When it comes to gear, are you a looks are everything person, or a performance at all cost? It's no mystery that developing quality ski gear that looks as well as it performs is a difficult challenge. Thinking back on the old Raichle Flexon 3-piece boot concept pioneered in the early 80's… these things were not the most attractive boots on the market, but they worked.
Flexon boots were the brainchild of former NASA engineer Eric Giese, who took his experience in working with space suits and applied it to ski boots.
Remenisent of a flexi-straw, the Flexon boots were serious game changers and provided skiers with something they had not experienced before – an articulating hinged design that provided great flex in the ankle, without compromising lateral (side-to-side) support, an extremely versatile setup.
Pro ripper Seth Morrison states 'If I didn't have these… I'd have to take a big step down being out of these boots.'
What happened to Raichle and the Flexon? To make it quick, in '96, Raichle was on the verge of bankruptcy and was snagged by a Swiss banker who also happened to own Kneissl. Yes, Kneissl, remember them? They're an old ski company. Needless to say 'the man' decided that the design was a bit outdated and the Flexon boot needed to be updated. Changes were made and the boot was renamed under the Kneissl brand, a horrible move which lead to the demise of the boot around '99. It's a complete mystery between then and now as to where the original molds for the boots went.
The good thing is that a group of boot fitters and K2 set out to change the game once again, creating Full Tilt Boots . These guys surfaced with K2, tracked down all the old molds, and set out to build the original Flexon. They kept what worked and added in some new features to bring them up to modern standards.
'It was like this and remained like this for 25 years because the damn thing worked' says Flexon originator Eric Giese.
Sound familiar? If you have spent any amount of time in a 'modern' boot, you will notice that finally the trend has moved toward providing skiers with a boot that has great flexibility in a fore-aft motion (toe to heel), and gives them the lateral stability needed to control the ski across varying terrain.
'A couple of our team riders who are sponsored by Full Tilt are having really good results with some fine tuning of the boots.' says 'Shep' from Mountain Soul.
So is this 3-piece design making a comeback or is it truly old hat? Take a look at what some of the latest boots on the market are looking like. Dalbello adopted the 3-piece design in their Il Moro and Krypton models, how about the 3-piece setup on Nordica's Ace of Spades – still skeptical?
