Xplore & the advantages of stiff stole for XC

[DG99]

Nice. Yeah, I’ve heard some people ditch the bumpers with NNNBC to allow a greater free range of motion for XC use. (Never had NNNBC myself).

Plastic AT or tele boots with a totally free pivot I find are fine for kick and glide, but that stiff sole makes turning super awkward when without any forward resistance. I expect if you had really soft forward flex but with stiff flex lateral and torsional, could work with just the free pivot. Rather handicapped in downhill performance but you wouldn’t have to do transitions, great!

[GrimSurfer]

A stiff flexor + stiff sole might have good potential on some DH manoeuvres, like a parallel turn or snowplow turn. Telemark turn? What are your thoughts on this, Johnny, having tried them?

The hard XP flexors just totally suck. They are useless. Just as useless as the red NNNBC flexors. Ok, they do add a tiny bit of resistance, which only translates into a different feeling. But they are light-years away from adding any real performance. They would have to be at least twice as hard to do that. Well, my guess is that this is what they did in the first place. But they knew the consumer wouldn't like it. They knew people would whine and complain about the hard flexors being ridiculously too stiff, like they do all the time, and like they did with NNNBC 20 years ago. Nothing new here.

I tried the hard flexors years ago on NNN BC. Didn’t like them. Maybe that’s because I came from the classic XC side.

I don’t have the foot control to go flexor free. It would destroy my step turns… I’d be a hot mess. The rest would probably be OK though. Soft flexors and practicing may be the way to go for now.

Grace, technique and finesse, not cables, springs and flexors!

There is something very appealing about this… we have way too much going on between us and our skis.

[Lo-Fi]

... Traditionally, XC boots have been associated with flexible soles to enable kicking the ground with the ball of your foot. This has been the gold standard through the norms of 75mm, NNN-bc and NNN.

With Xplore and their stiff soles, this gold standard now seems to be up for question. Are we now to be relying mainly on the flexor to kick the ground?

What is going on? Have we been fooled all along?

Interested to hear your thoughts...

I think ball of foot(BOF) pressure is biomechanically critical to optimize both kick & glide and telemark turning. These techniques are definitional to our type of backcountry skiing.

The problem is that it seems difficult to manufacture a boot sole that is able to deliver easy fore/aft flex and also the vital lateral and torsional stability that all of classic nordic, backcountry and telemark boots respectively need.

For nordic kick & glide, a fore/aft flexible sole allows the BOF pressure needed to compress the double cambered ski, engage the grip wax/fishscales/skin and push forward. Pick up and flex any manufacturer's high end race classic boot compared to their skate boot. The classic boot flexes like a bunny slipper. The skate boot is completely rigid. Trying to classic ski with a skate boot would be miserable as all your body weight in the kick phase would have your up on your tip-toes. I've never danced ballet on pointe (or at all for that matter), but I'm sure it is excruciating.

Similarly, telemark turning is best achieved when the following boot can be pressured by the BOF. That's why the bellows match the biomechanic flex of your feet. Further, a toe bumper or cable resists lifting the BOF off the ski (see "physics" thread(!)), requiring you to weight that ski more so that it arcs and turns. Heck, NTN totally locks your BOF to the ski because it is that important to tele turning.

I'm a bit surprised, incredulous and disappointed that manufacturers have not been able to innovate enough to solve the fore/aft flex vs. lateral/torsional stability challenge - especially on their latest and greatest marketing vehicle, Xplore. Unfortunately, I think they continue to flub the flex on some of the NNN-BC and Xplore boots.

[lowangle al]

... Traditionally, XC boots have been associated with flexible soles to enable kicking the ground with the ball of your foot. This has been the gold standard through the norms of 75mm, NNN-bc and NNN.

With Xplore and their stiff soles, this gold standard now seems to be up for question. Are we now to be relying mainly on the flexor to kick the ground?

What is going on? Have we been fooled all along?

Interested to hear your thoughts...

I think ball of foot(BOF) pressure is biomechanically critical to optimize both kick & glide and telemark turning. These techniques are definitional to our type of backcountry skiing.

