Finding Your Ski Boot Flex

Today’s ski boot retail marketplace provides a myriad of choices in flex resistance and flex pattern for the recreational skier.

The factors to be considered when choosing an appropriate flex are more complex than might be first thought. In Jasper, professional fitters consider a number of factors when assessing the flexion needs.

1) Flex ratings are not standardized in the ski boot industry

Many ski boot manufacturers use gradated scales of “stiffness” that relate to specific model lines, such as Salomon X-Wave 7, 8, and 9; or they use scales related to the entire product line. For example, Lange utilizes a flex scale starting as low as “50” that extends to “140.”

These numbers do not measure any specific resistance or pattern; they are not plastic durometer ratings. Instead, these ratings reflect a relativity of stiffness and resistance within the product line.

Thus, Salomon’s flex ratings are completely unrelated to a similar boot made by Lange. Your bootfitter should be able to explain these important distinctions.

2) Your skiing ability is not necessarily a factor

Many advanced recreational skiers believe that skiing aggressively requires stiff ski boots designed for the needs of certain professional racers and freeskiers. This is simply not true.

3) Shaped skis have changed the flex patterns of ski boots

Just a few years ago, skis were longer and straighter. To help skiers achieve force application to the tip of skis, boots were stiffer in the “forward flex.”

The advent of shaped skis has forever changed the direction and angle of force application required to “load” skis with energy. The emphasis in ski boot flex has moved into the lateral and medial regions of the boot, which is now needed to force the sidecut through the ski turn.

A typical World Cup race boot is significantly softer in forward flex than would have been acceptable ten years ago; but now have an aggressive lateral power unseen in similar boots from the recent past.

Your professional Jasper Skiing bootfitter should consider these and other factors before recommending a boot model.