New Scott S1 Ski Touring Boot Delivers Innovation
Scott S1 Carbon Pro knocks it out of the park in terms of innovation. Can you spot the radical features flip-flop?
Loving it here at WildSnow Utah HQ when ski boot companies actually innovate rather than building stuff based on thirty year old designs. Witness, the new Scott S1 candidates.
Backstory: In my opinion _the_ grail of tongue type ski boot shell design is solving the problem of providing a stiff tongue for the downhill, while getting it out of the way when you’re striding uphill. Basic method is to simply unbuckle and hope for the best. Another method is the removable tongue. Still others have tried funky plastic zippers, mechanical latches and probably other non-solutions best forgotten.
Did you figure it out? Lean lock is located on the tongue!
Well, here in the new Scott S1 we have a clearly innovative solution that defines thinking outside the box.
The new design doubtless took a world of detail work in getting to the manufacturing stage, but the concept is simple (as good solutions often are). Idea, simply move the lean lock to a hinged tongue and leave the rear cuff-scaffo interface to do what it wants. It’s all externally visible, so the pictures tell the story.
Everything loose so you can see the radicallness.
Another view. You can configure the buckles in various ways for ski touring mode, including passing the instep buckle under the lean locker.
S1 opens up huge, super easy entry and exit. Cuff mobility forward and back is excellent, especially forward compared to boots that have trouble getting stiffer tongues to allow forward leg movement.
S1 line comprises three models: Carbon Pro has a leather covered liner that’ll stand up to heavy use, Carbon is same but with your normal thermo liner. Carbon Longfiber model will be slightly less money and is perhaps not quite as stiff. They’re around 1,300 grams per boot, sample weight. That’s in there with what we like to see in mass for this type of boot.
Closed up and unbuckled. And… another feature visible. Another guess? Yeah, the sole is fully replaceable by backing out those tiny screws. Wear a sole out, pop another one in. No more sole angst caused by wearing out your toe rubber after a mile of scree scrambling.
Someone asked in the comments about stronger power straps. Other brands have used this sort of hybrid buckle-hookloop configuration, we like. These could be modded in various ways.
Bonus shot, all the Scott touring boots now have external lean lock. We are so over the problems industry-wide with hidden lean locks. Get over it. Scott did get over it. Kudos.
Detail, nice external lean lock. Lacking adjustable forward lean, otherwise quite nice.
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Comments
27 Responses to “New Scott S1 Ski Touring Boot Delivers Innovation”
When scott bought garmont in 2012 they abandoned support for many garmont products. As a result I cant get swappable soles for my garmont Delerium boots that were made I believe in 2012. Ive called scott multiple times begging for some support and they were no help. As a result they lost me as a customer for a long time. If anyone knows where I can buy some Delerium alpine soles or wants to sell me theres Ill pay top dollar!
@afox, I’m not sure if these are what you are after, but there is a company in the UK who supply all sorts of ski equipment parts, hence their name:
http://www.skiequipmentuk.co.uk/shop/products/Garmont_Quick_Change_Alpine_Norm_Sole_Sets.htm
If the knock on tongue boots is lack of progressive flex in ski mode, this doesn’t look very appealing. Of course, I like soft boots and don’t really mind the range of motion on any of the touring boots I’ve ever used (I always use the soft tongues). I’d trade carbon fiber panels in the boot lowers and external lean locks for adjustable forward lean without hesitation. I’ve had 4 pairs of boots with “hidden lean locks” (I’m assuming you mean like on the Scarpa Matrix?) with very few problems.
Unless I misunderstood, this sounds pretty bad.
If they are relying on the tongue to provide rear stiffness, it’s probably going to ski like a brick wall.
Very very interesting. Some credit due here to Dalbello and Glenn Plake, I think. Their Virus boot has a tongue that locks/unlocks too, but of course doesn’t provide the forward range this boot evidently does.
I do wonder about snow getting in and being a p.i.t.a, to that lean-lock mechanism.
Is Paul Parker still working with Scott? This has the halmarks of his ever-innovative ideas.
Merelli, known mostly for it’s lightweight carbon skis made a carbon skimo race boot with a frontal, tongue mounted cuff lock that also buckled up the cuff. I don’t think there were many pairs made. I saw one pair, but 2 years later, the owner was skiing on Scarpa Aliens.
Looks cool… hopefully it skis as well as promised!
Interesting. I wonder how much you feel it on the top of your foot when driving hard forward… And I wonder how much support you have behind when thrown backward (softer I’m sure, but perhaps still fine?)
