At first glance it’s clear that something is different about the all new Salomon S/Pro Alpha C BOA 130. The shape of the cuff through the inside ankle bone area is clean and shapely, uninterrupted by hardware or bi-injected seams. It’s a strangely smooth look, like an unclothed manikin, but its appearance evokes power—so, perhaps the Silver Surfer is more apt.
Some boot models attract attention with new add-on features and gizmos, but the all-new Alpha C BOA intrigues with what’s not there—namely a traditional cuff attachment and pivot point on the boot’s medial side.
The cuff contours around the inside ankle bone area in a curvaceous swell, sans screws or rivets, and then continues down onto the lower shell where it morphs into it along a clean line of connection and then finally anchors low down, close to the boot sole, with two screws and a small metal plate named Powerlink.
This is a radical departure from overlap shell construction, but then again Salomon has never been scared to push design limits. It’s also the defining element responsible for the boot’s unique feel on snow and for the narrow Salomon’s newfound ease of entry and exit. Testers were blown-away, straightaway, by the unhindered glide into its closely-contoured cockpit—this was especially noteworthy as the brand’s former Alpha 130 boot was one of the toughest on and off in its class.
Tester love continued to grow with the fit and closure of the cuff-only BOA set-up. This is a tight one, they said—narrow with an old-school level of squeeze but with a modern, sculpted shape that addresses every wide flare and bony prominence of the human foot. The pronounced inside ankle bone contour had testers wondering if it was in the right place, and it turned out that yes, it was. Just to be sure that (in those cases where the ankle pocket wasn’t perfect) the complex internal area would handle a typical ankle punch, we did one on a test boot and the Custom Shell HD polyurethane stretched like a dream.
We’ve managed to bury the lead here by waiting to mention how well the S/Pro Alpha C BOA skis, and how it does so with a unique feel for the ski edge. The new Alpha C BOA’s no-ankle-hinge ExoDrive construction cuff with its low-down Powerlink connection creates a continuous drivetrain for the leg shaft to tip a ski onto the inside edge, unbroken by a higher pivot point.
Testers raved about the immediate connection of body to ski edge and the sensitivity of control they felt underfoot at any speed. They felt they could increase edge angles with more confidence, feeling their hip get closer to the snow during smooth surface arcs than they did in other boots within the category.
The unbroken run from calf to the Powerlink anchor at the boot sole creates a long lever arm for ski-tipping power but it also offers a long and ultra-smooth forward flex feel. This was a shin fit dream come true for many of our testers as the liner’s tongue shape and cushion married well with the long flex travel. Some found that the extended flex feel didn’t control the ski shovel over variable terrain as well as it controlled edging movements on smoother surfaces but this was a minor demerit, testers assured, calling this new concept an outright win and worthy of early adoption.
