New BOA ski boot hopes its unique fit will provide a leg up on competition
No, it's not named after a boa constrictor, though it does wrap around your foot kind of like a snake.
BOA stands for "boot opening adjustment" and it’s the trademarked brand name of the company that has made the lace and wire and dial adjust-based closure systems since 2001 and adapted them to snowboard and race bike boots, Nordic gear, ice and in-line skates and other applications,
Now BOA has brought the system to Alpine ski boots. Oversized protruding knobs and an intricate wire system go over the forefoot instead of buckles and wrap the instep and can make micro-adjustments in either direction – tighter or looser. Proponents say they just fit better, while skeptics point out they're a bit heavier and their durability still hasn’t been proven on a wide scale yet for the Alpine version.
Big development in ski gear tech
BOA is probably the biggest advance in ski technology since moldable ski boots shells about eight years ago and the advent of shaped skis in the early 1990s. A few other notable changes have also been going on in the ski gear world, but I'll get to those later.
Last spring and summer saw a blizzard of product announcements, early reviews and podcast episodes dissecting the intricacies of the beefed-up and redesigned versions of the classic closure system that has been used for many years, but now has been modernized and specialized for downhill skiing.
Now BOA boots are finally on the market. BOA has so far licensed the technology to only four Alpine ski boot brands: Atomic, Fischer, K2 and Salomon. It’s unclear whether other brands will follow and whether BOA in downhill skiing will prove more than a fad. As of now, BOA boots are still in their infancy and overlap and cabrio-style buckle boots still make up the majority of inventory and sales.
But so far BOA boots are selling well, said Mike Vlass, manager of the MTNSide Ski & Ride Shop in the base lodge of Wachusett Mountain Ski Area in Princeton.
Selling well
At first, retailers were concerned that the $75 to $100 premium for the BOA-equipped boots over their buckle counterparts would put consumers off, especially in an uncertain economy.
"But the more that people came in, the more they got comfortable fitting it, trying it on. And it has resounded soundly with customers of all levels," Vlass said. "And the sales have been phenomenal."
MTNSide tends to get into new trends cautiously, so the shop bought a limited number of the new boots and offered six models for men and three for women. Now, the store is close to selling out of them.
Meanwhile, at The Ski Monster, the hip, concierge shopping-based ski shop in the North Station section of Boston, "the reception overall has definitely been positive," said Matt Berkowitz, brand manager. "But for us, we're still going to go with whatever solution for your foot and your skiing priorities."
While plenty of skiers are giving the new boots a try, not everyone is on board with BOA. Strand's Ski Shop in Worcester, for example, doesn't carry the new BOA boots. However, Strand's, which has been in business since 1934 when it was first opened by the late Strand Mikkelsen, has sold snowboard boots with BOA for 15 years.
But Leif Mikkelsen, one of the twin brothers who own and run the classic shop, told me that he thinks the BOA Alpine boots are a marketing gimmick designed to pump up sales. Strand's does, however, carry Apex boots, a brand that has long used BOA on its inner liners, which are encased by a rigid outer frame shell.
As for the new BOA systems, "they're nothing but another locking system," Mikkelsen said.
Mikkelsen said he's also seen a retreat of heavily rockered skis. Rocker (reverse camber similar to water skis) originally came out for better flotation in powder and soft snow and what fans say is easier turn initiation. But they can be unstable and hard to stop on, and they provide smaller effective edge on the snow because their tips and tails are so turned up.
As for me, I think BOA boots are pretty cool. People who have skied in them say they grip their feet more comfortably and well than conventional buckles. I tried one on at the Snowbound Expo ski and snowboard show in Boston in last month, a K2 Mindbender, and it felt good. For now, though, I'm sticking with my full buckle version of the K2 Recon low-volume model because they already fit nicely.
More gradual changes
Other developments in downhill ski equipment in recent years have been more incremental.
A big event every few years is when a big brand overhauls a popular line of skis with new contours and construction design rather than just a new topskin look, as Blizzard did for the 2023-2024 season with the Rustler and Sheeva line.
One notable trend percolating now has been a bit of a swing of the pendulum from wider to more narrow skis.
Over the last 10 years or so the ski industry, inspired to some extent by snowboard design, saw an explosion of wide, curvy skis. Skiers flocked to models as wide or wider than 110 millimeters underfoot, far beefier than the sub-88mm skis that were once considered "fat skis."
Now, 88mm-wide skis are the standard, especially in the East with its harder snow conditions. Narrower skis tend to hold on ice better.
"Wider skis work better in deep snow and worse on hard snow," Mikkelsen said. "That's the bottom line."
However, manufacturers are still making many models in the 95mm to 100mm range that still perform well on firm snow and ice due to torsional rigidity and metal laid around and next to wood cores.
Meanwhile, many dedicated Eastern skiers also make regular trips out West to enjoy the bigger mountains with their softer and deeper snow.
