The ALFA Appreciation Society

[Johnny]

The ALFA fever rate has been pretty high over the last seasons here at TelemarkTalk. Since our reviews of the Guard and Polar boots two years ago, they suddenly became VERY popular. The Guard Advance is now a lot of people's favorite boot. And it's a good thing for XCD skiers.

We had a little info from Scandinavian Outdoor Award earlier, but we finally have more details!
So as promised, dear members of the Alfa Appreciation Society, here are the new upcoming boots for 21/22:

FREE A/P/S GTX (Xplore)
SKAGET Perform GTX (Xplore)
VISTA Advance GTX (Xplore)
HORIZON A/P/S GTX (Prolink)

The FREE A/P/S is the new top of the line backcountry boot. With plenty of ankle support and an integrated Recco reflector for maximum safety in avalanche territory. It's also equipped with the BOA fit system and the AISS ankle support system.

The SKAGET is a totally new boot too, with a design focused on maximum comfort and maximum warmth. The new VISTA Advance is the XPlore version of the now famous Guard Advance. And also new this year, the new A/P/S version of the HORIZON is described as "The warmest ski boots on the market for cross-country skiing!" Super, ultra, hyper exciting.

And that is not all. They will also introduce later this month two new thermomoldable biomechanical insoles! Molded to your feet in only 30 seconds! I think I will need a few dozen pairs of those...

So again, what do you think?

[John_XCD]

I would love to try the FREE boots on wider skis and see if I can find the improved performance. I still worry a bit that so much of XCD is give and take with more flexibility for K&G efficiency necessarily reducing stiffness somewhat for turns. Perhaps there is room for optimization here though? The free pivot and heel riser are great adds but folks on this forum do remove the flexor and add a riser to NNNBC. The boot sole seems much better for a mixed day with hiking/scrambling to the snow.

I'm also a little shocked at the price point. ~700USD for the boots + 300USD for the bindings get you into the price point of light AT set ups. One of the great things about getting into XCD is that high quality equipment has been more affordable (so either spend less or buy a few pair of skis for the same price as one AT set up). I have a hard time seeing a new backcountry skier choose XCD over AT at the same $ (despite all of the secret advantages we know about).

Unfortunately, I'm doubtful that this set up will available for demo anywhere in the Western US (despite the fact that I live at the home of Voile, Black Diamond, DPS, etc). I'm not sure that I will spend 1000 to jump into this system without testing it myself (at the same cost of 2 new pair of asnes mounted nnnbc). Looking forward to reviews though.

[RabbitEars]

Thank you for sharing this here. It’s exciting to see that XCD is still getting some new innovations. I hope to get to try it out. I agree with John_XCD though it’s going to hard for a lot of people to take the leap due to price and availability. I just experienced first hand the difficulties of buying some Gard Advanced boots from Alfa online. Between shipping international and a extra service charge from my credit card it takes some extra cash just to get the equipment here and In my case getting a size that doesn’t work. Unfortunate that I can’t use them and have the added situation of spending more to ship back for an exchange or sale at a loss. Might be a while before we get to try it out.