New models of hard boots and tests for extremecarving

[SITO]

hello again lovers of this sport, from my point of view, and there are always different according to each person, is not see because it is more or less expensive or see things more or less positive. Is to see if the patient improves or it worsens, without decorating it.

In any sport there is always an i + d that helps that the sport in develope and grow.

In my case my kid is Racing in motocross, it does not have much sense to go to the shop and ask for a motorcycle 20 years ago, the same as 20 years ago, same color, same motor ..... and 3 times more expensive that one from 2018. It would be simply crazy.

Transfer it to Ferrari, Yamaha, Honda, nobody wants a motorcycle 20 years ago 3 times more expensive, or drive a car without conditioned air.....

The same for windsurfing, who wants a 280 large x 50-wide board?
or sails 20 years old, or the first Wipika kites impossible to sail with it and only 15 years old.....

Today the big mac is more expensive but Donalds always give you a 2x1, or with potatoes, or with salad, or with free drink

Of course Mercedes, Volkwagen, etc are expensive than the same car-Brand 20 years ago but nowadays come with, gps, wifi, thousand of controls, tv, less contamination, less consumption, more horse power etc etc etc.....

The factory prime has no inflation, simply is no longer manufactured ... any body wants one, is a collection piece.

.951 is a good boot, but it would be better if that boot would be developed at least to fit with step-in it would have been a step forward.(I don't use step-in)
An example of develop in this sport would be the bindings bomber, they always have been improving, or plate system which improve the driving of the table, titanal boards..... , after all is something new.

Actually .951 is a good boot of course, but very expensive, and with a 20 years old design, no loops different, no different springs controls, no better liners, no better tongues, same sole...

Yes I know that you will tell me, "I know but this boots really works well", but what I say you is that they would works better with some development, although would be thermo liners, and at least this improvement justify its high price

In Spain there is a saying that says:
Is not the arrow really is the indian......

[joel]

We are going far out of this topic.
So in 20 years in France the inflation was 25% about 1.25%/year and so is your buying force?

Not really

The Big Mac index is by far more reliable about what we can buy with our money.

We can use the top class slalom board index?
In Italy in the late 90's an average salary was 1.400.000 lire and a Factory Prime costs 1.200.000 lire
Now the salary is 1.400€ and a top slalom board costs 1.200€ and more.

so as well the bigmac (2.5 to 6) as the snowboards almost doubled their price in 20 years....and oh shit, your salary also doubled in the same time...

YOU lucky !!!! not me !!!! Fuck... it's time to leave France !!!

[jax]

Sito, are you serious?

hello again lovers of this sport, from my point of view, and there are always different according to each person, is not see because it is more or less expensive or see things more or less positive. Is to see if the patient improves or it worsens, without decorating it.

In any sport there is always an i + d that helps that the sport in develope and grow.

In my case my kid is Racing in motocross, it does not have much sense to go to the shop and ask for a motorcycle 20 years ago, the same as 20 years ago, same color, same motor ..... and 3 times more expensive that one from 2018. It would be simply crazy.

Transfer it to Ferrari, Yamaha, Honda, nobody wants a motorcycle 20 years ago 3 times more expensive, or drive a car without conditioned air.....

The same for windsurfing, who wants a 280 large x 50-wide board?
or sails 20 years old, or the first Wipika kites impossible to sail with it and only 15 years old.....

And what if the old bike works better than the new one?

Today the big mac is more expensive but Donalds always give you a 2x1, or with potatoes, or with salad, or with free drink

Also 20 years ago.

The factory prime has no inflation, simply is no longer manufactured ... any body wants one, is a collection piece.

It is just a way to compare 20 years ago board price with nowdays board price

.951 is a good boot, but it would be better if that boot would be developed at least to fit with step-in it would have been a step forward.(I don't use step-in)
An example of develop in this sport would be the bindings bomber, they always have been improving, or plate system which improve the driving of the table, titanal boards..... , after all is something new.

Actually .951 is a good boot of course, but very expensive, and with a 20 years old design, no loops different, no different springs controls, no better liners, no better tongues, same sole...

