Really? I don’t feel anything now on the lower clog - hardly buckled, and since they are Lange’s, just tape across the front toe dam. Not discrediting the work you and other engineer put in here, but for me - this is a nothing burger. Maybe others crank the bottom 2 and this might help a bad fit or some sort of touring application that I don’t care about.
I come from the "shell buckles should be loose" camp too. Buckles wrap until a certain point and then they collapse the shell downward - this is why we should have fits that don't require lots of buckle pressure to securely hold the foot. This system does not behave the same way and it does produce a better fit than buckles.
I guess a lot of the pushback is on tech being forced on the market which has not been asked for.
This is where I would disagree, but because I see it from a different angle. Buckles, cables, BOAs, straps, etc. are all
solutions - none of them are
needs. And the distinction between solutions & needs is incredibly important. No one needs a boot with buckles or a boot with BOA -
the need is to have a great fitting boot. For example, no one needs a watch - they need to be able to tell time. The watch is merely a solution for the need of telling time. If a better solution than a watch came around, then it would be created or used (i.e. a smartphone for some people fulfills the need of being able to tell time). Or the famous line from Henry Ford "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." One of the things his quote illustrates is the fact that a car is not a need, it's a solution. The need is to get from one destination to another in a quick and efficient manner.
Identifying needs and then creating specific solutions for those needs is how brands (in any industry) will create great products. When brands focus merely on solutions, then they won't create great products (which is what you and everyone else are rightly concerned by). I honestly don't care about BOA, I have zero interest in pushing BOA into the market. Instead, I care about making a better fitting boot and I would argue this is exactly what the market is asking for. Fit is one of the absolute, main needs associated with ski boots and this new BOA system takes fit to the next level. And of course there are many other needs associated with ski boots: skiing performance, durability, reparability, ease of use, staying dry, etc. Proper solutions must take into consideration these needs as well and real innovation will come from creating solutions for each of those needs.
