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Ski boots are footwear used in skiing to provide a way to attach the skier to using . The ski/boot/binding combination is used to effectively transmit control inputs from the skier's legs to the snow.
Modern skiing developed as an all-round sport with uphill, downhill and cross-country portions. The introduction of the cable binding started a parallel evolution of binding and boot. The binding looped a strap around the back of the boot to hold it forward into a metal cup at the toe.Wolfgang Lert, "A Binding Revolution", Ski Heritage Journal, March 2002, pp. 25-26 Boots with the sole extended rearward to produce a flange for the cable to firmly latch to become common, as did designs with semi-circular indentations on the heel for the same purpose.
Effective cross-country skiing requires the boot to flex forward to allow a striding action, so the boots were designed around a sole piece that allowed forward flexing while still keeping the foot relatively firm side-to-side. The upper portions, the cuff, was relatively soft, designed primarily for comfort and warmth. Modern cross-country ski boots remain almost unchanged since the 1950s, although modern materials have replaced leather and other natural fibres.
With the introduction of ski lifts, the need for skiing to get to the top of the hill was eliminated, and a much stiffer design was preferred, providing better control over the ski when sliding downhill. A key development was the invention in 1928 of the Kandahar cable binding, which attached the heel solidly to the ski and used a strong spring to pull the boot forward into the toe iron. The design required a stiffer, reinforced boot sole, often built on a wooden shank.Seth Masia, "A Short, Colorful History of Ski Boots", Skiing History magazine, Sept/Oct 2016 New boots that had been boiled in oil or soaked in glue were introduced to stiffen the upper cuff. These were universally uncomfortable, especially during the break-in period when they were new. Once broken-in, they wore out quickly as they continued to soften up. Racers typically had only weeks to wear a particular pair before it was no longer useful.John Fry, "The Story of Modern Skiing", UPNE, 2006, pp. 81-86 Another attempt to stiffen the leg/ski connection was the "long thong", a long leather strap fixed directly to the ski that was wrapped several times around the lower leg and then buckled closed. This offered a great improvement in control, but increased the risk of injury in the event of an accident.Greg Morrill, "Long thong required a unique technique", Stowe Reporter, 17 February 2011
In 1956, the Swiss factory Henke introduced the buckle boot, using over-center levered latches patented by Hans Martin to replace laces. Laces spread the load across a number of eyelets in the leather, whereas the buckles concentrated the load at only a few points. To spread it back out again, the boots featured C-shaped flaps that stretched over the opening where the laces would be, to the side where the buckles were located. These had the added advantage of also helping block snow from entering the front of the boot.
Beginning around 1960 Bob Lange experimented with ways to replace leather with plastic. Early examples used a lace-up design, but in 1964 he combined a new, more flexible polyurethane plastic with the overlapping flap and buckle system from Henke to produce the first recognizably modern ski boot. Production examples appeared in 1966, and when Nancy Greene started winning races on them, the plastic boot became a must-have item. Replacing leather with plastic dramatically improved stiffness and control, along with durability and warmth (leather boots had a way of soaking through, which led to wet, frozen feet). Over time the cuff around the leg evolved upward, starting just over the ankle like leather boots, but rising to a point about halfway to the knee by the 1980s. Only minor changes have occurred to this basic design since then.
Almost all modern front-entry boots consist of two sections, one around the foot, and another around the lower leg. These are joined by rivets/rotating joints near the ankle that allows the leg to pivot forward, but not to the sides. This allows excellent control by transmitting even the smallest lateral movements of the leg to the ski. However, the rigid cuff also makes them very difficult to put on and take off. Additionally, because the boot clamps across the foot, pulling the sides inward, it is difficult to produce a single design that fits a range of foot shapes and sizes. This leads to shell modification services, when the boot is stretched to fit the skier's foot, typically by heating the plastic and pressing it into place. This is also known as "blowing" ("punching", "pushing"). Sometimes material will be ground off the boot to provide more room. This is normally used only with front-entry designs, other designs normally include much more room in the foot area as they do not clamp down the same way.
In the rear-entry design, the entire foot area and sole are a single unit similar to a slipper. The leg cuff is split in two, with front and rear sections that meet at the hinge point at the ankle. The rear half of the cuff can pivot far to the rear, opening wide for easy entry. Closing a cable locks the moving rear portion forward onto the front half, forming the stiff cuff that pivots around rivets at the ankle like a conventional front-entry design. As the toe area is a single piece and lacks buckles for adjustment, rear-entry boots may have considerable "slop", and various systems of cables, plates or foam-filled bladders were used to address this. The upside of this approach is that the foot area can be made larger, fitting almost any foot.
The rear entry design fell from popularity in the 1990s due to their shunning by racers in search of a closer fit. Recent improvements to front-entry and mid-entry boots, primarily in the areas of comfort and ease of entry/exit, have diminished the popularity of rear-entry designs even in recreational roles, though mid-range models remain common as rental boots.
Boot designer Sven Coomer later improved the design with a corrugated tongue, and this technique was commercialized by Comfort Products, an Aspen, Colo. company owned by the ex-ski racer Erik Giese. Giese licensed Coomer's concept to the Swiss company Raichle-Molitor; the company introduced it in 1979 as the Raichle Flexon, which became very popular among downhill racers and mogul skiers. The Flexon was extremely popular among professional skiers, especially for mogul skiing and freestyle skiing, but a series of business blunders put Raichle out of business in the late 1990s.Seth Morrison, "Morrison Hotel: Boots Made for Stalking", ESPN, 3 November 2009 Several companies produce three-piece designs today, often referred to as "cabrio" boots (after convertible-top cabriolet vehiclesCabriolet (carriage)), and they are once again becoming popular models.
The design closely resembles a conventional front-entry design, with separate foot and leg sections riveted at the ankle. However, the overlapping flaps of these designs are cut away, leaving a slot-like opening running down the front of the leg and over the foot. A separate plastic tongue is positioned over this opening on the front of the boot, and buckled down to close it. The open cuff (the "throat") makes the boots easy to get on and off, and the shaping of the tongue allows complete control over the forward flex. A single shell can be used with different tongues to provide any needed flex pattern from racing-stiff to freestyle-soft.
Telemark refers to a specific technique for making downhill turns on Nordic equipment. This has resulted in highly specialized equipment designed for better performance in a downhill setting. Until 1992 Telemark boots were basically heavy leather boots with the front of the sole adapted to the 75mm Nordic Norm. The introduction of the New Telemark Norm (NTN) binding in 2007 change the technique dramatically. "NTN On-snow Test Report", Telemark News, 26 January 2007 Since then plastic boots have become more and more common and now make up almost all Telemark boots. Plastic allows for a laterally stiffer boot while still allowing freedom of flex at the ball of the foot through the use of bellows. Boots intended for more cross country travel generally have a lower cuff, softer flex and lighter weight. Boots specialized for downhill use have higher cuffs, stiffer flex and heavier weight. Telemark boots are almost always equipped with a rubber sole.
Snowboard boots and bindings are normally far simpler than their downhill counterparts, rarely including release systems for instance, and need to provide mechanical support only in the fore and aft directions. These typically consist of an external frame, generally L-shaped, which the snowboarder steps into and then fastens down using straps over the boot. The boot itself is not as responsible for transmitting forces, and can be much softer than a typical downhill boot. When the sport was first introduced, normal winter boots were used, but today it is much more common to use semi-stiff snowboarding boots. Some specialty disciplines use harder boots with step-in bindings more similar to downhill systems, but these are not widely used outside these fields, even though some downhill sports teachers use these so they can switch between snowboarding or skiing classes without having to change boots.
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