My new Black Diamond Factor skiboots are in!
A few people that know me from skiing, also know that I have been looking for a ‘real’ freeride skiboot for a few years now. Shortly after adding skiing to my repetoire (coming from snowboarding) I couldn’t believe how badly skiboots hiked over rocky sections when you had to do some climbing to get into a good run. Over the last few years I have spent time on a pair of Nordica Beasts (pretty fun shoe, very wide, liners packed in strongly, there was no rubber under the soles, waaaay to heavy for touring) and the last two years on a pair of Atomic M110 (nice tight package, took me a lot of tweaking and grinding on the inside of the shell to get it to be comfortable, nice rubber block between the toe and heel sole block for scrambling over rocks to get to an entry of a run, waaaay to heavy for touring). My perfect dreamboot would include most of the following: ski/walk mode, fit in both alpine ski bindings and touring bindings, have a decent sole to do a little hiking and climbing, preferably an overlap shell (my preference coming from generally having had better fitting overlap designs than tongue designs), ‘reverse’ buckles on the forefoot (to prevent unwanted opening when you’re postholing through deep snow) and with my growing interest in alpine touring/tourskiing Dynafit compatibility would be a cool extra feature.
When I first heard about Black Diamond’s plans I was extremely sceptical; understanding a little bit about how difficult it is to design, produce and market a skiboot, I thought it couldn’t be done. This was going to be Black Diamond’s first line of boots ever, they started from scratch! On top of that they were going to do production in China (rather than Italy where a lot of the manufacturer’s still go). Starting at Square 1, however, did give them the flexibility to design a boot around demands of skiers, rather than trying to squeeze these demands into a shell that had been popping out of molds for a decade or so (Manufacturing new molds for an entire size range of boots is extremely expensive and boot manufacturers only tend to switch molds wearing out their old ones. Which is why so many boots from one brand look like eachother, apart from buckles and colours.).
Last April I was visiting Floris Ensink at the Dutch Black Diamond distributor here in the Netherlands and he showed me a pre-production version of the Black Diamond Factor (the stiffest of the three AT boots they are putting out) and I fell in love with the features. The fit was a bit hard to predict, since I tried on a Mondopoint 27,0 and I usually have a 27,5 (9,5US/42EU), but it felt on the narrowish side of medium-wide with a narrowish heel, but the entire fit of the boot couldn’t be classified as narrow by my standards -for what they are worth-. Because of pretty extensive heelspur on my feet I tend to judge a boot more on it’s ability to be customised to my feet after purchase, rather than their fit out of the box, I decided to go out on a limb and order a pair in Mondopoint 27,5. Last Tuesday I finally got the call from Floris and picked them up yesterday. Since there’s so much talk about BD’s new line I decided to put some shots online so people can get a look at a true production version of the boot. All in all, that’s not too special, because they should be dropping at retailers everywhere shortly, but now you can get a quick sneak peek before you head over there.
I’ll keep you updated on how they perform (and fit) when I first get to ski them, which shouldn’t be too long…
- The boots in their box, they came with the sockliners/footbeds separately in a ziploc bag, I don’t know why that is, but possibly because BD realises that people spending this kind of money on their boots are not going to use the stock footbeds, but are smart enough to go out and buy a pair of footbeds that are made for their feet (or more likely: already have them).
- Finally freed from their cardboard prison, they look damn good in real life. I’ve always been a fan of visible colorways and I’m sure this green will do! The boots come with the ISO alpine soles. The ISO touring sole blocks come separately, but from what I’ve understood from the BD sales reps in the Netherlands, very few shops have actually ordered these boots without the touring blocks, meaning that the retailers are half-n-half expecting everyone to alos pick up a set of touring blocks.
- This has baffled me for ever: why hasn’t a single skiboot designer thought about using the BOA system for lacing the liner? These things are all over the place in snowboarding and I can think of a few benefits in skiboots. How about tightening/loosening your liners without having to unbuckle your boot? How about keeping your liner nice and tight when you lossen the buckles when touring up? You turn them clockwise to tighten the thin steel cable and pull them outwards to pop open.
- The BOA system on the liner. It just looks lean and mean. There’s one little thing I noticed:when tightening the cable the lowest loop snags on the black material that sits on the tongue. I guess in the long run this could cause some wear and tear, but maybe the bottom loop doesn’t fall down as far as in the picture when the liner remains in the shell. We’ll see how it does this winter.
- The liners (the BOA cable is hanging around, because I tried them on and they’re not rewound yet) and the boot boards (the footprint shaped boards that sit under your liner).
