whats the stiffest boot?

[bobdea]

OK since the big B stopped making boots what would you say is the stiffest boot going I love my pair of Fires but the will not last forever.
so what do you all think is stiffer the new UPS boots or the Head stratos pros
how do they compare with the Fires?
I have ridden the older UPS boots and they were pretty soft compared with the Furnaces I was riding in at the time.
are the deeluxe Indy any stiffer than the AF 700 or is it exactly the same?

[Bordy]

[Randy S.]

Nordica and Solomon make pretty stiff boots. But you can't put intec heels on them.

If you want to stiffen up a pair of boots, try the Booster Strap (race version with 3 elastics) that Fin sells here on Bomber. I put one on my UPS boots and it made a big difference. It is a much better arrangement than the standard booster straps you see on ski boots. Those rarely have any "give" to them. Booster strap is elastic so it flexes. It was a great addition. I think the Deeluxe boots are a bit taller than the UPS, which give them a feeling of being stiffer, but I don't think they are necessarily stiffer.

A custom bootfitter can probably make some other adjustments to stiffen up a boot. I'm guessing Startingate or OOB in VT could do that for you (not sure since I don't live there).

[Baka Dasai]

Originally posted by Randy S.
It is a much better arrangement than the standard booster straps you see on ski boots. Those rarely have any "give" to them. Booster strap is elastic so it flexes.

The Booster strap is sold as something to "stiffen up" a boot, but the typical straps that come standard on the top of boots have almost no elasticity, and so you would think that they'd be stiffer than any strap with a big hunk of elastic in them.

I wanna try some booster straps for the opposite reason - to make the boot softer (but not as soft as no strap at all).

[bobdea]

but they still do not even come close to my mighty burtons
how do the stratos pro compare to the af 700/Indy

[Hans]

Bob,
I ride the Raichle AF 700 TS for three years now (the black ones,
I liked them more than the ugly coloured orange Deeluxe ones).
I demoed a pair of Indy's last year for half a day in Haus from the guys of Blue Tomato. They are almost exactly the same. One buckle, they replaced it some, that's the only modification, oh forgot something the standard liners differs a little bit, the closing of the liner is something different but nothing really exciting. The stiffness of both type of boots worked the same for me, so I sticked to my nice black 700's. I liked the way they are now, stiff enough for riding my SWOARD 168 Hard. Modified it something with another springbail at the back of my boot, something longer, so I could stand up more. And this week I modified them at a local skishop which molded the outside/inside plastic of the boot with a special moldingmachine because I had some pressurepoints at the side of my foot, near my little too. So I saved some money for an expensive Thermoflex liner. They are perfect now. Let's carve some really deep trenches now at the upcoming Lechcarvingsession in Austria.

Cheers, Hans.