOURING boot. I emphasize TOURING because the idea of this boot is to balance cross-country and downhill performance. This is not a boot for if-you-fall-you-die skiing. It's a simple "go anywhere, do almost anything" boot for ski mountaineering where you want to cover distance as well as make turns. Perfect for, say, skiing the Ptarmigan Traverse.
Features:
1. Dynafit compatible
2. Flexible forefoot
3. Forefoot buckle
4. Quick-cinch upper lacing
5. No rear spoiler
In my experience, the biggest drawback to touring on gentle terrain with alpine touring boots is that you can't make a full stride. By loosening the cuff, you can bend forward at the ankle, but you can't point your toe or extend your foot forward very much because of the rear spoiler. I find this to be true even with the cuff unlocked. The spoiler always gets in the way. (Maybe you need to have toured in mountain boots a lot, like I have, to notice the difference.)
It's conceivable that you could design a really free-ranging cuff with a lock system, but I haven't seen one yet. The Scarpa F1 is an interesting attempt, but the locking system is too bulky and weird for hiking and scrambling, in my opinion. I'd rather have a traditional mountain boot cuff.
Dynafit compatibility is a no-brainer. The flexible forefoot would improve the "step-off" part of each stride just as the low cuff would improve the "step-onto" part. The forefoot buckle would provide quicker and more positive adjustment of the forefoot than a lace. The quick-cinch upper lace on the cuff is something I've been experimenting with on my current mountain boots. I use a lace from a pair of cross-country skating boots. The lace is light, quick, simple, and very adjustable between touring and downhill modes. A buckle might work here, but in my experience, most buckles don't loosen enough and I end up unbuckling them entirely. I'd like to avoid that.
Based on past on-line discussions of skiing in mountain boots, I suspect that almost nobody would buy this boot. Few people notice the shortcomings of today's alpine touring boots for touring and even fewer people are willing to give up some downhill performance and adapt their skiing to use a boot like this. But it's nice to daydream.
Who will build this boot?
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- OldHouseMan
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- Lowell_Skoog
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<br><br>Yeah, this is mostly daydreaming. Actually, I modified the Dynafit Mountain Lites I bought last fall to get part of the way there. I chopped off the spoiler, shortened the laces, and put the quick-cinch lace on the cuff. If I could scrounge up some buckles to replace the lower lace, I'd be quite satisfied. (The lower shell is so stiff that it's hard to tighten the forefoot using the lace.) The flexible bellows would be nice, but I can live without that. I'm pretty happy with my Mountain Lites at this point, but I can imagine better (hence this post).<br><br>I certainly understand what Jan is saying about being reluctant to forgo the spoiler. Like I said, the idea of this boot is to more evenly balance between touring and downhill performance. Most of the time, most alpine tourers today aren't looking for that. We want better downhill than touring performance and are willing to live with the results. But sometimes I get real pleasure out of slipping into a pair of mountain boots for a tour. It's like "Aaah, I can move in these..." The trick is that I have to descend slower and with less abandon.<br><br>With our modern, more shaped skis, using the spoiler is even less necessary than it was in the past. When you're on your feet on modern skis, there's no need to pressure the tail of the ski at any point in the turn. You really want to pressure the tip slightly. So the spoiler becomes a tool for recovering from mistakes--a very handy tool, I agree. But I think you can achieve the same level of control by just slowing down a bit.<br><br>Oh well--this is all just rag chewing on a rainy day when my son is home from school.Lowell, you might have to build them yourself.
