Full Tilt Boots

[Willow 15]

I bought a pair of Full Tilt Conflicts from ebay a while ago and have just got back from the French Alps and thought I would share my thoughts as quite a few bol members have shown interest in Full Tilt's/Dalbello Krypton's. I have been looking for a boot to board and ski in for ages. My first effort was Upz with din adaptors, found them to soft for skiing and they gave me the worst shin bang ever. Next up was a pair of Dalbello carvex with bts(thanks to Blueb's thoughts and posts) and found these great but was worried the bts might explode from my dremmel work and be left bootless in the Alps. So a while ago I managed to get some new Full Tilt's for roughly $80. I am riding a SG full race pro 163, Cateks 55° 49° with a 19" stance(my inseam is 31"), a little inward canting on both feet and a bit of toe lift front and a little heel lift back. I did not have time to mold the intuition liners so used my thermoflex liners which made the boots softer. From the onset they felt very good. Forward flex was nice and progressive. I was a little worried about the lateral flex as have heard it to be stiff from older posts, but this did not seem to cause me any problems. In fact I found it a bonus to power round my shorter carves. As for the skiing they were great to. I am lucky to have small feet so overhang was never a problem, but for those people with bigger feet this will be a problem unless you are using squall angles. So in conclusion if anyone is looking for a boot to use for both sports I would recommend them. Also if anyone has chance to buy a SG do it. As you would expect edge grip is amazing on ice but what I love is the carving ability on soft/slushy snow. I would expect to get high sided on my old glass boards on this type of snow but on my board I can carve very aggressively with no worries. I expect its the same on all the new metal boards.

[BlueB]

Great, thanks!

How do you compare the width of the CarveX and Full Tilt shells? Old Flexons are too narrow for me... Any difference on Full Tilts?

[Willow 15]

Good question

How do you compare the width of the CarveX and Full Tilt shells?

narrower. Thanks for reminding me, I need to get the shells blown out around the small toe area. My feet are some what problematic as they have been crammed into climbing shoes from an early age and the closest resemblance is an Ent's foot. Knarled is probably the best description. I will get some measurements/comparisons/photos.

[skategoat]

I tried them on recently and they are a really tight fit. I can usually wear 27 or 27.5. But with the 27s, I could get my foot into the boot but I couldn't get the buckles done up. The buckling system does not have a lot of room.

[av_dumitrascu]

not beating dead horses, but would these boots be an alternative?

Some more info on Full Tilt hardboots used with snowboards:

http://news.fulltiltboots.com/2010/01/10/snowboarding-on-full-tilts/

http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/showthread.php/180561-Seeking-more-information-about-softening-boots

If anyone else used them on alpine boards, please share some light with the rest of us....

`cause snow is coming ;)

[MR. JOHN DEERE !]

I switched to the dalbellos last winter. The reasons for the change were # 1. Durability, every year and a half I was cracking my deeluxes. Not only were they breaking, but I could feel the plastic breaking down within the first 10-15 days of use. Never mind the warm days, useless! They would continually loose support, and by the end the boots life, allot of added stress was put on my ankles. NOTE; I actually tore my dalbellos with about 20 days on them, so throw the durability factor out of the equation. Dalbellos replaced them without any questions, which was good. #2 being able to use the same boot all day, weather teaching my 4 yr old how to ski, or snowboarding with my AGING snowboarding crew T32. 3rd reason is because Kildy uses them and Kildy knows best !!!!!!!!

The PRO's;

Many adjustment options, you could get away with using flat bindings, and using the adjustments with just your boots. Beacuse these boots are allot stiffer, the adjustments are true adjustsments. The boot is no longer the weak link in your set up, it has become the drivers seat on basically a freight train!!! Laterall stiffness is awesome, and the power you can generate in your turn is scary. You know that feeling you get when you have your new boots for a couple days? the deeluxes have great lateral stiffness, but then they breakdown very quickly. These are stiffer, and will remain stiff, you just have to get used to the power, or that freight train feeling between your feet.

CONS;

These boots will require many adjustments from what your used too. The toe to heal length is allot longer, so adjusting bindings will be required, trying to make them fit on your snowboard without over hang. I wear a size 26 an run 50 in the rear and 55 in the front. A 20 cm width board was too narrow, without a plate system.

IMO the pros out weigh the cons, and I would recommend the switch to anyone, who feels like they are blowing through their snowboard boots, or can honestly feel the boots breaking down within the 1st season of use.

