Beefiest Touring Boots

abar.

abar.

Active member
I'm not stupid, I go to a bootfitter and I know the best boots are the ones that fit.

My homie is thinking about buying touring boots for his new boots so he can upgrade his P15s to the cast system if he wants. He's been skiing 140 flex plug boots forever since he used to race and wanted to buy some new boots that don't hurt his feet as much. It was easy for me to decide what pin boots to buy since I already skied hawx 120s anyway, so I knew roughly what the xtd would be like. However I'm a little concerned about my friend going from plug boots to touring boots and being shocked by the difference. A lot of touring boots say they offer "alpine performance," but I figure a lot of that is relative to more skimo style boots. So I was wondering if any of you have had the luxury of checking out several of the 50/50 boot options out there and could tell me which would offer the closest performance to a plug boot (I know it won't be close). Uphill capability isn't a big concern as he might not end up getting cast anyway and would still ski resort most of the time. I thought it might be a good idea for him to buy an alpine liner to switch in and beef it up if he goes the pin route.
 
No matter what he does there is going to be a big change from a 140 plug to a crossover boot. But some good ones off the top of my head are the

Hawx 130xtd, lange XT 140, Technica cohise 130, and others. Every brand makes a beefier 50/50 boot. It depends on what fits him.

Throwing a beefier liner in these on resort days and using a booster will help as well. If he is that focused on performance why doesn't he continue to ride the plugs in the resort and save the touring boots for touring? That's what I do.
 
14192172:Profahoben_212 said:
No matter what he does there is going to be a big change from a 140 plug to a crossover boot. But some good ones off the top of my head are the

Hawx 130xtd, lange XT 140, Technica cohise 130, and others. Every brand makes a beefier 50/50 boot. It depends on what fits him.

Throwing a beefier liner in these on resort days and using a booster will help as well. If he is that focused on performance why doesn't he continue to ride the plugs in the resort and save the touring boots for touring? That's what I do.
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Thanks for the recs! He doesn't want to use his plugs anymore since he says they hurt his feet. He hasn't really been making a huge deal about performance, I just think that since plugs are all he's really known it would be a shock to switch to a weaker touring boot
 
14192224:Bened_notnil said:
Yeah, but for the same price, you can just get some Full Tilt touring boots like the Ascendants.
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They is wide, not like a plug race boot at all
 
His best bet is going to be some of the heavuer touring boots on the market. Depending on what his plug boot was there will be different models that fit his foot.

off the top of my head, the lange xt3 comes in a “140” but it will be softer than his plug boots. Tecnica cochise if they fit his foot. Fisher ranger free. Nordica strider. Theres quite a few options. He could also get a regular boot that he likes and have cast put tech toes on, expensive option and walks like shit but offers the best downhill abilities.

I would be surprised if he got along well with the ascendants since they are so wide and full tilts aren’t that stiff. I’d also stay away from the lighter touring boots like the hawx xtd and tecnica zero G and the dynafit options. They claim a 130 flex but because of the light weight and thin liners they work a lot better as part of a two boot quiver where you have an inbounds boot and a touring boot. That said I run an alpine liner in my hawx xtds on most days that I’m not walking very far and they ski great like that, they’re just heavier than the stock liner and the walk mode doesn’t work as well.
 
14192324:TheWeaz said:
I’d also stay away from the lighter touring boots like the hawx xtd and tecnica zero G and the dynafit options. They claim a 130 flex but because of the light weight and thin liners they work a lot better as part of a two boot quiver where you have an inbounds boot and a touring boot.
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Have you had a Dynafit Hoji Free 130 on your foot? I’ve never had my foot in a stiffer boot, touring or otherwise
 
14192403:animator said:
Have you had a Dynafit Hoji Free 130 on your foot? I’ve never had my foot in a stiffer boot, touring or otherwise
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That boot isn’t really compatible with a pivot because of the full lugged touring sole. You could probably fit it in with a wtr afd but no shop will test that for you.

theres also more than just being stiff, heavy race boot plastic also has certain damping properties that a light weight touring boot just doesn’t have, theres a reason they haven’t made all the race boots significantly lighter like they have done with most companies normal inbounds boots.
 
