Hjortleifson has been heard, the DynaFit Vulcan

[Fejau]

Did a couple laps of the Whistler backcountry on my Mercury's, they were good.
I didn't find the uphill to be anything AMAZING, but the downhill is definitely incredible.

What stunned me the most is the variation the boot can have, from walk to ski mode.

[nickinbc]

Had a few days on my Mercuries and I definately need more room in the instep.

I resemble that remark. My VERY high arches were painful after a few minutes of trying them in the shop (custom footbeds in). So much so that I think the boots would need an awful lot of work to get comfortable. :-(

Anyone had the shells stretched significantly over the instep?

[PNWbrit]

I didn't find the uphill to be anything AMAZING, but the downhill is definitely incredible.

What stunned me the most is the variation the boot can have, from walk to ski mode.

Huh?.......

Anyone had the shells stretched significantly over the instep?

I thought insteps were going to be an issue on mine but having toes blown out has helped my overall fit. I did find they really don't need to be tightly buckled at all though.. very easy to over tighten and just crush your feet.

[XXX-er]

whats the best way to do a mold at home, would the hot water in the turkey bag method work or what??

[pfluffenmeister]

^^^ lot's of info here: http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/s...mold+intuition


thanks yooper!

[Scotsman50]

Repeating myself I know....but the Vulcan's are stiff.STIFFFFFFF!
After 4 days of resort skiing ...I have no skin left on my shins and I love them.
Arch is very high...I've put my custom footbeds in them and was worried about the high arch but when I'm skiing...I don't feel it. Fit for ME is perfect.
I've heard of some bootfitters grinding the attached sole plate ( or whatever it's called ) to reduce the arch.
STIFFFFFFFFFFF! and who doesn't like it stiff!!!!

[Buster Highmen]

May you never spend apres ski picking/peeling off bloody, scabby longjohns pasted to shinhairs.

[XavierD]

Anyone had the shells stretched significantly over the instep?

Pretty much impossible to do on any three piece boot, one of the reason why three piece boots suck (the other being they ski like shit ).

Try the Cochise pro light.

[Fejau]

Pretty much impossible to do on any three piece boot, one of the reason why three piece boots suck (the other being they ski like shit ).

Try the Cochise pro light.

Well that's just, like, your opinion, man.

[XavierD]

Sure is. YMMV.

[iTomahawk]

I skied the Vulcans over the weekend head to head with the Cochise Pro 130s and Titans... still working on fitting the Vulcans for a more fair comparo so I will hold off on the full report until then. About the instep room, using the same liner for all 3 boots, it felt to me that the Vulcans have a frickin ton of vertical room, more than the other 2 boots by a long shot. I have one each of 1/8'' and 1/16'' sheets of bontex in there now and its probably good but I may even go 1/4'' total. In the other boots I don't have any shims at all. Just guessing that those of you having instep volume shortage in the stock liners might want to heat mold those things pretty aggressively before messing with the shell at all. I also would like to echo Scotsman's thoughts on the Vulcans: STIFFFFFFFFFFF! So far the Cochise is worlds more skiable (not a surprise)... but I really have to finish my fit job on the Vulcans before saying more.

[time2clmb]

I found the instep tight as fuck in the Mercury also. Fine with my intuitions. On the stock liners the elastic / fabric stitched in "plate" has been removed which freed up a bunch of room, and also the plastic of the shell seems to pinch in tighter right before the rivets so am having the liner compressed a bit under the rivets. Also had the shells punched for a bit of width which helped. The curve of the tongue at the base was also a bit exaggerated so had that part heated and flatened out a bit to keep the edges from pressing down.

On my foot at least, the seam of the elastic attachment seems to line up perfectly with the edge of the top instep of the liner which also lined up with the edges of the tongue which had an aggresive inward curve which lined up with the edge of the shell....all that together takes up quite a bit of space.

[rewbn]

Threw in my powerwraps yesterday. Instep feels way better without all the thick crap on the stock liners. Buckles fine sans tongue after moving the upper buckle one step but the middle buckle is a couple of millimeters away from closing with the tongues in. Can't move the buckle any closer and the wires only extend so much. Maybe if i heatmold the Powerwraps for the Mercuries instead of the Dalbellos they previously resided in, but i dunno. Might be stiff enough without tongues, some boosterstraps' and Powerwraps though. Remains to be seen this weekend as long as temps don't go down as much as they're supposed to.

Intuitions are a pain in the ass to get a hold of in europe. Otherwise I'd just go with Dreamliners and be happy about it.

[sqikunst]

^^ Call dalbello. They have intuitions in stuck usually for their krypton line

[ishotit]

Pretty much the only issue I've found, and a small one at that, would be how the power strap is attached to the Mercury.
The beta Vulcan had a much burlier way to attach the powerstrap but I guess in the final production they decided to go with two little dinky screws that can easily rip out.

Powerstrap being ripped out has already happened to one Mercury pair at work and my pair as well.
I ended up slappin on washers to all the screws, haven't had a problem since.

FYI, from the Dynafit manual:

"SWITCH POWER STRAP: Vulcan and Mercury are developed with a special system which allows to fix the Velcro strap on the removable tongue so that you can store it in you (sic) backpack together with the tongues on the up-hill phase and fix it only for the downhill to save weight and avoid damaging your pants with the Velcro. Simply unscrew the Velcro strap from the back of the cuff and slide it into the loop on the removable tongue. The loop is needed to align the strap with the boots (sic) cuff."