[av_dumitrascu]

now the biggest question: anyone ever installed a BTS/ACSS system on ski boots? Especially on Full Tilt Seth Morrison boots?

would it be doable?

thanks ;)

[Beckmann AG]

^

AV_D,

I've had something like this since the late '90's.

The Raichle Freezone ski boot came with an RAB spring. Many ski boots of the late 70's(?) and onward incorporated springs for flex adjustment.

(Dynafit, Dachstein, probably Koflach and Kastinger et al.)

No photo, but I retrofit the spring assembly from a pair of Dynafit 3F to my Garmont VooDoos.

The upper bracket for the Garmont is a simple right-angle bracket made of .125 stainless.

If memory serves, the ACSS might be the simpler retrofit to the Full Tilt if you can't fabricate your own parts.

[kipstar]

I have been looking a lot at the full tilt website and I really have some doubts that the indys I have will be able to provide a better experience than a set of FTs running the softest tongues.

I used to love a nice stiff foot sole, which the snowboard boots I have had (UPS and Deeluxe) both seem to lack I guess as the bindings don't require it. More importantly, I have a high arch, thin ankles medium width forefoot, and length is 28.1cm, so it is a squeeze to get into a 27 shell indy, but the heel hold is awful. I have added the BTS to eliminate the RAB induced boot distortion (which widens the ankle area as it bottoms out) but I am still fairly sure I will get heel lift and that's with additional shims already. The toe area is already fully packed out and stretched, but will need to be stretched again as the heat here means the boot goes back to original very quickly.

The issues of going to the ski boot is slightly longer length, a more problematic binding/boot fit (due to the thinner sole thickness) and managing to get a suitable flex in the boot. I am less worrieds on the backwards flex that the BTS adds, since I am not sure you need it. I do want to be able to run a nice progressive flex going forward and am used to the Raichle ski boot system (rode it for many years, based on an equipe, the model below a flexon pro). Would run the softest tongues, the new liners may mean I have enough room on the forefoot modify the shell a little on the forefoot and arch, and am wondering if that would work well enough to go?

Has anyone actually got specific experience in the FT skiboots to comment if I am thinking right? I've spent a fair bit of time reading ideas from the esteemed Mr Beckmann and seen some racers using them; what exactly is needed to get them to the point of being a better boot than using the indys?

The other option is to go from the standard mouldable liner in the indys I have now to a better new version....in which case which liner? Will it solve this lack of forefoot room too much heel room issue?

Either way I tend leave boot fitting to experts, as I know what I want it to feel like, but prefer to let them do their magic (although I have worked doing boot fitting before). Hoping to get some good idea before I start planning which way to move forward.

[av_dumitrascu]

Finally got some time with the Full Tilt boots, I am uploading some pictures (details) so please advise me what to do to TUNE them up for snowboarding.

For any details, please ask me, I am more than willing to share all the info on these boots, just to make them for carving

So, here is the first batch, please help me!

[av_dumitrascu]

.....

[av_dumitrascu]

What I need to know is how could I make them more flexible to the front (already having the softest tongue), i.e. what and where I should cut/drill and what BTS/ACSS solution I could retrofit...

many thanks for help!

[MR. JOHN DEERE !]

What I did, was I tried to make them as close to my old boots as possible. I had been running Deeluxe Indy's/AF700 for 9+ year's, so I had all the kinks worked out. My riding style I prefer to have a flat front, so no I didn't put any wedges in the front boot. The rear boot I have a 3 degree wedge. I also canted both boots out 1.5 degrees for proper knee spacing. This is totally my preference so you may not like this. Like I said i got them as close degree/pitch/cant as I could to my old Deeluxes.

To soften them up, Try going with the standard booster strap, NOT the world cup or the racing one Booster offers. The strap's they come with have NO give in them, along with you begging for shin bang !!! Another way to soften them up, go with a soft liner. If you put a liner like an Intuition with the the power wrap, they will be stiffer than the way they came from Full Tilt. The last way to do it, is to run your buckles slightly snug to your foot. Don't crank your boots buckles, that's what presses all the plastics together to create the stiffness. You don't want to be too lose, but snug.

That should work, Good luck !

P.S if you were looking for a cut and pray method, sorry your on your own. If you do cut the shell, at the end of your cuts, drill a hole a at the end of the cut, this will stop if from growing further the area you only wanted to cut.