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- Paul Belitz
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- Alan Brunelle
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- Lowell_Skoog
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<br><br>A few years ago, two friends and I extended the Ptarmigan Traverse on skis from Dome Peak to Holden. Two of us used mountain boots and hiked down the Railroad Creek trail in them. The third skied in Dynafit TLTs and carried tennis shoes for five days just to avoid hiking out in his boots. If I had used regular AT boots I probably would have done the same. I hate hiking in them.<br><br>To be honest, I doubt that manufacturers will go out of their way to provide a really walkable alpine touring boot. There's negligible demand for them. I once thought that randonnee racing might lead that way, but I no longer think so. Rando racing is pretty much straight up and straight down. The racers don't spend enough time on low angle terrain to give an advantage to a really walkable boot.<br><br>This discussion has inspired me to tinker with my boots more. I called up Life-Link and ordered a pair of TLT instep buckles, which should fit my Mountain Lites, since the lower shell is the same. I'm sure I can find somebody to install them. I'll let you know how they work.I try to travel as light as possible yet maintain self sufficiency for a night or two stay out, if needed or planned. It bugs me that I might have to get a larger pack or carry a larger load just because I might have to carry an extra pair of footware.<br><br>...<br><br>On the other hand I do believe that a tourable/walkable boot is acievable that can ski well. If you get the formula right and pass it along to enough people who modify the boots to reach that goal, my guess is a boot maker might take notice.
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- Paul Belitz
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- gregL
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<br><br>I tend to agree. Most of the excitement in AT gear seems to be aimed at stiffer, higher, more descent-oriented footwear (ie Adrenalin) as most of the fresh market seems to be people looking to sacrifice little or no downhill performance with their touring gear. I hear of people all the time who are looking to "improve" the performance of MegaRides/G-Rides and Denalis/Matrices by adding stiffer tongues or riveting on extra plastic panels and who are amazed that I'm skiing mid-fat skis with F1's.<br><br>Edited to add: I had Jet Stix.<br><br>Edited again to add: Actually a removeable spoiler is not a bad idea.<br><br><br><br>To be honest, I doubt that manufacturers will go out of their way to provide a really walkable alpine touring boot. There's negligible demand for them.
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- Paul Belitz
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- gregL
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<br><br>For sure a guy like Lowell has the advantage here; he's been ripping in variable snow conditions since childhood and could probably figure out how to ski most anything in tennis shoes if need be. On the other hand, no one's figured out how to comfortably do a 10 mile hike in ski boots yet.<br><br>Edited to add: I put Freerides on the Teledaddies. Still waiting for the powder this year to use them . . .I suspect that those who rip on light boots rip because of their skill.
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- Lowell_Skoog
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<br><br>I still have a pair. <br><br>For some reason, I never bothered trying them on my Scarpa Invernos or any of my other mountain boots. But I just tried them on my Mountain Lites and they fit really well. Hmm... Irresistibly retro.<br><br>During my historical reading, I found ads for Jet Stix and similar gadgets in old Northwest Skier magazines. Here are some memories for you old-timers:<br><br>www.alpenglow.org/ski-history/notes/peri...kier-1970-oct-16-p11Edited to add: I had Jet Stix.
<br><br>Northwest Skier<br><br>Oct 16, 1970, p. 11: "New Lange boot accessory"<br>The Spoiler, made of flexible epoxy and cushioned with foam, can be attached to the rear of the Lange competition model, extending the height of the boot by about one-third. "Mastery of the modern 'sit back' technique is made easier by the Spoiler while fatigue is reduced and control increased." A drawing of the Spoiler is included.<br><br>The 11-27-70 issue (p.11) reports on the popularity of Jet Stix, introduced by former U.S. Olympian Jack Nagel. "Jet Stix are simple to use--they fit around the boot top and require no modification of the boot. They're held in place by a single strap and fastened by a boot-type buckle. With Jet Stix, ski boots become like the new high-backed models."<br><br>The 10-22-71 issue (p.14) has the first display ad I noticed for a factory-produced high-back boot, the Dolomite Super-Comp. The 11-5-71 issue (p.3) has a display ad for Cheetah sticks.
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- Alan Brunelle
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- Jeff Huber
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<br><br>I was told once that the laces in the liners of that category of boot are *only* there so they can better be used as camp booties . . .<br><br><br>Edit to add:<br>Hmm, on second thought: the notion that the laces in liners hold you feet in the liner better while skinning and all buckles are loose, doesn't sound unreasonable. But it'll not make a significant performance difference when the boot is buckled for the descent.<br>I think lacing on inner boots is overrated. My stock Denali liners had laces, but after a while I pulled them out and it made no difference whatsoever in either how they hiked or how they skied. If the laces make a difference, then the boot isn't holding your foot well in the first place.
