SX in the wild

[DanoT]

Easter holidays always brings them out. Note the jeans.

And the strait skis with bindings that are likely obsolete.

 

[cantunamunch]

And the strait skis with bindings that are likely obsolete.

The skis are Head Xenon from around 2010.

The bindings are Head/Tyrolia SL100s, which were still indemnified as of the last list I've seen:

2021-2022 Indemnified Bindings – SKI BUM

www.skibum.net

 

[James]

^ Those graphics may be appropriate for how it skis.

 

[AtleB]

And the strait skis with bindings that are likely obsolete.

He did not look like he was there for the skiing likely a couple of beer in before he ever booted up.

 

[James]

A trio of classics.
SX91, ESS Var, Volant Machete(?)

The guy has had the boots 30 yrs. He originally bought a low end model, but the shop screwed them up so badly they said they’d replace them. Well they were out of that one so he got the SX91 instead.

 

[otto]

You're just waiting for me, aren't you.

That Salomon HQ-SX90 Equipe has a vertical metal bar riveted on the other side of the boot for more stiffness.

Edit - maybe I'm wrong, and it was on this side. Maybe somebody removed it, or it was optional the second year. See the two holes below the buckle?

Every cuff on a retail SX90 or SX90Equipe had a thin piece of spring steel that was molded into the black cuff edges where you are describing those molded holes.

On Race Stock versions of the SX90Equipe, there was a 5 inch piece of channel steel painted black that was riveted through the cuff edge and the internal spring steel piece as well. It stiffened the boots laterally and protected the inside edge of the cuff from getting chewed up by the ski edge. The steel channel bars were symmetrical and installed in the factory on both sides of the cuff as the race stock boots were built.

The picture of that boot at Salomon HQ is of a standard retail SX90Equipe, so no steel channel bars… The beauty of historical Salomon product is that there is no one left at the company today that has knowledge of the product that helped grow this company into the powerhouse that it was. There is one man left that was there for the intro of the Black and Orange SX92 Equipe, which coincided with the introduction of the Salomon Monocoque skis…

 

[skipress]

I am now totally getting creeped out by the thought of a secret SX population that survives in the complete darkness - like bathypelagic fish, only without the glowing drag lures.

It is an indication that the coelacanths that are out there are predominantly [by a large measure] salomon, how much better they were than the alternative rear entry offerings

View attachment 166500
Easter holidays always brings them out. Note the jeans.

Note where the baskets are on the poles........

So this might be worrying or a sign of getting old. I was delivering the first sessions of a coaching course at the weekend and as is often the case the topic of gear came up. One candidate [not an idjut] asked me.

"So do you have a view on these new rear entry boots"

I started to answer with references to 'old rear entry boots', but it quickly became evident that be 'new' he meant new as in never seen before....

I guess because at least some of us 'were there' we have the historical perspective but we're rapidly approaching a place where skis were never straight and rear entry boots are dangerous new innovation

 

[skipress]

Every cuff on a retail SX90 or SX90Equipe had a thin piece of spring steel that was molded into the black cuff edges where you are describing those molded holes.

On Race Stock versions of the SX90Equipe, there was a 5 inch piece of channel steel painted black that was riveted through the cuff edge and the internal spring steel piece as well. It stiffened the boots laterally and protected the inside edge of the cuff from getting chewed up by the ski edge. The steel channel bars were symmetrical and installed in the factory on both sides of the cuff as the race stock boots were built.

The picture of that boot at Salomon HQ is of a standard retail SX90Equipe, so no steel channel bars… The beauty of historical Salomon product is that there is no one left at the company today that has knowledge of the product that helped grow this company into the powerhouse that it was. There is one man left that was there for the intro of the Black and Orange SX92 Equipe, which coincided with the introduction of the Salomon Monocoque skis…

I'm not sure that's 100% right, see my post here:

https://www.skitalk.com/threads/sx-in-the-wild.18237/post-491122

I was sponsored by Salomon at that stage and the first iteration of the SX90 and E had an aftermarket wrap around plate that you had to drill and screw on with small self tapping screws. I seem to remember drilling into an internal metal plate. However the later ones had the spring steel plate riveted on

 

[otto]

I'm not sure that's 100% right, see my post here:

https://www.skitalk.com/threads/sx-in-the-wild.18237/post-491122

I was sponsored by Salomon at that stage and the first iteration of the SX90 and E had an aftermarket wrap around plate that you had to drill and screw on with small self tapping screws. I seem to remember drilling into an internal metal plate. However the later ones had the spring steel plate riveted on

The external cuff protector in the photos that you show in your post is not the channel steel piece that I described in my post. At retail there was internal spring steel reinforcement, and there was that thin external reinforcement which essentially kept the cuff from getting destroyed by the ski edges. Different model years for the style of spring steel reinforcement.

