Scarpa To Show Two New
NTN Boots Next Week At Outdoor Retailer
A four buckle "pro"
model and a reworked Terminator X for Fall '08 will debut at
the annual Salt Lake City trade show
January 16, 2008-- Scarpa will have a 4 buckle NTN boot in
it's line next season, and in apparent response to negative feedback
from users of this year's Terminator X, has reworked that boot
as well. Both will debut next week at the Outdoor Retailer trade
show in Salt Lake City, Utah.
In addition to sporting a fourth
buckle, the reportedly bigger and stiffer
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Terminator X Pro, along with the
3 buckle Terminator X, will gain a more substantial torsion frame
that will wrap underfoot.
Most notably, Scarpa will move to
a "triple injection" type construction in the Terminator
X, making it possible for their designers to change the stiffness
in specific places. Scarpa says this new approach will allow
the bellows of the new boots to flex "ideally for telemarking,
while the boot is as rigid as possible elsewhere."
Both will come stock with liners
by Intuition and the Terminator X Pro |
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The Terminator
X Pro (click to enlarge) |
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will retail for $685 and the
Terminator X carry an MSRP of $649. The new models will be available
for Fall, 2008. Scarpa will continue to market it's Terminator
X series NTN boots as being compatible with the Dynafit AT binding,
and so as did this year's model, the Pro will come with the Dynafit
fittings.
For fans, and would be fans, of
Rottefella's NTN system, the word that Scarpa is moving to a
triple injection and softening the bellows flex of its NTN boots
is very welcome news. Inexplicably, Scarpa stiffened the Terminator
X production boots significantly from the demo series boots we
enjoyed so very much last season (as reported in our "100 Days on
the NTN" review). This gave the production boots a far
too stiff bellows flex, overriding the binding springs and drastically
affecting downhill performance in a most negative way. Unfortunately,
the Crispi Evo NTN boots turned out to be even worse in this
regard.
We'll have more later in the week
in a coming review of the production NTN bindings and boots,
but for now we'll leave it at this: With neither of the NTN boots
currently available this year coming even close to being optimized
for the unique characteristics of Rottefella's advanced binding
system, we are very much looking forward to seeing and skiing
the new Terminator X Pro, the reworked Terminator X, as well
as the still in development NTN boots from Garmont, also due
this fall. |