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Caber Bio Race Boot?

cantunamunch

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FWIW I don't remember that the boot board put your foot in any particular kind of flexed position. It was more like a bongo board that only operated in the medial-lateral plane.

That's kinda why I'm interested in the liner. One super obvious place to put such a teeter would be as (graduated-height?) reinforcement rib(s) on the underside of the liner - that way the actual footbed stays locked into the liner without sliding or creating blisters.

EDIT: OF course I realise that this was all before boots with properly adjustable cuff angles. Maybe the ankle wobble was calculated as slight compensation for that lack? :huh:

One thing the combination of ankle wobble and non-adjustable cuffs creates is rub and chafe higher up, near the top buckle. As most marathon inline skate wearers found out all over again in the '00s. :ogcool:

Dunno. I was like 20. I ended up deciding that I didn't like the boots, but there could have been lots of reasons for that. I was not well educated about boot fit. Probably very few people were.

LOL, you were way ahead of me then. I was still in double lace-up vinyl Alpinas (and shovel-mounted-throw-lever cable heels).
 
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James

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That's kinda why I'm interested in the liner. One super obvious place to put such a teeter would be as (graduated-height?) reinforcement rib(s) on the underside of the liner - that way the actual footbed stays locked into the liner without sliding or creating blisters.
I’m guessing you’ve put more thought into that boot then Caber did. Except the ad agency.
OK... so they might have been popular, and I'm not aware... how popular were they? Would it be like talking about Uggs or Crocs today?
More popular than Pet Rocks likely.
Worth reading-
“People are so damn bored, tired of all their problems,” he told People magazine in 1975. “This takes them on a fantasy trip — you might say we’ve packaged a sense of humor.”
 
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wnyskier

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So did it feel unstable?
Yes. My brother raced in a pair of these and he pulled out the OEM bootboard and replaced it with a conventional design from another pair of boots.

The liner was conventional for the time, nothing out of the ordinary, all the innovation was on the underside of the bootboard.
 

x10003q

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While racing in college in the early 1980s, there were 2 guys using these Cabers. They were both regular top 10 finishers and would regularly rip off the toe buckle off each boot. Eventually, the boot guy at Hunter riveted a shorter lever in a higher spot and shortened the bail. They were hard to close after that. Eventually the boot manufacturers used shorter levers on the buckles. By the mid 1980s Lange built the boots with a plastic deflector in front of the front buckle.
 

Swiss Toni

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Eisenberg patented his boot board, see: US4144659A and US4253252A
EisenbergBB.jpg

According to Skiing Heritage (March 2005) Questor, Caber’s owners at the time spent half a million dollars on adverts for the Bio boot in Ski, Skiing and Powder magazines and agreed to pay Eisenberg $280,000 for the endorsement that appeared in the ads. When the idea bombed Questor refused to pay him so Eisenberg sued and won the full amount.
 

skiJ

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Eisenberg patented his boot board, see: US4144659A and US4253252A
View attachment 169557
According to Skiing Heritage (March 2005) Questor, Caber’s owners at the time spent half a million dollars on adverts for the Bio boot in Ski, Skiing and Powder magazines and agreed to pay Eisenberg $280,000 for the endorsement that appeared in the ads. When the idea bombed Questor refused to pay him so Eisenberg sued and won the full amount.

yeah (yes) - this is the way I remember it, and tried to describe it above -
There was significant ramp angle ( like a well-heeled cowboy boot or a forester's boot ) but the cavus position was over-sold -
fit properly, it was not unstable, But the idea of lateral ankle flexion has never been part of my understanding of the mechanics of modern ( even in 1979) skiing mechanics - though it was another decade before I discovered the benefit of Custom footbeds.

The bio had a typical sewn liner of the era ;
the other thing significant about Caber's of the era is they were a modified external tongue design ( you can see it in the bio advertisement shown above )
so while the bio tried to succeed the Alpha - which Caber brought back as the Azzuro a couple years later - it wasn't a comparable boot.
Eisenberg's idea was popular for footwear of the time ( EarthShoe, clogs, and the best of the designs ( - I think - ) Birkenstocks ), it did not find a successful market in ski boots.