The channel steel external add-on piece was specific to race stock boots that only came out of the race room and was supplied to the top level international athletes. It slid over that same area as in your photos and has steel on the outside and steel on the he inside. It was installed on the medial and lateral edges of the cuff. It was attached with 2-piece compression rivets in the race room in Annecy France. It was never available outside of the race department as an add on kit.

The beauty of the trick stuff on the SX90Equipe is that the company was good at hiding and blending the trick stuff into the boots, most of the world never knew about the trick stuff. One of the most important tools that I travelled with on the road while doing boots for Salomon was matching Testor brand model paint colors to hide all of the custom trick stuff on the SX90Equipe. If rivets were used they were painted to blend in, if we used fiberglass or carbon fibre, it was painted to blend in. There were a couple of trick "blockages" that were also nicely hidden into the boots as well. One of our best up and coming national team athletes had such a complicated boot build with the SX90Equipe, to get his cuff and spoiler canted properly, I had to travel with a portable plastic welder and specially developed welding rod that would take me 8 hours to build just one boot.

The first time I "met" Jeff Rich formally an equipment Editor at Ski Magazine, was somewhere at the start of a World Cup race and he had a credential that allowed him into the start area. He was attempting to photograph one of our athletes in a boot that had some prototypical advances on it. I ended up in a chest bumping, pushing and shouting match with him on the subject of not wanting to see any photo of that boot in the National or International Press. Salomon was in the old days, an incredible marketing machine...

 

[Philpug]

I remember seeing one of the very early SX90E's, might have been 1979. We has a carriage house that we rented to the Rossignol rep. He got a pair, 330's IIRC. I remember trying them on and was suprised hwo not stiff they were. The boot hit the market a year later and the productionone felt much stiffer. @otto might be able to clarify if some of the early prototypes made it to rep levels.

Salomon was in the old days, an incredible marketing machine...

I also like that they were not afraind to take chances, the HIP for boot sizing in measuring the instep is still key today and the ski sizing of Power Rating also makes sence. in that we ski different skis in different lengths deepening on application.

 

[skipress]

The external cuff protector in the photos that you show in your post is not the channel steel piece that I described in my post. At retail there was internal spring steel reinforcement, and there was that thin external reinforcement which essentially kept the cuff from getting destroyed by the ski edges. Different model years for the style of spring steel reinforcement.

The beauty of the trick stuff on the SX90Equipe is that the company was good at hiding and blending the trick stuff into the boots, most of the world never knew about the trick stuff. One of the most important tools that I travelled with on the road while doing boots for Salomon was matching Testor brand model paint colors to hide all of the custom trick stuff on the SX90Equipe. If rivets were used they were painted to blend in, if we used fiberglass or carbon fibre, it was painted to blend in. There were a couple of trick "blockages" that were also nicely hidden into the boots as well. One of our best up and coming national team athletes had such a complicated boot build with the SX90Equipe, to get his cuff and spoiler canted properly, I had to travel with a portable plastic welder and specially developed welding rod that would take me 8 hours to build just one boot.

Ah understand on the 'race plate'. It harks back to the SX92 race where you got the retail race, replaced the spoiler with a super stiff section and a very complex wrapping power strap and the pressure distribution plate with what was a sort of flexon comp tongue.

On paint the even the original cuff protector - which was a bit of an afterthought had a strange textured, deep paint coating that blended with the shell.

I remember seeing one of the very early SX90E's, might have been 1979. We has a carriage house that we rented to the Rossignol rep. He got a pair, 330's IIRC. I remember trying them on and was suprised hwo not stiff they were. The boot hit the market a year later and the production one felt much stiffer. @otto might be able to clarify if some of the early prototypes made it to rep levels.

I also like that they were not afraind to take chances, the HIP for boot sizing in measuring the instep is still key today and the ski sizing of Power Rating also makes sence. in that we ski different skis in different lengths deepening on application.

I remember there being what was described here as the 'poseur's equipe' which was essentially an SX90E clog with a standard SX90 'cuff' - they were very non retail but skied quite well. My first SX90E needed a bit of knocking about.