Yes I know that you will tell me, "I know but this boots really works well", but what I say you is that they would works better with some development, although would be thermo liners, and at least this improvement justify its high price

How can you say this?
Do you have a pair of .951 in your hands?
Do you have one or test it?
Do you have a pair of .950?
Do you know how much all this costs?
How much could cost any development?

In Spain there is a saying that says:
Is not the arrow really is the indian......

We are not talking about how cool we are.
If you are a good rider you can ride almost with everything.
If you are an average rider everything will be more enjoyable with good stuff, if having best stuff makes you feel happier, safer and stronger, why not?
If you are a pro you need only the best.

I'm just happy that someone has invested that lot of money in this sport and I hope that this will make UPZ and Deeluxe work on their boots to make them better.
And also I'm happy because if I break my boots, I can buy a new pair that makes me, my foot and my riding happier.

And I also hope that this is a brain storm and we will remain carving friends.!

[SITO]

"How can you say this?
Do you have a pair of .951 in your hands?
Do you have one or test it?
Do you have a pair of .950?
Do you know how much all this costs?
How much could cost any development"

yes jax I know what I say you, I have 4 pairs, all tested, and I bought them when didn't have this feber for this boots and the people didn't pay 3000 euros for one pair of used boots, months ago.

xantus the black ones predecesor of the famous point, the plastic of this boots is corrupted
.350 the white ones
.900 the gray ones
.950 the yellow ones with modified softer tongues from raichle

all of them has foam liners, don't support good my feets, I always get my heel lift during turns, the sole of all boots got peal off and need to be repair,the 350 got the plastic shell cracked, in only one season.

And actually ride with my raichle 600 modified really work well.

[puhutes]

"How can you say this?
Do you have a pair of .951 in your hands?

yes jax I know what I say you, I have 4 pairs, all tested, and I bought them when didn't have this feber for this boots and the people didn't pay 3000 euros for one pair of used boots, months ago.

xantus the black ones predecesor of the famous point, the plastic of this boots is corrupted
.350 the white ones
.900 the gray ones
.950 the yellow ones with modified softer tongues from raichle

But no Point.951
Thanks for your support Jax!

[nils]

Hello Sito,

You are right at some point: It is strange that in 20 years there is no real new thing in the sport regarding boots...but there is a simple explaination:
Developpement cost vs investment return.
The relaunch of the .950 into the .951 ( which has better plastics, higher end buckles ( the liner for me does not count because most people would get custom liners anyway) already shows that to be economically viable, the business model has to sell the boots at 1000 something euros..Am not sure Mountain Slope is trying to get it's team rich at the end of the season, they just need to repay the investment and make a living if possible out of it with all the hard work involved ( this explaining the price of the boot..If they succeed, the price is likely to get lower slowly.

This is basically the only explaination there is..

Developping a radical new boot would cost at least 500K euros between prototypes, design teams, time involved etc and you can add 500K more for production and molds. No one is crazy enough today to spend 1 million euros in a project that would repay itself in 10 years due to the small amount of alpine riders worldwide.. Mountain slope has taken a big risk already reproducing a boot that has shown to be the best of its kind and already improved it a bit. Yes it lacks the stepin option, but if it was possible to add it without too many changes they would have done it for sure..

Raichle and UPZ are using the same molds for decades too, and this is maybe time for them to rethink from scratch, but again for what gain? improve something that works by 5% ?

Snowboard is a niche on the mountain appart from some countries like Japan or Korea, and alpine is a niche among a niche...maybe first we need to help spreading the good news and use social media to increase the number of alpine riders, then there will be interest from big names to spend a million into making a new boot for us! You can't compare motorbikes or cars that have companies with billions and can have teams of engineers working 24/7 worldwide on projects and the small niche of snowboard alpine ! Kite sails are almost custom and don't require molds, so this is why it evolves quickly. Windsurfing had made huge technical improvements in the performance, and this is why it evolved so much..( factories had to evolve or die and now most come from the same thai factory because it requires industrial processes to be economical).