Thanks for the memories... ! skiJ
 

Uncle-A

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The shop I was working in 1979 was a Caber dealer, for some reason my boss did not order the Bio Racing Boot. Probably because we carried the Nordica and Lange top models and there was only so much room and limited request for full on racing boots. After all in order to stay in business you have to stock what you can sell. As far as our customers wanted the ski racers were purchasing the Lange as their first choice and the Nordica as the second choice.
 
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wnyskier

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Eisenberg patented his boot board, see: US4144659A and US4253252A
View attachment 169557
According to Skiing Heritage (March 2005) Questor, Caber’s owners at the time spent half a million dollars on adverts for the Bio boot in Ski, Skiing and Powder magazines and agreed to pay Eisenberg $280,000 for the endorsement that appeared in the ads. When the idea bombed Questor refused to pay him so Eisenberg sued and won the full amount.
Thanks so much for posting this - while the execution didn't work, the idea of allowing the foot to articulate laterally to better engage the edge and enhance balance was ahead of it's time. We see that today with the medial ankle/navicular punches in the shell, especially in narrow race boots.
 

Tony S

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Thanks so much for posting this - while the execution didn't work, the idea of allowing the foot to articulate laterally to better engage the edge and enhance balance was ahead of it's time. We see that today with the medial ankle/navicular punches in the shell, especially in narrow race boots.
And all this time I thought that was so I could stand up without doubling over in pain!
 

James

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The high heel position with built in wobble is what killed it. Not sure I’d call it “ahead of its time”, but they tried something at fairly enormous cost with little testing.
 

dbostedo

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The high heel position with built in wobble is what killed it. Not sure I’d call it “ahead of its time”, but they tried something at fairly enormous cost with little testing.
But... but... but... the Cavus posture! It was proven! Dr. Eisenberg said so!
 

James

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But... but... but... the Cavus posture! It was proven! Dr. Eisenberg said so!
Proven for what? That’s what’s left out.
So they spent $750k, just on marketing and royalties in the 1980’s. Wait, how long after that did they go out of business?
 

skipress

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Was listening to an @tomgellie podcast during which he was talking about using a "new and innovative" footbed that has a ridge on the underside allowing the foot to articulate laterally to provide greater pressure to the edges. Anyway.... I recall that my brother had a pair of race boots in the early 80s with a similar feature. I believe they were made by Caber and were called "Bio" or something similar. Two tone blue with a navy lower and medium blue upper.

I can't find any info on the boots. Anyone have any insights?

Ramp angle is just the fore/aft angle of the boot board or zeppa. Think boat ramp.

The whole cavus thing just sounds like a bunch of nonsense frankly.
As far as I see cavus means a foot with a high arch and isn’t desirable.

With that boot it’s necessary to take Dihydrogen Monoxide at least once a day and more over 7,000ft altitude.
I recall some research from Joel Eisenberg to the effect that if you looked at a normal population sample you would have around 20% with a 'cavus' foot but that when he looked at a set off elite athletes who happened to be skiers the figure was in the 90+%s. That hypothesis was that the cavus foot gave a stable platform to stand against [which of course conflicts with the wobbly footbed]

With a more modern spin when I first tested the Zay boot I was very sceptical of the Zappa before I skied it. Essentially a high density foam block ala Lange but with a strip routed out and replaced with a strip of much spongier, softer foam. Now I had immediate echoes of the bio system but... when I first skied 'em I didn't have my orthotics [I'm usually of the 'make em out of concrete school]. I was left skiing with the stock insole and actually felt really balanced, didn't notice the designed in movement [and lack of orthotics] at all.

Some years ago I met a boot fitter who'd done some work on Bode Miller's boots and he assured me that the default was to have the zeppa cut in half toe to heel with a small gap left again to produce some movement [declaration, I didn't see the boots].