The HIP and PR systems also had the serendipitous effect of covering the same range with way fewer sizes

• Pretty much every adult male was covered by 320/5, 330/5, 340/5 and 350
• Same with the PR system 5-8 covered pretty much the lot

 

[James]

Did they have red and gray prototypes, or early release? I thought I saw red and gray ones in Tignes, France in March, 1979. They were very exotic and modern looking at the time whatever color scheme they were.

 

[Bill Talbot]

The external cuff protector in the photos that you show in your post is not the channel steel piece that I described in my post. At retail there was internal spring steel reinforcement, and there was that thin external reinforcement which essentially kept the cuff from getting destroyed by the ski edges. Different model years for the style of spring steel reinforcement.

The channel steel external add-on piece was specific to race stock boots that only came out of the race room and was supplied to the top level international athletes. It slid over that same area as in your photos and has steel on the outside and steel on the he inside. It was installed on the medial and lateral edges of the cuff. It was attached with 2-piece compression rivets in the race room in Annecy France. It was never available outside of the race department as an add on kit.

The beauty of the trick stuff on the SX90Equipe is that the company was good at hiding and blending the trick stuff into the boots, most of the world never knew about the trick stuff. One of the most important tools that I travelled with on the road while doing boots for Salomon was matching Testor brand model paint colors to hide all of the custom trick stuff on the SX90Equipe. If rivets were used they were painted to blend in, if we used fiberglass or carbon fibre, it was painted to blend in. There were a couple of trick "blockages" that were also nicely hidden into the boots as well. One of our best up and coming national team athletes had such a complicated boot build with the SX90Equipe, to get his cuff and spoiler canted properly, I had to travel with a portable plastic welder and specially developed welding rod that would take me 8 hours to build just one boot.

The first time I "met" Jeff Rich formally an equipment Editor at Ski Magazine, was somewhere at the start of a World Cup race and he had a credential that allowed him into the start area. He was attempting to photograph one of our athletes in a boot that had some prototypical advances on it. I ended up in a chest bumping, pushing and shouting match with him on the subject of not wanting to see any photo of that boot in the National or International Press. Salomon was in the old days, an incredible marketing machine...

 

[skipress]

Did they have red and gray prototypes, or early release? I thought I saw red and gray ones in Tignes, France in March, 1979. They were very exotic and modern looking at the time whatever color scheme they were.

I remember the earliest looking like this - they appeared in Sal 727 ads [I suspect as a teaser and avoiding using anyone else's boots] in 1978 and I remember seeing them in France [often on the feet of ski patrollers]

You see that this one has a different forefoot adjustment mechanism to the 'launch' ones

 

[Uncle-A]

I remember the earliest looking like this - they appeared in Sal 727 ads [I suspect as a teaser and avoiding using anyone else's boots] in 1978 and I remember seeing them in France [often on the feet of ski patrollers]

You see that this one has a different forefoot adjustment mechanism to the 'launch' ones

View attachment 167547

Wouldn't you think that Salomon would release in France first especially to people like ski patrol? They might have colors only for the home market, some ski companies do that so why not do it with boots.

 

[skipress]

Wouldn't you think that Salomon would release in France first especially to people like ski patrol? They might have colors only for the home market, some ski companies do that so why not do it with boots.

These were pre release - it was a thing that they did to test gear and possible to tease. Certainly when I was living there you saw way more patrollers on under the radar gear than coaches and instructors.

I am pretty much 100% sure that the sx90 & 90e launched at retail worldwide in grey [90] & orange [90e]. The white were pre launch.

If you think back to the ski, those of us who were testing 'em had white ones early on and then ones like these

which matched the 'equipe' offerings at the time. It was only very late on that the release/launch version of the S9000 with the orange topskin was shown.

At the time I was offered a scoop as to the colour where a company had been commissioned to make staff clothing for the ski launch and they let slip the orange colour. It seemed so outlandish at the time that I didn't run with it.

 

[mdf]

Not quite in the wild. I found this cleaning out the attic.

 

[silverback]

Skiing Pre 1200s with Look 99s.

 

[James]

Not quite in the wild. I found this cleaning out the attic.

Then they drove off in this:

 

[cantunamunch]

Then they drove off in this:

Wait, @mdf used to drive a drop top Rabbit?

#suuuureitsthewifescar