La Sportiva put a lot of really thoughtful design features into the Shadow and Synchro freeride backcountry ski boots. I typically ski in a size 23 boot and the Shadow sizing seems pretty accurate. Still, there was adequate room in the Shadow for my wide toes. While I lean toward a wider last, I would say this last is a bit narrower than the claimed 102.5. If you find that the tongue is putting pressure on one side of your shin but not the other, you can also adjust the sideways position of the tongue. The wrap-style liner is fully moldable, and is very much like an Intuition liner. FitĪside from the forward lean adjustment mentioned above, the La Sportiva Shadow comes with many other features designed to help improve fit. For times when you need to take your skis off and travel by foot, the Vibram sole provides great traction on slippery surfaces. Of course, range of motion is improved with looser settings on the buckles.Ī spoiler in the back of the boot improves stiffness, but can be removed for those wanting a bit more range of motion while touring. I did not test this rating myself, but I did find the range of motion to be adequate. La Sportiva boasts a 50 degrees range of motion when the boot is in touring mode. The buckles on the La Sportiva Shadow are micro-adjustable and the two upper buckles can be repositioned in the shell to account for narrower calves. While these buckles are a little finicky to get locked into place at the start of the day, hopefully this is the only time you need to mess with their positioning as they should remain in place for the rest of the day, from tour to ski mode and back. When it comes time to ski again, your buckles should already be in your desired hinge position, so rather than mess around with getting them into proper placement, all you need to do is put the buckles in locked buckle position. You can tour with the buckles open, but the buckles stay in their hinged position on the boot instead of flopping around like many other models. These buckles are designed to allow for an easy switch from tour mode to ski mode and back.
#La sportiva ez tour plus#
One of the highlights of the La Sportiva Shadow are the Pegasus Plus buckles.
_1920x1920.jpg "la sportiva ez tour")
Of course, when going into ski mode, you will want to make sure that the black part of the tongue is properly lined up to fit in the proper grooves with the blue tongue. A simple switch allows you to switch from touring to ski mode and back.
The La Sportiva Shadow is equipped with a tech-fit system that is compatible with most touring bindings. Those wishing for less forward stiffness can remove the black tongue with an allen wrench, or take out the blue tongue altogether – although I found removing this tongue to be quite tricky. This improves forward stiffness.īut, if you pull up the black part of the tongue, you can see that it also fits into a small groove in the blue tongue, which helps to improve lateral stiffness of the boot. The first is the obvious groove viewed from the front of the boot. The smaller black piece is designed to fit into grooves that match up with the larger blue tongue. The La Sportiva Shadow is designed as a two-piece tongue-style boot. I played around with this setting and found it a bit difficult to adjust. The forward lean is set at 14 degrees, but an adjustment setting in the back allows the angle to be changed from 12 degrees to 16 degrees. This boot is among some of the stiffest I have ever tried in the backcountry models and is very comparable to a stiff resort boot. The La Sportiva Shadow is rated with a 125 flex, which I would say is a true rating. Stiffness – Flex, Forward Lean, and Tongue System “Now this is a four-buckle touring boot I think I will really like,” I said. I still want stiffer.” But, the release of the La Sportiva Shadow backcountry ski boot (the women’s version of the La Sportiva Synchro) finally brought a smile to my face. After demoing previous models of La Sportiva ski boots, my feedback was always, “It’s a nice boot… for someone else. Typically, I lean toward a stiffer, slightly heavier, freeride-style backcountry ski boot. That combination alone severely limits the backcountry boots available to me. Not only do I need a boot designed and engineered around a women’s foot, but I also need one that performs well on technical descents, yet is light enough and comfortable enough for long (12+ hour) tours. I’m very picky about my backcountry ski boots.
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