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AT ski boots for plates?


Deuxdiesel

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Very encouraging! It’ll be a few more weeks until I get a chance to test my setup but this is looking good! I don’t mind sticking with upz and the convenience of intec for carving-focused days, since I’ve worked to get those all dialed in. But what I’ve wanted was to have one set of hike-friendly boots that I could pack for longer trips with both a soft and carving board. 
 

Did the boot feel stiff enough side-to-side? We can always find springs to adjust the front-back flex, but the lateral is more a function of the shell itself. 

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2 hours ago, dudedude said:

Did the boot feel stiff enough side-to-side? We can always find springs to adjust the front-back flex, but the lateral is more a function of the shell itself. 

Same here:  with the boots weight saving; I can bring an extra board for traveling lol....
Side to side feels good/stiff enough to me.
Front/back flex is the one need to be dialed in.

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I reckon that the question isn't answered unless you actually try it.

These boots are stiffer than most, which is kind of why people put springs into them. In any case, Atomic make a whole range of similar boots and you can pick the stiffness you want, so even the fattest macho men should be fine. 

I don't know if they'll rip on my race boards, but I don't see why they would not.

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Lateral is stiff...the rest is adjustable

Yea, the racers won't like them...maybe you can fold the nose and break your ankle with a 200 ...who uses a 200 though?

Who is a Racer?,  looking at these boots to use?, no one... 

for everyday Carving?, these should be just fine...certainly way better than the low cuff AT boots I tried years ago... the ones people used with the early Rozzis to rip the Milk...

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Charliechocolate borowed his Backlands to me, for a test ride. Here's my quick take on them, without actually riding in them: 

These things are LIGHT! Only about 900g per shell, as oposed to 1900g of Head/Blax hard boots. They are also very beautiful with efficient engineering solutions. 

Next, they are very low volume and on narrow side. The stock liner is very thin. I had very ugly pressure on the medial side of the ankle and felt very tight in the fore foot. I tried the regular thickness Head/Dalbello liners and wasn't able to close any of the buckles. Then I tried old liners from Garmonts and was able to close the buckles, with a lot of effort. With those, the ankle pain was mostly gone, but forefoot and instep were completely crushed. I realised that I won't be able too ride in these, without blowing the shells... 

With my liners the heel hold seemed to be enormous and flex probably stiffened enough in walk mode to freeride like that. When locked, the boots are actually pretty stiff! The locked position seems to have nice mellow forward lean, just the amount I like! With stock liners the walk mode would probably be too soft even for freeride... 

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  • 5 weeks later...

Having now used the Atomic AT Backlands Boots, to do some Carving on Groom...they are way to soft, to be able to apply the forward support that I wanted, the whole boot and especially in the cuff area is weak IMO and these would be great for cruising groom, or Pow could be very workable in these as well...

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40 minutes ago, softbootsurfer said:

No, with the Phantom Spring assembly, however, I really believe having flexed it with both Locked and Springs, it is the overall Cuff area that is weak, at least for a Full Body into the turn, that is my Opinion only...for easy riding and or Powder they would be great... 

The world is coming to the end - a softbooter is complaining about hard boots being too sift! 🤣 

Just kidding, really good to hear your take on them. Unfortunately, I couldn't ride in them, just flexed them around the living room... 

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12 minutes ago, softbootsurfer said:

also with them locked, there is very little forward lean in the boot so...

You could use the spring rod mechanism for adjustable lean, but replace the springs with some tubes and maybe a skatboard bushing or two? 

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3 hours ago, softbootsurfer said:

there is very little forward lean in the boot so...

So your softboots are fairly flat as are your bindings.  The internal ramp of the Atomics should provide more forward lean than your previous setup.

Edited by lonbordin
Your softboots are Sambas, The Backlands are high heels
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More on the backlands: I tried sticking a pair of zipfits in them to no avail. I tried several other liners while I was at the bootfitter including Intuition's touring liner and they all have too much volume for the shell and my feet (my feet are medium volume). I'm thinking you need to size up if you want to use the shells with anything more substantial than the stock liner.

The bootfitter said you can't punch the shells. I will ask Atomic for confirmation.

 

edit: @pokkis and @pow4ever had mentioned palau liners that people were using.

Edited by charliechocolate
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6 hours ago, charliechocolate said:

The bootfitter said you can't punch the shells. I will ask Atomic for confirmation.

He's mistaken. Or lazy. Perhaps both.

->Statement qualified by the understanding that I've not had occasion to punch every iteration of this year's plastic, but have punched previous Backlands to good effect.

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On the boots I've seen, most of the carbon, (or the appearance of carbon) is in the cuff, not the shell. The lower part of the boot is 'just' plastic.

Making the shell out of actual carbon laminate would likely be cost prohibitive for a mass market production boot.

Depending on the layup, fiber orientation, and epoxy, one could probably distort a carbon shell, but not to the extent you can with plastic.

Further, if your bare supported foot is not hitting plastic in the empty shell, you can probably thin the liner in select areas with a grinder, or if it's too loose in select places, apply layers of elastic duct tape to the liner.

On 2/2/2020 at 6:28 PM, softbootsurfer said:

also with them locked, there is very little forward lean in the boot so...

...so if you look closely, you may find that the upper latch anchor can be rotated 180 degrees for more/less forward lean.

Alternately, you could add a spoiler wedge to the cuff. Should be able to cadge one of those from most any ski shop.

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I'm using 26 size Palau liner on my 27 size boot to have less liner volume. Works fine. Liner is All Track Power, not overlap model. That works great with boots, much better than overlap. For Zipfits, Garda could work but i think it would make boot too stiff.

Edited by pokkis
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13 hours ago, Beckmann AG said:

...so if you look closely, you may find that the upper latch anchor can be rotated 180 degrees for more/less forward lean.

You're correct that the backing plate can be rotated for this purpose, but it did not in my case give sufficient forward lean for my back foot, hence I bought the Phantom springs, which provide for significantly more lean than the built in levers, however set up.

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