Normally the lean lock in the spine creates a very rigid rear stiffness, but with the lean lock on the tongue, it looks like Scott is relying on the rigidity in the buckle and powerstrap to achieve stiffness in the rear cuff. In a normal boot, any play or flex in the buckle, overlap and powerstrap translates into a softer forward flex, which isn’t a big deal, since you’re supposed to be able to flex forward into the boot. However, in this boot, any play or flex in the buckles or powerstrap appears to translate into a softer rearward flex, not a softer forward flex.
Generally, I want the rearward flex significantly more rigid than the forward flex – otherwise I end up in the backseat and struggling against the flex to get back forward again, especially when trying to scrub speed.
I’m curious to see what Scott did to achieve sufficient stiffness in the rearward direction, and look forward to trying it out on snow.
Hi Lou,
Peterk is right. Merelli made a boot that was full carbon enclosing the whole foot similar to a rear enrty boot. It had two pivots fore and aft of the ankle on each side of the cuff to form a parallelogram which was locked via a metal latch at top of the foot. I think the boot was call the m4 or similar, built purely to order. So I’d call it immotation not innovation.
Lou,
Here is link to the patent
http://www.google.co.ug/patents/EP2574250A1?cl=ja
Early Scott boot had a sort of lean lock in the front
You mean the Superlights? Back in the day, I had some Salomon SX92 rear entry alpine boots that had a system for adjusting the forward flex at the front of the cuff. They were great, but I always skied them at the softest setting.
how will latch for the instep buckle go with being on the lateral side of the boot? will it catch on snow/ obstructions & release. hard to tell from the photos but is it possible reverse that buckle strap?
I hope you guys at Wildsnow will one day consider doing the equivalent of your very popular Ski Weight comparison exercise for boots by designing a standardized flex rating and comparing it against boot weight.
At boot flex comparison based on the input of many users:
http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/showthread.php/261028-AT-Boot-Comparative-Flex-by-model-(updated)
Please contribute if you have anything to add.
All well and good on the boot flex comparisons, great way to nerd out, but how useful in real life is a question. Best way to pick a boot is decide what category you want to be in, and shop by fit. The skis are easier to chart because we use firm numbers, boot flex is in the end subjective, depending on the size of your tibia for example, and how your ankle works, and even your style of skiing, one boot can feel “stiffer” than another. Further, how the boot flex articulates is just as important as a flex “rating” and each skier has an individual preference as to boot flex articulation.
Of course, our ski weight charting work only goes so far as well in terms of determining actual on-snow value. But again, since it’s based on firm numbers I feel it’s quite different than trying to chart out a bunch of boots based on a “flex rating” that’s not exact.
Lou
^^^ Agreed. The TGR chart attempts to rank only forward flex, which does not give anything like a complete picture of how powerful a particular boot will be for a particular skier. It’s useful info, but only a tiny piece of what should go into choosing the right boot.
What about rearward range of motion? Is the rear cuff fixed? If so they won’t even go to vertical which is Lou’s minimum to be a touring boot.
just a thank you to jeremy c for the link. i had the same issue with garmont/scott getting soles for my deliriums. i just ordered them from skiequiptmentuk and am thrilled not to have to buy new alpine boots now!
this IS interesting….at least something new. Time will tell…..
Ridge, plenty of rear cuff travel during carpet testing… no lean lock in the way!
@m and others. I just ordered the delerium soles from that UK site too. Same here, very excited to be able to use these as my alpine boots, it truly is an awesome boot! I swear these soles were unavailable worldwide for the past 4 years, I spent too many hours searching. Lets hope when these mergers/transfers of ownership happen there is continued support for the products.
I was on board with swappable soles until I started to see the screw mount holes fail–even on brand new boots in the shop in which I had just switched the sole plates.
I like the ingenuity going on with this Scott boot. We’ll see if the front mounted ski/ walk mech works well over time.
I wonder if those Carbon S1’s will take a 6th toe punch.
So, I ordered some of those delirium alpine soles and the UK shop send me size small instead of the size large which I ordered. If anyone needs the size small let me know, free if you pay shipping…
Mark W, the delirium’s use a machine screw for the soles that threads into a metal plate, its a little harder to swap them but its much better than my BD factors which amazingly just use a wood type coarse thread screw that threads into the boot shell plastic. I think dynafit uses something similar and my brothers dynafit AT boots have stripped from a dozen or so uses of those screws.
Any word on last width? Volume?