What I need to know is how could I make them more flexible to the front (already having the softest tongue), i.e. what and where I should cut/drill and what BTS/ACSS solution I could retrofit...

many thanks for help!

[Beckmann AG]

What I need to know is how could I make them more flexible to the front...

Relocate (raise) the cuff hinge(s) to match the node of your inner ankle bone. This more or less removes shell distortion from affecting flex. Some form of spring attenuation will then be necessary to avoid a hyper-flexion.

[snowmatic]

Would these boots be an alternative?

These boot /shell are now very old ski-boots, You can call them vintage ski-boots. Once all made in Switzerland by Raichle.

These boots have never been designed, or recommended by Raichle for to use them on snowboards!

What You should know in Romania about:

Raichle was a serious boot maker. They designed, constructed and produced everything in Switzerland, even all handmade/sewed the perfect fitting and long-living liners. They had been on focus to produce very good, functional and anatomical sporting goods. Raichle was driven by clever engineers and solid shoemakers, not by salesmen and marketing-gurus. So Raichle brand wasn't been on focus to do big marketing, like any poor of ideas followers now a days do.

Raichle was flushing every Year boot market with patents and not just only with new colorways of boots, like we see it now. They have been holder of near to 1'000 patents on hiking boots, army boots, ski- & snowboard boots.

1963 Raichle was worlds first boot maker ever, introducing buckles for ski boots.

(for skiboots out of leather than, like on this follower brand Stefan-2000 on photo)

In the Year 1986 Raichle comes with their first snowboard hardboots.

But Raichle isn't any more, since more then a decade now. Genius shell constructions for snowboarding stoped with the Year of 1995, right after the new SB-124 shell was out on market. For some next Years after, under the label of Kneissel, Raichle does some poor more new constructions like the AF-shell, know as DeeLuxe Track 700 too. Luckywise they had been able to improve the liners from the first SB-124/125 to the second editon and then up to the first SB-324 / SB-325 well.

What we can see now on market, Full-Tilt, Icelantic or DeeLuxe boots? It's just a re-making of genius Flexon skiboots from 1980ies to 1990ies and snowboardboots from 1994 in new colors and with fire spit marketing. Based on not one single new development and some cheap Made-in-China liners. Even they have not be able to hold the machinery in shape, for producing the snowboard-boots specific buckles. They use now mass-production ski-boot buckles on Deeluxe and Icelantic boots.

"Full-Tilt" alias Raichle Flexon boots are very old construtions and far away to be up-to-date for this century. Value isn't higher then $ 2 now, like price-tag for each of used Raichle boots in thrift shop (snowboarding/ski-mountaineering/skiing). Even if they look like close to new (Raichle 125 in front)

You can take these Raichle Flexon from thrift shop

or this Full-Tilt from sporting good stores

It's just the same boot, with overall same parts, since many decades. That Raichle is from 1991 (see violet numbers on liner). For sure, the one from sport store comes with a new liner and new plastics. There is a remaining questionmark about perfect shell-hardness to liner softness/shape. Liners e.g. from DeeLuxe/Icelantic comes now from China, not from Switzerland. The wouldn't contain now anymore long-living celestial damping caoutshouc-foam like the real orginals. That's way too expensive and maybe to heavy for the marketing followers. People like to report us the new China-Made liners are worn-out after 20 days of use, a good thing for anymore after-market sales.

Keep in mind what quality made in Switzerland is and what it was then. The boots have been intoduced some decades before now. All the re-makers of that Raichle boots use even the same old molds for injection of shells-plastics, like they worked once in old factory of Kreuzlingen. These molds seems to be undestructable.

Just in oposite to the Nortwave Point molds, which have been a quick-&-dirty rework version of the pre-models: Northwave Revenge, Nexus and Xanthus. It's not new, steadfastness of reworked molds is much poorer than expensive new ones, they can fail. We saw what happens, Northwave stoped then the production just after 2 Years of selling the Point series.

At least av_dumitrascu, why You want to turn now back to ski boots for snowboarding? Even to skiboots which have been once introduced to market back at the period of Nicolae Ceausescu. And more, why should LG-World-Cup riders use skiboots on alpineboards, which shape is much older then the riders are born themself. It seems actual brands are not able at all, to invent new boots for us. Good shoe makers are a rarity since Years. Fire spit marketing, based on cheap produced items out of China's factories, this is the period in which we like to live now.

Edited November 2, 2012 by snowmatic