The martini olive colored chassis with pimento buckle highlights set the stage for a very sophisticated, yet simple, boot experience for testers with the Dalbello DRS 110. Much like a dry martini, the DRS 110 was not a thing of adornments and frills but rather one of substance, and those with an already-acquired taste for a straight-up performance boot found an immediate test favorite there.
Testers said the fit and skiing experience of the DRS 110 is elemental, possibly as in basic, or perhaps as in force-of-nature, because the DRS 110 is both straightforward and very powerful--and yet somehow it avoided feeling harsh in either fit or on-snow behavior. They say the fit is on target for a 98mm last--snug everywhere but without causing numbness or hot spots and with a touch of extra room-to-breathe in the toebox. They like the tall-enough cuff feel on the leg (it's not a lower-cuffed model, though one is available for short legs in the step-down 90-flex version) and they say it's just-soft-enough that they can move through the flex range in a supple, dynamic way that didn't lock up their joint chain or pitch them into the backseat.
This is a go-everywhere boot that's supposed to stay on the groomed (on account of its solid sole), but just like our test team, it doesn't do what it's told. This is an all-mountain scalpel, testers said, and they praised how damp and compliant it felt hammering through variable terrain and thicker snow surfaces. True, its forte was driving a carving ski on smooth surfaces where it helped leave deeply scribed arcs in the spring corduroy, but testers said that it would appeal to technical skiers who aren't afraid to go venturing off-piste.
While they called it a classic four-buckle boot that's not for beginners, testers did think that it offered more bandwidth than expected for motivated intermediates looking to step up to a new level with their skiing. Just a touch softer than 110-flex and easy to get on, it was a convenient and well-mannered cross-mountain weapon they said. A lot of skiers are going to like this one, was a tester comment that we think summed things up quite well.
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