- A shot ‘down the hole’ boot board is inside the shell. The black calve spoiler can be moved up or down about 1,5cm, out of the box it comes mounted in the bottom position. Buckles on the shaft can be moved in or out another setting.
- A not-so sharp picture of the Ski/Walk lever in ski mode. Basically the lever has only two settings; WALK in which the shaft tilts back and forward and SKI in which it’s set at a predetermined forward lean setting. The forward lean setting can be fixed in one of three settings. You can change these pretty easily with a 4mm allen key, but I don’t think this is something you would do in between to runs. I reckon that you’d just set it once in the level that works for you and then ski with that always.
- The ski/walk lever in Walk mode. It’s amazing how much easier you can get in and out of a pair of pretty stiff skiboots when the shaft tilts back a little! I am pleasantly surprised by the range of motion that is in the shaft, these should be very good for walking and freeridy type touring (so I’m not talking about seven-day death marches) . The small markings on the back of the shaft -to the right of the lever- point out the settings for the forward lean.
- A shot of the ISO alpine sole blocks. In between the sole blocks there’s a ridge of rubber very similar to the one that was on my Atomic M110 boots. Over the last two years I have appreciated it very much when walking of rocky entries to runs, so this should be as good. The front blocks come of with the same 4mm allen key as all the other settings on the boot. The heel block is unscrewed from the inside with a large/long crosshead screwdriver (Philips #3), online I have seen some complaints about the need for a different tool to change both sole blocks, but I think I start seeing why BD has chosen for this set-up. The best thing (to keep the screwheads away from wear and tear) would have been to make both blocks changeable from the inside, but then it would have been impossible to get to the screws of the toe block (since they would be in the toebox of the shell). So they moved these outside and made them compatible with all the other hardware on the boot. In the heel block the screws have stayed on the inside of the boot, but getting to them with an allen key would have been a pain (no room to move the key around), so they opted for screws instead. The good news: tonnes of snowboarders carry a Philips #3 around, since this is the same size as the mounting screws for their bindings.
The entire Black Diamond bootline consists of three freeride/AT models (one of which is a specific women’s model) and six telemarkboots and can be checked out at www.skibdboots.com
No commentsA Giro Advantage for Ade at Howies
If you’ve known me a little longer than yesterday (when I started this whole outdoor gear blog thingamajig), you’ll know that I am simply in love with Howies. They are a clothing brand that is based somewhere in Wales (my intimate kwoledge of Wales is too little to be of any help) and are simply doing it ‘the right way’, as far as I’m concerned. They try to keep their footprint as small as is possible and encourage you to think critical of the way in which you lead your life. The way in which they do this and by the tone-of-voice they’re using, I think they are an inspiration and motivator to everyone that loves their/our sports as much as they do.
Ade, the guy who is in charge of their cycling stuff and shop accounts, has been shaving time of his work commute (by bike) and slowly but surely brought the time down to 23 minutes and 2 seconds. Over the past couple of weeks he has been talking to several people and lent faster equipment to break his personal record. Promising them he would shave his legs and beard and wear a skin suit in achieving the magical goal of a time under he received a promise from Trek Bikes to borrow a Lance Armstrong time-trial replica.
Now all he wants is one of those reversed-carrot shaped aerodynamic helmets from Giro and he’ll be set. Or so he hopes. Will update later.
No commentsEuropean Outdoor is next week
Still figuring out whether to go or not. It’s next week from 19th until the 22nd and deep in the south of Germany. Would be cool to hang out, meet some of the good people and get my nose in on some fresh news. Martijn Blanes, a Dutch iceclimber that is sponsored by Arcteryx, is nagging for me to come along. His arm is in a sling from some shoulder surgery and I’m still on cruches from getting my ACL fixed, so I’m a little dubious about going. At European Outdoor’s site you can find all relevant info. And if you see two guys that look in need of some medical atttention, that’s us.
Lib Tech’s skate banana
Mervin MFG, the guys behind Lib Tech, have never been afraid to think outside of the box, but they’ve really taken the cake this time! Have a peek at their latest ‘innovation even we don’t understand’. The appropriately named Skate Banana. Taking a cue from some ski models that were experimenting with reverse camber (the reverse of the regular bend that is in skies and boards) We haven’t had a chance to ride one, but all the guys at the factory were so stoked about them, including Mike himself, that it sounds like they’re onto something. Back in february we already saw demos on snow at Legendary Mt. Baker Banked Slalom, but most likely they’re slated to release at the beginning of the 07/08 snowy season.
Let’s get this puppy off the ground then
First post. Magical first post. Thought about it too long and now all I am telling is superduper important. Aaah, fergetaboutit. This is the first post. Now I’m going to have to change this design around, ’cause this looks like crap.
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