The Gist
K2 continues to muscle its way into the best All-Mountain boots conversation. For the third year in a row, the Spyne 130 LV finished in the top group despite some serious competition. It’s got strong fit, sturdy on-snow performance and a robust set of customizing tools.
Fit
Testers told us it was tight. This is an LV that means it. Guys with prominent ankles, navicular and styloid bones will get a bit lit up by the out of box fit. The toebox also fits quite snug and short initially. All this snugness (not a bad thing in a narrow model) is partly due to the thick Intuition lower liner (the upper part of the liner is a more traditional construction).
It relaxes a bit simply by skiing, but for a fit more true to the Spyne 130 LV's intent, molding the liner is a must. When we molded with the whole shebang process (toecaps, pads on bony prominences), the fit demonstrably improved.
Performance
K2 has mastered the stance game. Their boots are perfectly dialed front-to-back and side-to-side. Testers agreed they were always moving out from a solid home base. The flex is firm and lateral juice is present in high concentration. It’s powerful but you can feather it on and off. Drift, skivot, roll 'em up high and rail it; the boot obeys skier commands and constantly exceeds expectations.
Cool Features
We like the oval-within-an-oval lateral cuff adjuster (dual sided) with a trick no-strip inner screw. It’s got good range.
We also like K2's new shell molding protocol, though it takes a while to get the hot shell and liner fully cooled down to where it takes a permanent set. Still, it’s worth the time and effort.
We found that the cooked shell can expand prodigiously and does not lose much of its stretch even after spending a couple days on a sunny, hot window sill. We did a full-bore expansion and turned this narrow LV into a good fitting medium for one of our testers.
But before you start whomping on the shell, start with the liner. Move on to the shell only if the fit still remains too tight.
Kudos
Caveats