Yes, I read the manual. Make fun of me.

Anyway, it doesn't seem like Dynafit fully intended the screws to actually be used.

[JRainey]

So I tried on the ONE U in my size on friday, side by side with the tlt5 mtn. I had to try the womens version of the One to get my size, 25 (no merc/vulcs, euro big box store, One U seems high end there) Anyway it gave me a chance to check out my size in both boots.

I think the tlt5 is the best shell shape i've ever put my foot into. I tiny bit tight on my non existent arch, but footbed tweaking makes it better. I've got a super low instep and really LV foot where the instep slopes away under the ankle knob. TLT has got this covered.

The One U has the MF liners so that's a little different from all the other boots in the line. Otherwise I think it's a similar shape to the TLT5, but a little roomier. I will say that the ankle buckle takes up the volume over the front of the ankle well. Way better than the krypton, where the higher buckle placement just squashed my ankle knob (whatever it's called).

To make a fair comparison I took the TLT5 liner (TF) and put it in the One (w/ instaprint footbed). I was surprised that that boot still fit well with a very thin liner. There was more space at first, but once I closed the buckles it locked things down quite well. The way the instep buckle eats space is magical as far as I'm concerned. The heel was obviously shaped the same way, but a tiny bit more room. Through the mid foot also a little more spacious, but here the buckle takes care of the space if you don't want it. Toe box seemed a titch longer, but the whole forefoot feels fine on both, so hard to compare. I will say that the forefoot buckle on the One also take up space better than other boots. No squashing from the top, but compressing from all around.

The One flexes significantly stiffer than the TLT5 mountain with the extra tongue. The walk mode on the TLT5 is way better than the one, but I suspect this is mostly liner. I noticed the faux-tongue on One (felt this with the mercury i tried in the fall too) effects the forward motion of the stride, probably only a walking around the store problem.

I was kind of set on getting the TLT5P and adding taller liner, rear spoiler and a booster and try to rip on that, just because it fits so damn good. Better than my vacuum boots. But the One felt pretty good too. I'm glad I got to try on the boot with the TLT5 TF liner because thick stock liners are liars. I would probably get the mercury if I went that direction as the One had quite a bit of distortion in the ankle while flexing. Also a 25.5 a mercury without the tongue should be around 1300g. Not too bad.

I've got a quadrant now, which I got to a decent level of fit because a of super thick zzero liner that's a size too big, but as far as stiffness goes I can work with that. It seems like the One U was about that stiff. That's why i'm thinking I could get the TLT5 and try to add some height.

What say you TGR? TLT5P + power accesories or Mercury?

[XXX-er]

Also a 25.5 a mercury without the tongue should be around 1300g. Not too bad.

I've got a quadrant now, which I got to a decent level of fit because a of super thick zzero liner that's a size too big, but as far as stiffness goes I can work with that. It seems like the One U was about that stiff. That's why i'm thinking I could get the TLT5 and try to add some height.

What say you TGR? TLT5P + power accesories or Mercury?

I am in the middle of doing a rice mold on 24 mercury's, they are 1380 and the tongue is 60, still these boots are 370 grams lighter than the Xena I was in, the BSL is even shorter/more toe room and the ROM is HUGE ...with a Stoke & vert setup I should levitate up the mtn

I have never tried a TLT, there are no ONE or Mercury 24's in town so I had to take a chance on mailordering the Mercuy's or wait half a season for product to show up if they do at all



why Mercury?For me I didn't wana be in a womans boot due to a wide forefoot, didn't wana overpower the boot being 30 or 40 lbs heaver than a woman who would normaly use a 24 which would happen with the ONE

also the Mercury is advertised as unisex and I will probably be using them at the hill so I want a little stiffness

So my answer is it all depends on you, in any case ... I think they are gona work for my little yellow foot

[time2clmb]

so I want a little stiffness

Oh yeah...that's what SHE said.

[JRainey]

I guess I'm just gonna have to go back and see which boot really sings to my foot the best. Thanks for the weight. Is that 1380g w/ or w/o the tongue?

[XXX-er]

I guess I'm just gonna have to go back and see which boot really sings to my foot the best. Thanks for the weight. Is that 1380g w/ or w/o the tongue?

1380 complete and the tongue is 61 grams on my starfrit scale

[LeeLau]

Glad it fit Al - always a bit nervewracking buying unseen

[XXX-er]

yeah but its either take the leap or have a complete dynafit set up sit there on the shelf

not out of the woods yet ... still a bit of pressure on top of the foot

[LeeLau]

http://www.tetongravity.com/blogs/In...ng-6483581.htm

Mod to help the outer tongue removal described there

[JRainey]

Can we get the directors cut on that video?

Edit: Nice article by the way, as always. Thanks.

[harpo-the-skier]

http://www.tetongravity.com/blogs/In...ng-6483581.htm

Mod to help the outer tongue removal described there

Thanks for that info, LL. I read the article and interview, Hoji mentions modifying the tongue for easier insertion/removal at the end but I didn't see any details on what the mod is. Is it in one of the videos? I saw the pictures with details of the Mercury tongue area, but that didn't help to much. Could you describe the mods? Would those mods work on the TLT5P?

Sorry if I am an idiot and the details are somewhere that I missed.

BTW, I have been using my Mercuries with out the tongue in both the front and backcountry without the need of added stiffness. Only problem I had was getting thrown backward a little but that was on a ski with a heavily rockered tail in the bumps, so I am not sure if that was the boot.