It also seems to have some echoes of the Sorel/McPod boot where [as I recall] the intention was to allow some 'movement' in the system.

It's completely counter intuitive and the Caber version was... urghhh but...
 
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skipress

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zappa = zeppa, *&^%$ auto correct :)
 

otto

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Some years ago I met a boot fitter who'd done some work on Bode Miller's boots and he assured me that the default was to have the zeppa cut in half toe to heel with a small gap left again to produce some movement [declaration, I didn't see the boots].
I do not believe that Bode was using that modification. I think you mean Eric Schlopy, he was using this type of bootboard. And it worked very well for him. What get's missed when presenting these kind of details is that conceptually there is a percentage of humans with foot and lower leg anomaly's that potentially could benefit from something like the Caber Bio, however building a product that only uses that concept will miss on the largest part of the humankind. The idea of claiming that 20% of human feet are Cavus might be a real number, however the number of Cavus feet within that 20% that could balance and ski well on the the moveable feast of a bootboard at best might be 10% of that 20%. Which means why would anyone in their right mind build product for commercial success out of those numbers? And more importantly you can all go out and try to emulate this concept in your own boots only to find out it sucks just as bad for 99.9% of the skiing population as the Caber Bio did ...
 

otto

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Also there is absolutely no chance that any research was accomplished using actual high end ski athletes to determine how many of them have Cavus feet. There is no way you could get multiple federations to allow access to their athletes feet. Having worked on the supply side for ski boots to top level FIS athletes, I can say with little to no fear of contradiction that the 90% number in top level athletes is the opposite of Cavus, and is going to be a foot that has a flexible arch that allows for inside action and shock absorption. There have been proven studies about the Cavus foot and sprinters in track and field. That a stiffer lever arm will deliver more power quicker to the earth for faster turnover and less power loss in push off to the next stride. But what that has to do with ski racing and a ski boot is a mystery that we cannot solve.
 

skipress

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I do not believe that Bode was using that modification. I think you mean Eric Schlopy, he was using this type of bootboard. And it worked very well for him. What get's missed when presenting these kind of details is that conceptually there is a percentage of humans with foot and lower leg anomaly's that potentially could benefit from something like the Caber Bio, however building a product that only uses that concept will miss on the largest part of the humankind. The idea of claiming that 20% of human feet are Cavus might be a real number, however the number of Cavus feet within that 20% that could balance and ski well on the the moveable feast of a bootboard at best might be 10% of that 20%. Which means why would anyone in their right mind build product for commercial success out of those numbers? And more importantly you can all go out and try to emulate this concept in your own boots only to find out it sucks just as bad for 99.9% of the skiing population as the Caber Bio did ...
The 'fitter' told me Bode, but as flagged I didn't see the boot, it could be a bit of 'he said, she said' and so on. You re of course right the bio system was urrrghh. It was of course a time when there was a lot more divergence in equipment design - some worked, others. not so much :)
Also there is absolutely no chance that any research was accomplished using actual high end ski athletes to determine how many of them have Cavus feet. There is no way you could get multiple federations to allow access to their athletes feet. Having worked on the supply side for ski boots to top level FIS athletes, I can say with little to no fear of contradiction that the 90% number in top level athletes is the opposite of Cavus, and is going to be a foot that has a flexible arch that allows for inside action and shock absorption. There have been proven studies about the Cavus foot and sprinters in track and field. That a stiffer lever arm will deliver more power quicker to the earth for faster turnover and less power loss in push off to the next stride. But what that has to do with ski racing and a ski boot is a mystery that we cannot solve.
Assume that Eisenberg's statement was right; * I think that the rationale was that the cavus foot would be stable when loaded - that it would provide a platform to stand against when the ski is tiled against the surface.

*it might not have been, and I agree without backing from FIS the chances of across as range of fed's is very low. You might have a chance using one fed's athletes as your sample.
 

James

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The ridiculous thing is assuming you can force people’s feet into something they’re not. The fact that Caber went all in on this, without doing any research on actual feet, is mystifying.
 

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