14192427:TheWeaz said:
That boot isn’t really compatible with a pivot because of the full lugged touring sole. You could probably fit it in with a wtr afd but no shop will test that for you.

theres also more than just being stiff, heavy race boot plastic also has certain damping properties that a light weight touring boot just doesn’t have, theres a reason they haven’t made all the race boots significantly lighter like they have done with most companies normal inbounds boots.
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Well just wanted to point it out since you mentioned the Zero G, that’s an ISO 9523 boot that doesn’t work with a pivot, and none of the dynafits are either
 
14192444:animator said:
Well just wanted to point it out since you mentioned the Zero G, that’s an ISO 9523 boot that doesn’t work with a pivot, and none of the dynafits are either
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Fair enough. I still don’t think someone coming off plug boots will be super excited about skiing inbounds in any of the lighter stuff touring options. In pow the modern stiff and light touring boots probably have 90% of the performance of their heavier inbounds siblings, which is really good for weighing like half as much. But inbounds in worse snow they probably only have 70% of the performance of a plug boot. For most people thats good enough inbounds performance, but for someone who is used to skiing in heavy stiff plug boots they will notice a decrease in performance, where as the heavier crossover touring options are probably 85% of the performance of a plug boot inbounds, as long as you can get one thats fits.

as for the OP, look into the new shift boot, its 100 last which is pretty lame if you have a small foot but could be an option. The dalbello lupos pro HD is a heavier version of the standard lupo 130, could be a good option, but the three piece boots definitely flex different. Basically if uphill performance isn’t that important, look at the heavier crossover boots, they need to have a wtr, gripwalk or alpine soles to fit in a pivot 15/18.
 
14192603:TheWeaz said:
Fair enough. I still don’t think someone coming off plug boots will be super excited about skiing inbounds in any of the lighter stuff touring options. In pow the modern stiff and light touring boots probably have 90% of the performance of their heavier inbounds siblings, which is really good for weighing like half as much. But inbounds in worse snow they probably only have 70% of the performance of a plug boot. For most people thats good enough inbounds performance, but for someone who is used to skiing in heavy stiff plug boots they will notice a decrease in performance, where as the heavier crossover touring options are probably 85% of the performance of a plug boot inbounds, as long as you can get one thats fits.

as for the OP, look into the new shift boot, its 100 last which is pretty lame if you have a small foot but could be an option. The dalbello lupos pro HD is a heavier version of the standard lupo 130, could be a good option, but the three piece boots definitely flex different. Basically if uphill performance isn’t that important, look at the heavier crossover boots, they need to have a wtr, gripwalk or alpine soles to fit in a pivot 15/18.
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Yeah I can agree w that. The Lupo Pro HD is definitely pretty damn stiff and with the 3 piece construction you don’t lose as much flex/performance as with a 2 piece boot. The FT 10 and 12 tongues are pretty stiff as well (especially the 12) so that’s worth looking in to I guess. Most 50/50 boots aren’t gonna be up to par with plug boots unfortunately. The Hoji is stiff af but won’t fly with pivots unfortunately...
 
I did the same thing. Went from a lange rs 140 to a k2 pinnacle 120. Add buckles if you can and the world cup booster strap. Upgrade the liner, too.
 
Mindbender 130 is for sure worth a look. They come very close to alpine feel and with a powerplate and the new power fit tour liner they will be one of the best options along with the new Lange XT3 boots.
 
If he's been skiing lange's his whole life he should get the xt140s if he wants a walk mode.

My experience going from plug race boots to touring boots back to a normal race boot was ending up with a pair of rs130 wides with cast tech toe inserts. Walk mode is kind of useless once you really start going up hill. Plus if you ski hard and land backseat on cliffs you're bound to break the walkmode.

My boot journey

Lange plugs with 92 last blown out to fit my 100 last foot

Technica cochise 130 - I broke two pairs but they warrantied them nicely. Okay boot but has all the most popular shell punches already made when they come from the factory. It's very annoying to have extra room if you don't need it. I still use them for long tours/rock skiing with my pin setup. During the season they sit in my closet tho.

Lange RS130wides 2011 lightly used from eBay bought last fall I upgraded with a cast tech toe. It's awesome uncompromising performance. I was raised in langes so my foot is perfect for langes. Race boots rarely change and you find them for very cheap lightly used on ebay.

Tldr: if you grew up in race boots you'll never feel good in anything else. Cast up some race boots

**This post was edited on Nov 4th 2020 at 1:12:08pm
 
14192691:tomPietrowski said:
Mindbender 130 is for sure worth a look. They come very close to alpine feel and with a powerplate and the new power fit tour liner they will be one of the best options along with the new Lange XT3 boots.
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This boot skis like shit and explodes on people. Hard pass.

putting it in the same league as an XT3 is pure brand loyalty pandering. Sorry, the recon series is fine; the Mindbender is almost as bad as the Salomon QST boots.

Lange XT3, Fischer Ranger (once you stretch the stupid soma tec out) Dalbello Lupo Factory, and Cochise are the ones worth looking at. I preferred the Fischer and Lange. XTD 130 is close but still buckles once you push it hard enough. Lots of people like it though. Salomon Shift could be good but haven’t skied it. Head Core is also pretty meh.

Hoji Free and Tecnica ZeroG pro are also phenomenal boots but don’t have grip walk soles for ideal use with CAST, but it’s a free country.
 
14192745:cobra_commander said:
This boot skis like shit and explodes on people. Hard pass.

putting it in the same league as an XT3 is pure brand loyalty pandering. Sorry, the recon series is fine; the Mindbender is almost as bad as the Salomon QST boots.
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Thanks for your feedback. I would not really agree though. Yes we had a few issues with the shells which was tracked down to a drying process of the masterbatch so I will say that yes we did have some issues before we identified that.

