After skiing various skis, it was 4 oclock and time to chat with reps on boots. Checked out Dalbello, Lange, Rossi, Salomon, and some Atomics.
Dalbello'sboot that plake has been working on is pretty sweet, their mold is stikingly similar to Raichles just with some improvements. There will be three different toungues, and the setup for interchanging them has been improved. The hinge point is reall loy on the boot, I think this will be a great feature, more control out of the foot.
Last is supposed to be near identical to the old Raichles.
Rest of the line was pretty much unchanged.
Lange has a cool new liner, which has been copied of sorts by rossignol. Watch for a funky robot looking thing with an egg shaped head coming to a shop near you. The liner gets heated to 240 degrees and then you get the person in it. The liner has a material which allows it to form fit to the foot, it will adapt as much as 1/8 to allow for different foot contours. They didn't have my size but the guy in our shop said it was pretty amazing the difference before and after.
Their freeride should be a great boot, 120 flex, softere and lower front than the WC, added padding in the boot board and a big power strap.
Most of the line doesn't change, just cometically and the liners. Ladies has a new liner with down that is supposed to be 50% warmer, even thought compressed down doesn't insulate all that well, from what I understand.
Got to scopew the WC plug boot on one of the techs, old mold, and reinforced spine, sweet looking boot, lots of plastic and little liner, what more could you want?
Didn't spend a lot of time with Rossi, the liner is virtually the same as Lange, new boots will replace their top-end series, they changed the color schemes and almost went to an older Lange last, kind of weird, like if you crossed their current upper series with a lange from a few years back.
Salomon has some cool technology coming out. Their upper end from the 1080's to the Course's will all have new molds. They have a new reinforced kevlar or fiberglass (couldn't get the French guy to convert to English what it was, and my 7th grade French class was little help) cuff, the idea being more support from the inside edge. The foot part of the boot, is changed significantlyu also. They have a 5 inch or so section that is hexagons that are actual hollowed out areas of the plastic. It's on the about middle of the boot lengthwise, and allows for a softer flex point ont eh outside, the inside of the the boot is once again re-inforced to create more edge pressure. Cool look to the boot, definitely a new concept.
Liners are basically the same, minor changes in materials.
Atomic is basically the same, same last just ski-school loving colors, their top of the line boot is primarily white with a cherry red accent. It's awful. I wouldn't wear them if I was paid. But that's me.
Sorry for the generality but I was a bit hungover and drinking free beer at the time, mmmmm free beer.
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