Salomon’s new Falcon range heralds a revolution in ski boot design and the sexy new liners ooze class with their black leather and red cushioning.
The Falcon's are remarkably light- they are so light in comparison to an older expert model boot such as Salomon’s recently departed Course that at first they are almost disconcerting as you are used to feeling something solid at the end of your foot and not a boot that feels so integral to your own foot. The shell is a couple of millimetres narrower than the very popular X-Wave range but the liner is now so precise that they feel much snugger. In fact I think the liner is the star but more of that in a second as the shell highlights some new technology in ski boot manufacture. Instead of being constructed from one mass of equally thick plastic the new shell furthers the Salomon’s Spaceframe concept of only having enough material in place to achieve the job efficiently-all excess is trimmed away, so a boot for the Thatcherites, the Brown camp would never let you get away with such a design without a stealth tax! The end result is an incredibly simple appearance shrouding cutting edge technology. Refined carbon-fibre in the cuff amazes with its energy especially towards the end of the turn whilst the asymmetric design lowers weight and drives all your impulses through to the edge for astonishing mid-turn power.
New firmer foams in the “S&M” liner are more comfortable and precise than any I’ve yet tried this side of a World Cup boot. Fit is exceptional and the quality is great with taped seams and a rubberized toe-box for drier, warmer paws.
Downsides- Aesthetically the Falcon Race is incoherent yet the Scarlet and Falcon 10s look superb. For bona fide experts the lightness makes the boot lack feel at the beginning of the turn although this won’t affect advanced skiers. The Falcon liner is near faultless and marks a vast improvement- they are worth buying for the slinky “leatherette” alone!
No comments:
Post a Comment