On Thanksgiving day, I was extremely thankful to be spending time with my family at Stratton. In addition to the promise of some yummy turkey, we were going to spend a few days snowboarding and skiing. Prior to the trip, I’d made sure to pack up all my latest and greatest snowboard equipment to make sure that I’d get to spend the maximum amount of time on snow with the new stuff as soon as possible so I could pass along the good word.

At the assistance of a good friend, I packed a pair of BOA boots. These boots have a slightly stiffer flex, and their
most important feature is double BOA for upper and lower zonal tightening. I’ve a big fan of BOA in my bike shoes, but I’ve always been skeptical about any zonal lacing system other than traditional laces as if it breaks you are SOL without a paddle. I’ve tried a few of the different systems including double BOA and SpeedZone, but I’ve always returned to the basic rabbit-through-the-hole bow system.
When we got to the parking lot ready to rip, it was lightly snowing, and it was pretty empty. This is the making of a good day. As I went to pull out the boots from the trunk of the wagon, I noticed something a bit unsettling. Both of the boots looked identical. Upon further examination, it appears that I was sent two Rights instead of the traditional Right and Left. I’m a guy that tries to be on the cutting edge of snowboarding, but was this a new trend that I missed?

Of course, many of you will scream “you didn’t try them on at home, walk them in to break them in or even carpet board with them?” Nope. I didn’t. I did check them out for new features, how the liner looked, what was
going on with the air bladder and tread, but didn’t think to try them on. Chalk it up to good ‘ol spaceyness or the fact that this the fourth pair of the same boots that I’ll be testing in as many years.

As a result, I had to rent both days we rode at Stratton. There were two things that I was instantly reminded
of when it comes to boots:

1. Boots are essential to a good day of snowboarding. I’ll say that again to stress the importance. Boots are essential for a good day of snowboarding. When anyone asks about buying snowboard gear, that is what I tell them. If your budget is $500, I recommend spending $200 (40%) of that on boots. I was reminded of this fact as I rode on some pretty basic rental boots and some pretty high end gear (Hero, EST bindings / Sub Pop, Cartels) and definitely encountered some sketchy, boot-induced situations. If I had my druthers in these sort of situations, I would prefer to be on some nice boots (that fit my feet) and a crappy rental board/bindings set up.

2. Boots have come a long way since I rented them or wore entry-level models. I tried two different
models: the Burton rental LTRs (basically Burton Freestyles) and the Rome Bodegas (last season I believe).


The Burton rentals had separate upper and lower sections of the outer shell to assist in flex, large lace locks on the uppers of the boots similar to my old Sabbaths, a smooth (read: severely broken-in) flex. What most impressed me about these boots was that they had a significantly reduced footprint. Man! That’s awesome that Burton put the resources into reducing the footprint on some of their basic boots to prevent toe drag.



The Rome Bodegas looked cool and felt comfortable in the shop. I first tried some Libertines (thanks to Mountain Riders for the help), but the Libertines felt like someone clamped a vise around my left toes and began to tighten rapidly so I quickly returned them. The Bodegas had lots of standard features. You would be surprised how many companies forget the basics on their entry-level boots. These things looked like they could handle the needs of a 100-day rider. Once I got on the hill, I ran into some big problems. Unfortunately, I could not keep the laces tight (inner or outer to save my life). The toggle for the inner lacing was broken on both boots and would not lock. I was resorted to knotting it closed and also creating some crazy outer lace configurations to prevent heel lift, my feet sliding and basically not feel like I was riding in size 12 boots.


In both cases, heel lift was a SERIOUS issue. Of course your average beginner
may not be experiencing the type of stress forces that I was placing on the boots. As expected, both flexed evenly and were soft (read: fun to goof around on), but the lack of cushioning in both boots definitely was felt in my knees the next day.

Today’s lesson: Take the time to find the right pair of boots for you. Sure you can Internet shop them, but I’d advocate going to a shop to get an idea of the fit and flex for different boots and brands. Within a brand, boots will often have different fits as well. When you get your boots, don’t forget to make sure there’s a right and a left in the box when you go to the hill. It’s important. For more details, check out the Dogfunk.com boot guide or the tips over at Sierrasnowboard.com.


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