But having skied alot of boots I would argue that they ski very well in terms of the available freeride boots, especially with the new liner for F20 and the powerplates.

But each to there own. As I said the lange is a great boot too but I would not dismiss the mindbender.
 
14192773:tomPietrowski said:
Thanks for your feedback. I would not really agree though. Yes we had a few issues with the shells which was tracked down to a drying process of the masterbatch so I will say that yes we did have some issues before we identified that.

But having skied alot of boots I would argue that they ski very well in terms of the available freeride boots, especially with the new liner for F20 and the powerplates.

But each to there own. As I said the lange is a great boot too but I would not dismiss the mindbender.
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I had an MB130 in the limited blue/yellow/red color way that you guys did last year and I liked it. It didn't fit my foot as well as I liked so ultimately I sold it but it skied well. Whats the story with the boots blowing up? Have yet to hear anything like that, my shop sells a ton of the 120
 
14192783:animator said:
I had an MB130 in the limited blue/yellow/red color way that you guys did last year and I liked it. It didn't fit my foot as well as I liked so ultimately I sold it but it skied well. Whats the story with the boots blowing up? Have yet to hear anything like that, my shop sells a ton of the 120
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Its a very limited issue but one where when a boot did fail it did it in spectacular fashion and those often made it onto social media so the issue looked worse then it was.

Basically (and this is a basic explanation of the issue) some of the material used in the shell was not being fully dried before being injected into the mold. This slight moisture could create a week spot in some of the shells and this was the reason for some failures.

The issue was small however at way under 0.5% and since discovering the issue production processes have been updated to fully dry all materials.

We have been doing in house testing of F20 production boots and not found any issues, so hopefully this issue will not be an issue moving forward.
 
14192807:tomPietrowski said:
Its a very limited issue but one where when a boot did fail it did it in spectacular fashion and those often made it onto social media so the issue looked worse then it was.

Basically (and this is a basic explanation of the issue) some of the material used in the shell was not being fully dried before being injected into the mold. This slight moisture could create a week spot in some of the shells and this was the reason for some failures.

The issue was small however at way under 0.5% and since discovering the issue production processes have been updated to fully dry all materials.

We have been doing in house testing of F20 production boots and not found any issues, so hopefully this issue will not be an issue moving forward.
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Appreciate the transparency from somebody who works for the brand! Like I said I hadn’t heard or seen anything, seems like a very limited issue in terms of how many people it would affect
 
14192691:tomPietrowski said:
Mindbender 130 is for sure worth a look. They come very close to alpine feel and with a powerplate and the new power fit tour liner they will be one of the best options along with the new Lange XT3 boots.
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Abar, what size boot does your friend wear? If you wear a 27.5, I might have a pair to sell you, they're just too small for me.

**This post was edited on Nov 4th 2020 at 5:12:43pm
 
14192807:tomPietrowski said:
Its a very limited issue but one where when a boot did fail it did it in spectacular fashion and those often made it onto social media so the issue looked worse then it was.
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Was it the walk mode hinge breaking? That was the only thing I could think of looking at that boot.
 
14192876:BigPurpleSkiSuit said:
Abar, what size boot does your friend wear? If you wear a 27.5, I might have a pair to sell you, they're just too small for me.

**This post was edited on Nov 4th 2020 at 5:12:43pm
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I think he wears a 28.5, or maybe a 27.5 but he's gonna go to a bootfitter today to try and buy one anyway
 
14192881:abar. said:
I think he wears a 28.5, or maybe a 27.5 but he's gonna go to a bootfitter today to try and buy one anyway
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If he ends up thinking the mindbender 130 is good for him, I can sell him one that I skiied in literally once for less than the bootfitter would sell him new for. Just on your mind there.
 
14192877:BigPurpleSkiSuit said:
Was it the walk mode hinge breaking? That was the only thing I could think of looking at that boot.
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Nope no issues with the walk mode. It was the heel area where we co-inject two materials where the fault could occur

14192899:OhJay said:
Not to stoke the flames, but I just hear THall's screams of "my ankles are broke, MY ANKLES ARE BROKEN AHHHHHHH" whenever I see these pics.
https://www.tetongravity.com/forums/showthread.php/?332528&p=5858710
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Haha like I said when they went it was spectacular, but luckily also limited in numbers

**This post was edited on Nov 4th 2020 at 6:13:09pm
 
14192914:tomPietrowski said:
Nope no issues with the walk mode. It was the heel area where we co-inject two materials where the fault could occur

Haha like I said when they went it was spectacular, but luckily also limited in numbers

**This post was edited on Nov 4th 2020 at 6:13:09pm
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After a quick google search, I can confidently say:

Oh my fucking god

978612.jpeg
 
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