I tried on most of the new AT boots today

[kidwoo]

I hate the Boa system, though. Cinching the liner up inside the boot is fake bootfitting: it makes you feel like the boot fits better, but it doesn't keep you from slopping around inside the shell.

Honestly....what's the difference?

The outer volume of the liner decreases but then you just decrease the volume of the boot with the buckles. If that's the way to get a good fit on the liner doesn't that achieve the same thing?

[srsosbso]

thanks for the update cheese. good info.

Dude, just buy one. They're both good.

I know, I know. I even annoy myself when I get like this. (and thanks for your info. too, by the way.)

Part of the reason I've got so tortured about this is that I am not happy with my current alpine boots (I like how they ski but I got sold a shell that's too big and they've packed out and are sloppy now) so I was hoping for the one boot quiver. It'd be easier if I new my current resort boots were money.

I like the construction and quality control better on the zzeus, and the fit is okay if a little tight on the toes. I'm more sold on how the factor feels on my foot both fit and flex-wise, but I'm not sold on the weight or the quality, from what I am hearing. MEC is now sold out on my size as well, thanks to me waffling for so long. Way to shoot myself in the foot! (no pun intended.)

[Cheesestoff]

i found the zzeus really tight around my toes in the shop, but once i put my old g-fits in they were awesome, and since moulding the stock liners they feel great while skiing, just need to be packed out a bit more for touring. Also the zzeus is PU not pebax, so much easier to punch.

[srsosbso]

^^^ Worth knowing. Thanks, yet again.

[wilcox510]

I tried on the Zzeus again today, to me it is much wider or higher volume in the forefoot than the Factor (with my Intuitions in both boots). I have to put the 2nd buckle on the last catch to get them remotely tight on my forefoot. They actually feel pretty good if I go down a size, but then I would need to blow the toe out a bunch. I'm not sure how easy it would be to stretch the toes on them because the stretch would be right where the soles attach to the shells.

[srsosbso]

Lou Dawson on wildsnow said he had to go a full shellsize bigger in a zzeus vs. a factor. Anyone else find this?

[ulty_guy]

You can do that, just order shells? Shit. Who knew? Where is this footworks place?

cham, right across the street from the midi station. further update, was in there last night drinking beer (that was my payment from earlier work) and tried to reduce volume further with some plastic thing from head. i've still got too much space on top of my foot, but it's a touch better. tried some fillers from below, but kinda throws off the boot feel.

anyone ever try anything over top of the foot in order to reduce volume? i'm thinking maybe something like custom footbed material?

[steved]

Scarpas seem larger width wise, but length is the same. I'm the same shell size in a Garmont as a Scarpa, yet to get the fit in the fore foot with the Garmont, I have to go up a shell size, which make it too long and my heel slides around.

Wetdog,
Yeah, it takes some dedicated stretching to get some Garmont toeboxes and 6th toe areas to one's matching...but can be done! *Don't know how this'll effect the lifespan..needed 3-4 heatgun runs...but integrity seems fine..(2nd season).
The toebox was also quite low for my whale toes so had to stretch upward slightly as well...but did get it right....fwiw(So it can be done)..

STeveD

[steved]

After going through the sizing / trying on game my size 28 Radiums are ordered and on the way. Almost went for Skookums but I get still get a lot of pain over the instep strap era with the tongue design. So I'll see how the Radiums go. Probably will shim them 0.5-1mm with some binder plastic on the bottom of the shell to increase overall fit and put some foam in to tighten up the heel. The 27.5 was just too damn tight and would have required too much $$$ in bootwork to make it ring.

Not that it matters. PNW is still raining & inversioned.

Khyber,
Just a fwiw...painting PlasticWeld onto the outer side of a heel pocket can work well. Make the layers thin, then you can add a 2nd layer with a little tapering to fit your heel..(ie securing heel more).. Can be dremeled/sanded to fit..and if still needed, you'll at least need very little foam.... Those foam-tipped paintbrushes make it an easy job....
$.01

[nexus6]

So after much waffling I pulled the trigger on the Zzeus's in a 29.0 last week. The Factor just wasn't the right fit. In the shop the Zzeus just seemed to fit much closer. That said, I have a really weird foot, it's a size 29 foot with a huge big toe that make the total length more like a 30.5. I'm always in a dillema of, buy a 29.0 that's too short and try and push out the length or buy a 30.0 an put in a thick footbed. This time the shop guy convinced me to go with 29.0 even though my alpines are 30.0's. He blew out the toe length a bit and cooked the liners and all seemed well leaving the shop, nice comfy snug fit.

Well first run down the mountain I was in a whole new world of pain. Every time I laid down an edge my toe would get bent and kinked. By two runs the whole front of my foot was numb. Removing the footbeds helped a little, but that's not a good solution either.