And their ski "quiver" often reflects that.
"A lot of our customers either have a second house or are taking each ski trips and do believe in that multi-ski quiver where they might have a bit narrower, high performance ski for harder snow in the East, and a wider all-mountain ski or even a powder ski for the West," Berkowitz said.
Bindings, clothes and helmets
On the binding side, change tends to come slowly in the Alpine ski world.
Last year, Tyrolia, the venerable Austrian binding manufacturer, came out with the Protector, the first modern mass market Alpine binding designed to release laterally at the heel while providing 7mm of sideways elasticity to absorb shock and not pre-release while releasing when rear pressure is so great it could trigger enough force to a knee ligament tear, a perennial major ski injury.
The bindings have proven pretty popular and Strand's, MTNSide and The Ski Monster all carry them.
They are not the first to focus specifically on preventing knee injuries, though. The Knee binding, designed and manufactured in Stowe, Vermont, has been on the market since 2007 and while not a mass phenomenon, have sold pretty well, particularly to skiers with previous ACL injuries or those with family members with ACL tears. Strand's has carried them for many years and stands behind them.
However, the Tyrolia Protector has lateral elasticity in the heel to both sides, while the Knee only pivots inward – the cause of ACL injuries.
In the realm of ski clothing, the movement in recent years has been toward layering of relatively lightweight layers rather than big, bulky, heavily insulated jackets of years past. Also, batter-powered heated apparel, especially heated socks, has become popular. MTNSide has even stopped selling heated ski boot footbeds, which once were a popular item, because the socks work better and are more durable, Vlass said. At The Ski Monster, though, custom heated footbeds still sell well.
Also underway and likely to become more pronounced in the coming years is a move toward more environmentally friendly waterproof-breathable outwear materials made without PFAS (per- and polyfluorinated substances), also known as "forever chemicals." States are starting to restrict or ban sales of clothing and other items with PFAS and manufacturers are taking note. One result of the shift toward fewer chemicals is that consumers will have to be more responsible for upkeep on their outerwear, periodically cleaning and treating it to preserve its hydrophobic yet breathable qualities.
One trend that has quietly been building is in headwear.
Helmets with built-in visors have been in such high demand at MTNSide that they sell out early in the year. These things are ideal for eyeglass wearers and eliminate the need for cumbersome optical inserts or oversized "over-the-glasses" goggles. Their visors have a panoramic field of vision and don't fog as easily as goggles, but they're expensive and can heat up on warm days.
Also, ski boots – with or without BOA – equipped with walk mode rear levers that lock and unlock the shells for more articulation continue to be popular even among skiers who don't user them for uphill alpine touring travel.
Ski the Whites name retired
When Andrew Drummond started the store and brand named Ski the Whites in 2016, the beachhead he established for alpine touring from his base in Jackson, New Hampshire at the foot of Mount Washington and Tuckerman Ravine became a rallying point for the growth of backcountry skiing and snowboarding in New England.
From that point until this month, Ski the White co-existed with Ski the East, the by now widely recognizable clothing and merchandising brand that promotes East Coast skiing. It grew out of a ski movie production group in 2005.
At some point that relationship broke down and earlier this week Drummond posted on Instagram that he had changed his company's name to White Mountain Ski Co. due to a trademark conflict with Ski the East.
I'm a fan of both brands and like the new name for the New Hampshire business pretty well. I just wish the two companies could have gotten along.
The whole thing is a bit reminiscent of when outdoor retailer Backcountry.com sued a host of other businesses that use "backcountry" in their names. Backcountry.com, while to this day still a successful business, earned a lot of ill will in the outdoor community for its aggressive trademark protection actions against small businesses.
Weekly ski report
Last Sunday I did one of my favorite ski things: combine an uphill alpine touring outing with a couple of downhill runs.
I hit Stratton at about 11 a.m. on a day trip from Worcester, and the conditions on this foggy day when the rain held off but always seemed near were surprisingly good and the southern Vermont resort had some good skiing on well over two dozen open trails.
After picking up my free season uphill pass, I took the easiest and I think longest of the four approved uphill routes: Lower Wanderer to Old Log Road to Drifter Link, Lower West Meadow, Upper West Meadow and Mike’s Way to the summit. Stratton has an amazing uphill access policy beloved in the alpine touring community.
This route I took – to looker's right starting near the gondola base terminal – is a delight in large part because most of the uphill travel is on really wide slopes on which it's easy to see approaching downhill skiers and snowboarders. So it's really safe if you hug the treeline to the right as you're supposed to.
The downhill – off the Snow Bowl Express mid-mountain high-speed quad – was on good snow on uncrowded trails in the Snow Bowl section like Upper and Lower Drifter.
—Contact Shaun Sutner by e-mail at s_sutner@yahoo.com
This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: BOA ski boot among several advances in skiing technology for consumers