Make alpine bigger and get more gear choice
N

[jax]

"How can you say this?
Do you have a pair of .951 in your hands?

yes jax I know what I say you, I have 4 pairs, all tested, and I bought them when didn't have this feber for this boots and the people didn't pay 3000 euros for one pair of used boots, months ago.

xantus the black ones predecesor of the famous point, the plastic of this boots is corrupted
.350 the white ones
.900 the gray ones
.950 the yellow ones with modified softer tongues from raichle

But no Point.951
Thanks for your support Jax!

Ciao Jennifer
As said to HR in Senales, I'm happy that you succeed in your efforts and that someone still believes in this sport.

[slapos]

I cant wait to get my hands on 951.

Really curious how they line up against the UPZ.

Notice how many people in the pro race world has switched already to 951.

I like to think that these guys have no time for stupid experiments and use only the best equipment available.

Treat these boots as an investment in your snowboard riding. Notice how many pros have been riding these for 20 years plus?

If you are willing to spend 1k+ on a board (which will last you couple seasons), than why not on boots?

strange!

[nils]

If they last as good or better than the .900 I ride since 2002, then its a cheap investment!
1000 euros times 15 years is 66 euros per year investment (I got mine in 2002 for 50€ but it does not count )

And yes, we spend proportionally way more on boards than on boots!

Nils

[tali]

Too bad the small sizes are so rare that they are not going to be tested during the ECS.
I guess my size would be pricier than the louboutin's.

[Hans]

I have the .951 in the soft version. Did ride them with the red springs for 3 days. They were too stiff at my liking. Gonna ride them this winter further with the blue springs and asked mountainslope for the specs of the blue spring, because I feel I want an even softer spring. With custom footbeds in it, the liners feel comfortable enough for me, even with my high arch feet. I have to adapt a little because my UPZ RC11 have another feel with a soft tongue (red) and an italian spring system.

To be continued.....

[jax]

We have missed out the boots from Japan, the G-Style

http://www.g-style.jp/index.html

But who have even just saw them?

Inviato da Tapatalk

[fivat]

This topic is about the two famous brands which the Swoard team has got for full season tests on all snows and all slopes. We won't discuss other brands.
It is also about Swoard EC technique (not about "skiboard style") as written in the first post:

Our goal is precisely to figure out what works the best for our original extremecarving technique. We will play with different plastic stiffness and spring systems. Our needs are different from what is required in racing. This doesn't mean less performances, but different performances because of our "push-pull" technique and surfing philosophy. The timing with the legs for example is very different in a slalom: stiffer hard boots are required (Jacques and Patrice were racers long time ago before developing EC).

The Point .951 is for sure excellent in racing, what is very specific with super stiff setup. For sure we will see yellow color on all podium of next Olympic Games.

I have been riding various Point .951 for 10 days so far. But like a scientist, I won't give any complete feedback after much more days. Same for my team, which could ride them already in Hintertux for 3 days. More days are ahead and we have ordered additional boots.

As we use our push-pull technique in moguls too (no, it's not only for extremecarving), we also compare the performances in such terrains.

Both models Point .951 and RC11 have pros and cons. We are working on various adjustments and customizations which will satisfy all team riders.

Patrice Fivat

[Hans]

Got some very fast feedback from Mountainslope, even during Christmas time , they gave me some solutions:
- 5 to 10mm smaller binding stance
- using toe and heel lift.
- using another liner

I will first try the softer blue spring. The red spring is obvious too stiff.

[Swoard team]

For sure the original liner is not good at all, as mentioned previously in this topic. Patrice, Arnaud, Petr, Rafal and others experienced pains: they had to change the liners.
Please Hans don't troll this topic with your first steps in these hard boots, as this is the place for the review by the Swoard team, their significant feedbacks and experiences.
We are not going to post a message for each spring change, tongue change, plastic change, setup change, etc. People are waiting for reliable feedbacks and final solutions.
Be sure we report this to Mountain Slope, which did a great job so far (and work at Christmas time as we do).

The Swoard team