Anyway enough about my excruciating fit problem here's my impression on the hill: This boot gets way stiff in the cold, it's unlikely you will overpower in forward flex, don't belive the flex in the shop. Latterly it's pretty good as well, much better than the Zzeros or Denalis I've skied, but still not latterly I beam stiff like my Technica Icon's. The other thing that may prevent this from being a single boot quiver is the lack of mass, a good thing in an AT boot on the way up, but not so good in the resort where a heavy alpine boot will ride through the cut up mank much better. I didn't have a chance to tour with it since it was 9:00 at night, but walking was a real pleasure.

[srsosbso]

I finally got my foot in a scarpa skookum the other day. This is a great AT boot- light, with a nice overlap-esque flex in a tongue boot. I'd buy it if it fit my foot.

It doesn't fit my foot. A lot of volume over the instep. I mean a LOT of volume. No way I could make this work. But if they fit you, nice offering/option from scarpa.

I tried the zzeus again. Really well made boot, but the fit just wasn't quite right for me, and I disliked the flex "play" through the neutral point.

AND SO... I finally ordered some factors. Not thrilled with the weight, worried about all the failures of buckles and walk-modes I'm hearing about (and I hate the colour, goddamit.) But they fit my foot like a glove, flex like a nice alpine boot. And I am hating my alpine boots these days (packed out, fit like shit) so I wanna ski these everywhere.

So here goes a roll of the dice...

thanks to everybody for their input along the way.

[Tony]

Thank God, srsosbso!

At some point I thought you were going to miss this winter skiing with so much indecision!

Congratulations on your purchase and enjoy!

[srsosbso]

I know, unbearable isn't it? I'd hate to be me. Wait... what?

Never one to minimize my suffering, I'm stuck waiting three more weeks to pick up the boots. (Mi esposa will bring them back from her next work foray across the border and save me 80-100 bucks or so in sales tax at customs.) So my penny pinching means I am enduring my ill-fitted salomon guns for now, just to perpetuate the agony in some way.

I'll do a follow-up review on the factors once I ski them, apparently sometime in 2010.

Oh, here's a link to an extensive radium review by another rossland local/ friend of mine.

http://kootenayskier.wordpress.com/2...radium-review/

[JoeStrummer]

Now, are you sure you want the Factors? Maybe you should try on the Zzeus and Radium again?

I have 22 days on the Radiums and they ski great for my needs. As I mentioned somewheres before, this generation of Garmont liners is actually less likeable than previous, to me. I have some heel slop when skinning I can't seem to eliminate but I'm going to work on that later today.

i tried my Megarides again this week, just to see if I could tell a difference. I felt like I was skiing in Chuck Taylors.

[srsosbso]

are you sure you want the Factors?

Sadly not. I need "I added-to-cart" therapy.

[Steve Lavigne]

Never one to minimize my suffering, I'm stuck waiting three more weeks to pick up the boots. (Mi esposa will bring them back from her next work foray across the border and save me 80-100 bucks or so in sales tax at customs.) So my penny pinching means I am enduring my ill-fitted salomon guns for now, just to perpetuate the agony in some way.

I hope the guys at the shops that you visited trying on boots tell you to fuck off next time they see you.

[srsosbso]

Uh... I ordered the boots from the shop where I tried them on. So how be I just tell YOU to fuck off instead, you stupid fucking JONG.

[smthgfshy]

First off....thanks everyone for the insightful and helpful advise on all the new boot offerings for the year....

After lurking here for the fall, with nothing to add (as I'm in southern Ohio and the closest pair of AT boots is probably 1K miles away)....

I finally pulled the trigger on a pair of Scarpa Skookums. I had only ever tried on Dynafit Zzeros, Scarpa Spirit 3/4 and F1/F3, and some garmonts last year in Jackson (get the fuck outta the boot pack fast lane) Wyoming. Never had an op to try on the BD's. I've skiied on them last night on some Indiana ice and some yellow man made snow that tasted like fish with a pair of Kailas & ST's. These ended up fitting me pretty well. I too notice some extra volume in the instep area and the ankle is not the tightest...but good enough for me. Flex was softer than I thought, but I was skiing them with the touring (black) tongues. Walk mode is great--great ROM, comparable to the Matrix (my last pair of boots). I didn't notice the softness when skiing and felt I had good control on the bulletproof. That could have been cuz the flask was empty at that point..?? Not sure what else...if you have specific Q's PM me. that is all.

[Steve Lavigne]

Uh... I ordered the boots from the shop where I tried them on. So how be I just tell YOU to fuck off instead, you stupid fucking JONG.

I guess I am a JONG. You said you were ordering them, so I ASSumed that you were ordering from somewhere other than where you had tried them on multiple times. It struck a nerve.