The problem is that it seems difficult to manufacture a boot sole that is able to deliver easy fore/aft flex and also the vital lateral and torsional stability that all of classic nordic, backcountry and telemark boots respectively need.

For nordic kick & glide, a fore/aft flexible sole allows the BOF pressure needed to compress the double cambered ski, engage the grip wax/fishscales/skin and push forward. Pick up and flex any manufacturer's high end race classic boot compared to their skate boot. The classic boot flexes like a bunny slipper. The skate boot is completely rigid. Trying to classic ski with a skate boot would be miserable as all your body weight in the kick phase would have your up on your tip-toes. I've never danced ballet on pointe (or at all for that matter), but I'm sure it is excruciating.

Similarly, telemark turning is best achieved when the following boot can be pressured by the BOF. That's why the bellows match the biomechanic flex of your feet. Further, a toe bumper or cable resists lifting the BOF off the ski (see "physics" thread(!)), requiring you to weight that ski more so that it arcs and turns. Heck, NTN totally locks your BOF to the ski because it is that important to tele turning.

I'm a bit surprised, incredulous and disappointed that manufacturers have not been able to innovate enough to solve the fore/aft flex vs. lateral/torsional stability challenge - especially on their latest and greatest marketing vehicle, Xplore. I think they continue to flub the flex on some of the NNN-BC and Xplore boots.

You would have to think the Alfa free would let you get enough bof on the ski to work, just maybe not comfortable for some. Maybe that's why it didn't score higher for turns on Johnny review.

[Lo-Fi]

You would have to think the Alfa free would let you get enough bof on the ski to work, just maybe not comfortable for some. Maybe that's why it didn't score higher for turns on Johnny review.

Indeed, I haven't tried the boot. I guess I've been hoping to see something that truly bridges the gap between NNN-BC and Excursion/T4s and am disappointed that Xplore isn't quite there.

[lowangle al]

I'm interested too. I had a lot of fun skiing leather boots earlier this season, with wide skis, but it's too much on my feet. I need a boot with enough ankle support to take weight off my feet and help get a ski on edge.

That 850 gr. sounds pretty good too.

[Rodbelan]

... Traditionally, XC boots have been associated with flexible soles to enable kicking the ground with the ball of your foot. This has been the gold standard through the norms of 75mm, NNN-bc and NNN.

With Xplore and their stiff soles, this gold standard now seems to be up for question. Are we now to be relying mainly on the flexor to kick the ground?

What is going on? Have we been fooled all along?

Interested to hear your thoughts...

I think ball of foot(BOF) pressure is biomechanically critical to optimize both kick & glide and telemark turning. These techniques are definitional to our type of backcountry skiing.

The problem is that it seems difficult to manufacture a boot sole that is able to deliver easy fore/aft flex and also the vital lateral and torsional stability that all of classic nordic, backcountry and telemark boots respectively need.

For nordic kick & glide, a fore/aft flexible sole allows the BOF pressure needed to compress the double cambered ski, engage the grip wax/fishscales/skin and push forward. Pick up and flex any manufacturer's high end race classic boot compared to their skate boot. The classic boot flexes like a bunny slipper. The skate boot is completely rigid. Trying to classic ski with a skate boot would be miserable as all your body weight in the kick phase would have your up on your tip-toes. I've never danced ballet on pointe (or at all for that matter), but I'm sure it is excruciating.

Similarly, telemark turning is best achieved when the following boot can be pressured by the BOF. That's why the bellows match the biomechanic flex of your feet. Further, a toe bumper or cable resists lifting the BOF off the ski (see "physics" thread(!)), requiring you to weight that ski more so that it arcs and turns. Heck, NTN totally locks your BOF to the ski because it is that important to tele turning.

I'm a bit surprised, incredulous and disappointed that manufacturers have not been able to innovate enough to solve the fore/aft flex vs. lateral/torsional stability challenge - especially on their latest and greatest marketing vehicle, Xplore. Unfortunately, I think they continue to flub the flex on some of the NNN-BC and Xplore boots.

Right on, buddy!

