realskiers

Someone asked a question about aducted boots (what Nordica is doing with the Agressor Race boots and Fischer has been doing for several years) on the PMTS forum in the gear section. The question was addressed to Harald Harb asking himhis views on abducted boots. I answered the question in the belief that I knew what Harald would say becuase he rarely looks at the gear forum. The comments also mirror my sentiments.

Here is what I said:

Having said this, I feel confident that I know for the most part what he will say. Alignment is something that needs to be dialed in with specificity for each individual. I am extremely knock kneed (at least on the leg where my ankle was broken twice because my ankle is set wrong) and because of this I am quite possibly someone that might benefit from an abducted stance. Moving my toes out slighly will most likely make my knee track more in alignment over my ankles and feet. Even with this change in stance I might still need to be canted outwards a degree or two. The next question is whether this might be better than what I currently have which is 3 degrees of canting on my right boot. With the 3 degrees my knees track perfectly over my boots and there is no A frame evident in my skiing. Perhaps with the abducted stance I might need less canting, but I clearly don't need abducted boots, and I would choose a boot based on fit rather than this feature because I know that we can make any traditionally stanced boot work.

The next issue is probably more important and that surrounds skiers that are not knock kneed or even worse are bowlegged. I personally can't see how increasing the ability to edge the inside would help a bowlegged skier and in fact it would appear that it would make it even harder for them to tip the little toe edge and engage that edge.

I feel confiedent that Harald would say that abducted boots can potentially be beneficial for certain alignments and certain alignment issues. I also think that he would say that anyone who is out selling these boots as superior for all skiers is doing customers a disservice.

Nordica has taken a bold step and pretty much replaced their neutral stance with the abducted stance on all their race boots. Fischer has been there for years with even more abuduction as I understand it. If this works for ones alignment, they are likley great options. Otherwise people should be careful.