Sorry, I made an incorrect ASSumption.

The information you provided in this thread is valuable, and you certainly made quite a project out of buying boots. Hopefully you don't have any issues with the walk mode pins on your Factors.

[srsosbso]

Apology accepted.

In fact, I did try them on initially as close to home as they were stocked (nelson, bc, one hour away.) They didn't have my size and either could not or would not (depending on the shop) get them in my size.

So I went to Spokane, Wa, and tried them on in my size at mountain gear. Came home and stressed about it (made it into 'quite a project' as you put it so well.) Finally ordered them from mountain gear.

I agree with you entirely that using a local shop to get fit and then ordering from elsewhere to save pennies would kind of suck. I would have bought local if I could have bought local.

[bean]

I threw my intuitions into the Factor, baked and all, and jesus...SO much stiffer, almost too stiff. Felt good except for one of my arches feeling like it was being force-collapsed, even with my custom footbeds. Might need to rebake and change a couple things, but they certainly ski well.

[srsosbso]

As my friend 'Big Al' would say, "inneresting." Can I ask which intuition you have (tongue or wrap and specific model) and what size liner for what size shell?

thanks

[bean]

Power wrap. I'll have to check what size when I get home. It might be a size 12 in a 28.5 shell but I'll let you know later.

Something weird happened during baking. When I took the liners out after cooling, I found that the "footbed" part of the liner had been twisted and rotated outward (on both feet). Thinking that might be the cause of the pain/collapsing. Anyone have thoughts on how to fix it/prevent it from happening on a re-mold? Thinking of taking the liner out of the oven, putting it around my foot, and then stuffing that into the shell, rather than liner into shell, then foot. How many moldings is too many on an intuition?

[jasonsalvo]

I finally got to ski my new Radiums today (after more than a week of them not being delivered due to snow in the city)....

I skied inbounds at Alpental in some pretty poor conditions - breakable crust, ice chunks, choppy crud. I skied them on my 190 Gotamas w/ Salomon bindings (which they fit in to quite well).

All in all, I'd say they are a pretty awesome boot - for touring. I wouldn't ski them as an everyday inbounds boot because they aren't stiff enough to make me feel confident when really charging. As far as stiffness goes, I'd say they are significantly less stiff than my 100 flex Salomon something or other boots. Nevertheless, they are a huge step up from those silly Megarides.

The Radium is way way stiffer laterally and backwards, though not as stiff flexing forwards as my Megarides, which have the black Scarpa stiff tongue from the Spirit 4. Personally, I don't mind the less stiff forward flex, because it's really all about the other directions as long as you ski pretty balanced. The conditions couldn't have been worse to take a relatively soft boot and ski them on a long somewhat stiff ski, but the boots proved up to the task. I definitely flexed through them a few times, but for most of the day I forgot I was even skiing touring boots.

A few notes on fit: The heel pocket is quite a bit bigger than on the megaride. I put a piece of U-shaped foam on my liner and my heel is locked down ridiculously tight - too tight perhaps. The forefoot is weird. It felt tight all day, and I never really buckled the front two buckles. Even when I did buckle them, it didn't change the way it felt. I'm still trying to figure that one out. One problem, which might have to do with the liner, is that when the buckles are tightened to what seems appropriate, it pinches the top of my shin/calf. I have this same problem with my Megas. What's nice about the Radium, though, is that I just skied with my boots a bit looser than I might have, and they still skied fine. With the Megas loosely buckled, I feel like the boot flexes all over the place whenever my skis encounter bumps.

All in all - I'd say I've finally found a touring boot that skis well. Now I only hope they tour equally as well. I'll find out once the avy conditions become reasonable....

[JoeStrummer]

A few notes on fit: The heel pocket is quite a bit bigger than on the megaride. I put a piece of U-shaped foam on my liner and my heel is locked down ridiculously tight - too tight perhaps. The forefoot is weird. It felt tight all day, and I never really buckled the front two buckles. Even when I did buckle them, it didn't change the way it felt. I'm still trying to figure that one out. One problem, which might have to do with the liner, is that when the buckles are tightened to what seems appropriate, it pinches the top of my shin/calf. I have this same problem with my Megas. What's nice about the Radium, though, is that I just skied with my boots a bit looser than I might have, and they still skied fine. With the Megas loosely buckled, I feel like the boot flexes all over the place whenever my skis encounter bumps.

All in all - I'd say I've finally found a touring boot that skis well. Now I only hope they tour equally as well. I'll find out once the avy conditions become reasonable....

Funny, I have felt exactly the same opinion on the heel and the lower buckles. Half the time one buckle on both boots is either flopping loose or not tensioned but it still skis fine and when I ratchet it down it doesn't do much for me. I can ski them a bit loose and still have all the control I need.