I’m headed down to Salt Lake City today for a couple days at the Outdoor Retailer Winter Market, where vendors from all around the world show off what’s new for Fall 2009. I’ll do my best to inform you of what’s hot…and what’s NOT!
After debuting the hot new Dynafit DyNA rando race boot a few days ago, I was quickly informed of the newest version from Scarpa for Fall 2009. The new F1 Carbon will become the lightest in the three tiered race boot offering from Scarpa next year. Weighing 1lb 13.6 oz (10 oz less than the F1 Race), the F1 Carbon has the same chassic as the F1 Race, but adds a carbon cuff and an ultra lightweight ski/walk mechanism. Non of these carbon race boots are cheap, and the F1 Carbon will come in at $1499, compared to $1400 for the Dynafit DyNA…and approximately $1600 for the all carbon XP 500 by Pierre Gignoux.
It’s really cool to see all these new rando race boots and almost makes me want to dust off the old skis and start doing intervals. Since the addition of carbon to either just the boot cuff (as with Scarpa and Dynafit) or the entire boot (like with Pierre Gignoux) seems to significantly reduce the overall weight of these boots, I guess the really question will be…how do they ski??
Need some new rando race bindings?
Support TetonAT.com and score some ultralight Dynafit Low Tech or some budget minded TLT Speed Classic bindings from Backcountry.com.
La Sportiva is coming out with an all carbon boot as well. It will be interesting to see how these ski. I hear carbon skis really well. This is exactly one of the reasons why racing is so important for our sport - it brings great product development. Someday we will have boots that weigh as little as these and tour as well as these boots, but ski like the big burly boots.
Here’s a link for the La Sportiva carbon boot
http://www.lasportiva.com/Magazine2007/English/Scarponescialp6.htm#
Carbon good…but expensive. I’ll keep my eye out for the “Stratos” from La Sportiva down here at OR.
It might be cheaper to become an ironman triathlete!
There is not going to be enough money to do any ski expeditions,buying all this gear!