Comments on: La Sportiva Spitfire Backcountry Skiing Boot — First Look

By: Colin Lantz

Colin Lantz — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 18:49:42 +0000

Holly – Good advice from Lou about brake plate interference with the sole. We’ve seen a few cases over in Italy with this interference issue with the lug pattern on the sole of this boot. If after checking this is the case, I might offer an third alternative to the two Lou suggested, which is to do a small mod on the yellow part of the heel of the outsole. By simply removing the middle lug where the yellow part interfaces with the black part of the sole it seems to alleviate this brake interference problem. We can email you a picture showing which lug to remove. It is a pretty quick and easy mod with a sharp razor blade and does not affect the walking performance of the boot.

By: Lou Dawson

Lou Dawson — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 18:27:50 +0000

Holly, if one boot releases correctly, and another one doesn’t, it’s safe to assume it’s probably the boot. Tech fittings can be defective, as can the shape of a boot’s sole.

But one other IMPORTANT thing. Radical series bindings have an AFD under the boot heel, Vertical series bindings do not. The best evaluation of boot fittings and safety release, to narrow things down to cause, is to test without the brakes on the bindings. Some boots have sole shape that might catch on the brake actuator plate and heavily influence release forces, especially at lower RV settings.

If you discover it’s the brakes causing the problem, you’ll have to either ski without brakes, or change to the Radical binding.

Kudos to the shop who actually had the guts and skill to do this type of release check.

By: Holly

Holly — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 17:52:57 +0000

Lou, I demoed some of the Spitfires a couple of weeks ago, in Dynafit bindings, and was very excited about them. I chose to buy the La Sportiva Women’s Starlets mondo size 25. However, when I got my new bindings mounted to my skis at a shop, he failed the boot; having me sign a statement saying that he does not recommend that particular boot with the binding–the reason being safety concerns, given that the boot took quite a bit of force to release, even at the lowest DIN settings. The problem is unclear, although apparently due to the boot, not the binding, as a Dynafit boot trial released smoothly. Could it have to do with increased sole depth? Could it have to do with an inferior mounting? La Sportiva offered to check the boots for defects, which I am considering, but doubtful. They report not having a single issue with the tech-fittings in any of their boots. Have you ever encountered this? I have not skied on the boots yet, in case I decide to return them, which I am hesitant to do.

The backstory: I bought some relatively narrow skis for Northeast snow (width 78mm), and wanted to get the Dynafit Radical ST bindings, which have a minimum DIN of 4. However, in the US, they are only sold with brakes 100mm and wider (and the brakes cannot easily be replaced). Therefore, I ended up buying the Dynafit Vertical ST bindings, with 92mm brakes, with a minimum DIN of 5. I am a 5’4″ female, ~145lbs, skier type II in the backcountry.

By: David

David — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 04:35:08 +0000

A second on any details from your OR chat with La Sportiva re: spectre