[GrimSurfer]

... Traditionally, XC boots have been associated with flexible soles to enable kicking the ground with the ball of your foot. This has been the gold standard through the norms of 75mm, NNN-bc and NNN.

With Xplore and their stiff soles, this gold standard now seems to be up for question. Are we now to be relying mainly on the flexor to kick the ground?

What is going on? Have we been fooled all along?

Interested to hear your thoughts...

I think ball of foot(BOF) pressure is biomechanically critical to optimize both kick & glide and telemark turning. These techniques are definitional to our type of backcountry skiing.

The problem is that it seems difficult to manufacture a boot sole that is able to deliver easy fore/aft flex and also the vital lateral and torsional stability that all of classic nordic, backcountry and telemark boots respectively need.

For nordic kick & glide, a fore/aft flexible sole allows the BOF pressure needed to compress the double cambered ski, engage the grip wax/fishscales/skin and push forward. Pick up and flex any manufacturer's high end race classic boot compared to their skate boot. The classic boot flexes like a bunny slipper. The skate boot is completely rigid. Trying to classic ski with a skate boot would be miserable as all your body weight in the kick phase would have your up on your tip-toes. I've never danced ballet on pointe (or at all for that matter), but I'm sure it is excruciating.

Similarly, telemark turning is best achieved when the following boot can be pressured by the BOF. That's why the bellows match the biomechanic flex of your feet. Further, a toe bumper or cable resists lifting the BOF off the ski (see "physics" thread(!)), requiring you to weight that ski more so that it arcs and turns. Heck, NTN totally locks your BOF to the ski because it is that important to tele turning.

I'm a bit surprised, incredulous and disappointed that manufacturers have not been able to innovate enough to solve the fore/aft flex vs. lateral/torsional stability challenge - especially on their latest and greatest marketing vehicle, Xplore. Unfortunately, I think they continue to flub the flex on some of the NNN-BC and Xplore boots.

Yes!!!

[telerat]

A stiff flexor + stiff sole might have good potential on some DH manoeuvres, like a parallel turn or snowplow turn. Telemark turn? What are your thoughts on this, Johnny, having tried them?

The hard XP flexors just totally suck. They are useless. Just as useless as the red NNNBC flexors. Ok, they do add a tiny bit of resistance, which only translates into a different feeling. But they are light-years away from adding any real performance. They would have to be at least twice as hard to do that. Well, my guess is that this is what they did in the first place. But they knew the consumer wouldn't like it. They knew people would whine and complain about the hard flexors being ridiculously too stiff, like they do all the time, and like they did with NNNBC 20 years ago. Nothing new here.

I heard from Asnes and Alfa that Rotte worked a lot on the hard's stiffness. In fact, that is the reason why the hard flexors didn't come out at the same time. They were still working on it. (Deciding I guess?) They obviously ended up picking the softer ones to keep the rich nordic newbies happy... I really hope they will come up with real HARD flexors at some point...

It seems that there are at least two versions of the hard flexor out. I know the original review on utemagasinet.no had a softer version that they preferred for all skiing, but I think that one was white. Mine looks like in Tom's recent video and is very stiff as I described here:
viewtopic.php?t=4085&p=48581#p48581

It almost doesn't compress and makes the sole flex instead, so it increases resistance to flexing the boot significantly. I have unfortunately not tested it properly on a long and steep descent yet, but expect that I will like it from the testing I have done so far. It is far too restrictive though for XC skiing any distance and I'd like a flex in-between the normal and stiff for all-round use as changing the flex is harder than needed and I would only do it when there is a prolonged descent. The normal flex is fine for covering distance on flat terrain and nordic/touring skates.

I too want a boot that bridges more of the gap between my Scarpa TX/Meidjo and NNN-BC/75mm leather boots. The Free looks nice, but I would like it more if it was a bit higher, beefier, warmer, had a proper rubber rand and didn't bear down on the toes. I'd also want an Xplore binding with quick mode change like Voile Switchback.

[Stephen]

I'd also want an Xplore binding with quick mode change like Voile Switchback.

That would be nice!