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- Jeff Huber
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- Jonathan_S.
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<br><br>I'm pretty sure that the boot review in either this fall's Couloir or Backcountry review (can't review which) remarked upon a noticeable inefficiency when kicking steps into hard snow with the F1. (But it didn't say anything about crampon compatibility problems, nor would I expect that, since the problem with tele boot crampon compatability is the duck toe, not the bellows.)<br>Also, considering the bellows on shorter trips: what about efficiency of kicking steps into hard snow and holding a grip upon climbing? And what about compatibility with crampons?
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- Jeff Huber
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<br><br>Matt, I have the Garmont MegaRides which are a 4 buckle Dynafit compatible boot. I like them a lot and I've probably ascended over 90,000vft feet with them on my feet (40k this season already). In my opinion, with the exception of the TLT4Race, unless you're counting every ounce and drilling holes in your toothbrush (something I may start doing soon), there's not really a huge weight difference between the light Dynafit compatible boots (Scarpa F1s, Dynafit TLT4Pros) and the heavier Dynafit compatible boots (Garmont MegaRides, Scarpa Matrixes). Although I've only tried the light boots on in shops, there does seem to be a substantial skiing performance difference between the light and heavier Dynafit boots. For me--for standard use--the performance difference outweighs the weight penalty.<br><br>F1s would only save me .9lb per pair over my MegaRides, this may be worth it in a very specific application (like a randonnée rally), but for general Fall, Winter, Spring and Summer use I want my MegaRides for the snow and my tennyrunners for the hikes.<br><br>Here's a table from one of my excel spreadsheets with weights of rando boots, all of these are dynafit compatible except for the last 3:<br>I'm shopping for a pair of Dynafit compatible boots for a light-weight touring setup. What would you folks recommend? F1's? MLT4's? something larger? What do you ski on?
<br>BOOT...........................WEIGHT........SOURCE...........CATEGORY <br><br><br>Sorry for the thread drift, Lowell. And apologies if I'm one of the reasons your boot will never be made. Thanks for starting a neat topic, though I see no appeal in your boot unless they'd be absurdly light (under 3lbs/pair) and hike as well as my tennnyrunners. My tennyrunners hike great, my MegaRides skin and ski great and I don't mind the extra weight (maybe in 25 years I'll feel different).
<br>Garmont MegaRides sz 26.5......6.856.........My scale.........Ski well <br>Scarpa Matrixs, sz 26..........6.625.........bdel.com.........Ski well <br>Dynafit Aeros, sz?.............6.393.........life-link.com....Ski well<br>Scarpa F1s, sz 26..............5.937.........bdel.com.........Light <br>Dynafit TLT4Pros, sz?..........6.000.........bdel.com.........Light <br>Dynafit TLT4 RACE sz?..........4.761.........life-link.com....ABSURDLY LIGHT <br>Garmont Adrenalins, sz 25......7.350.........My scale.........SKI VERY WELL<br>Scarpa Denali TT 05, sz 26.....7.500.........bdel.com.........Ask Paul <br>Scarpa T1s, sz 26..............8.562.........bdel.com.........So heavy it's laughable
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- Paul Belitz
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- Jeff Huber
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<br><br>Yeah, though that's if you believe bdel.com's weights. I've found a number of discrepancies between what the manufacture lists as the weight, what the vendor lists, what the actual weight is determine by my .1 of ounce precision scale and then what the magazines list. This is why I keep a scale with me at all times in the back of my car, as well as maintain my own spreadsheet with the data. I imagine some of the discrepancies are caused by weighing different boot sizes then they're listing--at least I hope that's the cause. In general though the #s are pretty close and I'm sure the T1/TRaces are heavier then the Denalis, <insert your favorite randonnee is vastly superior to tele line here >.The T1/Race weighs a POUND more than the Denali??
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