On Snow With Salomon's New S/Pro Alpha BOA 130 Boot

Fine-tuning ski boot flex is a bit of dark art, a sort of behind-the-scenes witchcraft most of us equate as binary sensation. There's the obvious point of fit–it either works for you or it doesn't–and then there's everyone's favorite talking point: stiffness. Boots tend to be described as "soft" or "stiff," with little regard for the nuance of what might be in between. If it feels right, we don't think twice, but if a boot feels off, the emotions (and ego) start flowing freely.

For the last few years, Salomon has been quietly tooling around with their line of high-performance narrow last resort boots (S/Pro Alpha), looking to optimize boot flex for a balance between power transmission, rebound, and agility to create what they bill as their ultimate freeride boot. It's decidedly different-feeling than a traditionally stiff and damp race boot, and much more precise than a softer park boot–instead offering an extremely powerful and energetic ride in a narrow last, upper BOA dial, and truly innovative shell design.

2027 Salomon S/Pro Alpha C BOA Specs

• Sizes available: 22.5-27.5 (W), 22.5-30.5 (M)
• Stated Flex: 130, 120, 110, 100 | 115 W, 105 W, 95 W, 85 W
• Binding Compatibility: Alpine ISO 5355, Grip Walk
• Closure: 2 forefoot buckles, upper BOA dial
• Forward Lean: 14.5 degrees (M) | 13.5 degrees (W)
• Ramp Angle: 4 degrees
• Stated Last Width: 98mm
• MeasuredLiner Weight: 530g (27.5)
• MeasuredShell Weight: 1510g (27.5)

Fit

Salomon's low-volume boots have long been tester favorites for their precise, snug heel and ankle fit, paired with a wider toe box for comfort up front. The new S/Pro Alpha C BOA continues that legacy, taking advantage of a totally new shell construction to better wrap your instep. By "better," I mean wrapping in a way that doesn't deform the boot as much as you flex into it, keeping your heel in place more securely than before. The instep fit of this boot is low volume, but doesn't have as sharp of an angle where the cuff meets the lower. Instead, a third piece of plastic is overlaid here that presses down more evenly across this sensitive area of your foot. As someone who has typically found the instep height too low on many Salomon boots, this feels really good.

Last width is an aggressive 98mm, and the boot does feel quite narrow around the middle of the foot. Toe width is ample, and I haven't found the need to punch anything out on these quite yet. Like most Salomon boots, the longest part of the toe is on the centerline of the boot.

Internally, the boot's stance is also very typical of existing Salomon boots. It's fairly neutral, with a 14.5-degree forward lean, and a neutral 4-degree internal ramp angle. Personally, I prefer a bit more aggressive of a forward lean angle, but that's just personal taste.

Features

From a distance, Salomon's new S/Pro Alpha C BOA looks like any other traditional four- buckle/overlap-style ski boot, but the devil is in the details. First off, there is a single BOA dial, but it's on the cuff, not the lower. Secondly, there's no pivot on the inside ankle–instead, Salomon uses a bolted link plate (called PowerLink) that rigidly connects the cuff to the lower. That's part of the magic of how this boot's flex feels different than any other boot out there.

Quite a few keen-eyed (or perhaps keen-footed) skiers have noticed that lower BOA dials have led to the sensation of the boot scafo "shearing" laterally when a skier pushes super hard into the boot and leans it over to aggressive edge angles. Salomon did away with the lower BOA dial in part to eliminate that shearing effect. Buckles simply add more structural rigidity, and this boot's unique instep buckle further eliminates that effect.

While I do believe that the upper BOA dial makes the boot more annoying to take on and off, it's undeniable that it allows the cuff to wrap your shin and lower leg much better. In fact, I spent a day at BOA's HQ last fall in this boot with a sensor on my shin to measure pressure distribution. Compared to a standard buckle boot, the BOA does a much better job evening out the shin pressure.

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From a bootfitting perspective, the boot features Salomon's heat moldable plastic shell and liner technology, as well as canting and forward lean adjustments. Canting is adjusted by spinning the eccentric cuff pivot and swapping the PowerLink for an offset one that's included in the box. Forward Lean is adjusted via cuff spoilers on the liner.

One interesting point on the boot is that the stock soles use the older ISO 5355 Alpine standard, instead of Grip Walk. The boot is still compatible with all Grip Walk bindings, as Grip Walk is backwards-compatible with the ISO 5355 standard.

Downhill Performance

Claiming that a boot flexes "differently" from anything else on the market is well...a big claim. But Salomon has definitely created something special with the new S/Pro Alpha C BOA 130. If you've ever spent time in the Lange Shadow boot, you'll know what I mean–in fact, that boot offers the most similar performance characteristics.

As mentioned before, we tend to think of boots on a binary scale as either "soft" or "stiff." In essence, that "stiffness" we feel is our body perceiving how much resistance there is to our leg levering the cuff of the boot in a fore/aft motion. Do you have quads of steel, are you particularly heavy, or do you just ski really fast all the time? You're transmitting more force through your leg into your boot that way. In the most basic terms, your might therefore want a stiffer boot to better manage that leverage. However, a really stiff boot tends to be uncomfortable when you're not pushing super hard, and will also deaden/dampen your feeling of what's going on under you feet (eg. make it harder to actually precisely control your skis).

Salomon calls this boot a 130 flex, and on my first few laps on them, I thought they were way too soft to be a 130. Had I gotten that much stronger? No. However, I spent a few more laps ripping around before realizing that it wasn't affecting my skiing the way skiing a 110 flex or softer boot would. The new S/Pro Alpha wasn't collapsing under my legs the way a boot like that would, and I noticed that I was feeling far better precision, power transfer, and response out of my skis than a super-stiff and heavy boot like the Atomic Remedy 130 provided. Where that boot was more like a monster truck that could just blast through and power skis via brute force, the S/Pro Alpha offered a much more lively ride, like a smaller sports car with a finely-tuned engine.

The lower leverage point allowed me flex into the boot much more easily in the first part of the boot's "travel," eating up small bumps in the snow and allowing me to engage my edges a bit more precisely. Once I flexed deeper into the boot's travel (eg. while pushing into higher-angle carves, skiing moguls, or landing bigger airs), the stiffness ramps up considerably. The flex is incredibly progressive (you'll feel this immediately in a very pronounced way if you get into this boot), and offers a more bouncy, lively feel than the vibration-damping character of a stiff race-style boot.

I was a bit surprised that the boot doesn't include a Grip Walk sole. I hadn't actually walked around in a non-Grip Walk boot in a few years and scooching around on anything but grippy pavement was actually kind of scary! Turns out you don't realize how grippy Grip Walk soles are until you don't have them.

What type of skier is the Salomon S/Pro Alpha C BOA boot best for?

For anyone looking to replace their classic, everyday high-performance resort boot, Salomon's new S/Pro Alpha C BOA brings a new kind of ski boot feel to the table. Do you typically ski fast and drive big skis, but are tired of dealing with heavy, uncomfortable race-style boots to achieve the performance you want? The S/Pro Alpha can match that on-snow performance with lighter plastic and a more progressive flex. It's not a race boot, or a piste boot, it's a freeride boot that can do it all.