Dalbello Krypton boot

Well I finally got to ski the new Krypton boot yesterday at Heavenly with Glenn and some other dealers. The boot is contender! It skied very well, fit was pretty good out of the box. I think the liner still needs a little work. I will probably just throw an Intuition liner in it. Dalbello is working on there own Thermoflex type liner for it. It will be very easy to modify. It comes with an array of parts including different tongues (damp, or reboundy as described by Plake, not soft and stiff) zeppas, shims, stiffners, etc. The boots stiffness is controlled by the cuff not the tongue. The boot is powerful laterally. You will also be in a boot size one smaller than you currently ski as a result of Dalbello making the last 10mm. longer for each size. I am an 11 1/2 shoe and comfortably fit in a 27.5 without my toes pushing. The last seems kinda medium width and there was not bite on my instep when flexed like to old Flexons tended to do. When I returned from the shop my new stock of Krytons had just arrived! There should be alot of happy Raichle guys out there though the boot is quite different it is still a three piece shell design.

Anxious to hear other's feedback on this exciting new addition to Dalbello's line. I think they have made a strong step into the high end boot catagory.

For my $50 deposit I was provided a pair of Krypton Pros for testing today at Winter Park/Mary Jane. I skied on Raichle Flexons for over twenty years and have been really looking forward to skiing this boot. Unfortunately I'm going to wait to see what "fine tuning" Dalbello does to this boot for next season's lineup (K2 supposedly will also have a newer Flexon out also).

Why am I waiting?

Well the SuperComp liner was excellent, a really high performance fit, but it was a cold liner in the morning. The liners pop in and out of the shells really easily - absolutely no hang ups. Even though this isn't a heat moldable liner, it formed to my fit fairly well pretty quickly.

I skied a pair of 26.0s and I was disappointed that Dalbello eliminated the ramp angle adjustment. My older Raichle's all had ramp angle adjustments and so does just about every other Dalbello boot. I even saw a picture of a prototype Krypton that still had the ramp angle adjustment. Why did they kill it off? For my ankle/heel area the ramp angle adjustment is the key for fine tuning the critical ankle pocket fit (I currently have a pair of Dalbello CRX Diablos that have this adjustment).

I was also very disappointed in the contraption they came up with for the middle buckle. I think the Raichle cables (although somewhat of a pain) met the goal of the free flexing tongue more effectively. The middle buckle was tough to engage and adjust with gloves on. The new middle cable/buckle path tends to fight against where the tongue really should be positioned. They really need to re-think this part of the boot.

I was also surprised by how much the lower shell deformed with the softer tongue installed. One of the things I loved about my Raichles was the separation between the upper and lower boot. When flexed forward the fit in the lower boot barely changed (unlike most conventional 2 piece shells). The Krypton is better than 2 piece shells in this regard, but wasn't as good as a Raichle. With the stiffer tongue the deformation isn't as apparent (just like with really stiff 2 piece shells).

Another gripe - why in the world did Dalbello eliminate the replaceable toe piece that they use on every other boot in their lineup? I know the Flexons never had one, but I think that was a mistake. The first thing I did when I bought my CRX Diablos was get an extra set of toe and heel pieces.

So how did they ski? Wonderful. I gotta admit, they perform very well on the mountain. I was amazed at how well they fit my foot using my old custom footbeds. If your feet match the Raichle/Krpton fit you will love the feel of this boot. I had no hot spots or pain anywhere. The forward lean with the single slim shim was just perfect for me. I had to use heel lifters to get the ankle pocket right, so then the ramp angle is fine. These boots really work well with shape skis - they don't force you too far forward like many other boots. The are very smooth flexing with no abrupt stops.

The rear spoiler has 2 adjustment settings that allowed me to lower it since I am not very tall (5' 7"). I had no calf bite problems even though the cuff is tall. The rear flex is nice and stiff (unlike my CRX Diablos with the silly ski/walk contraption). I also liked having the dual cuff alignment adjustments (like the old Raichles). They really were are great fit overall.

So I'm going to wait for the Dalbello Thermoflex liners and to let them work out any kinks in the design. At $650 (what my shop wanted for the Pros) I decided I'd rather wait until they were perfect (or at least closer to perfect!).

So I'm interested in other people's thought on these new boots. For me I still think they are my best option ultimately and no matter what changes are made (or not) I'll probably be in a pair for next season.

You can read my review HERE . Like Noodler, I have been in Flexons 20 odd years. I have been offered all kinds of boots in that time and always went back to the Flexons. Is this a perfect boot? no, there is no perfect boot. Is this a perfect "Flexon"? Damn close. Close enough for me to be happy. Dalbello could make 10 changes to the boot and no ten people would be satsified. I know I do not miss those bails one bit. Features..smeatures..FIT is what I am about and this boot fits be as a Flexon did and at the same time, brings the Flexon into the 21st century. I will sum it up this way...The Flexon was a girl with a playful curiocity about sex, as the Krypton, she has grown into a woman with an insationable appitite for it.

I´m a media-man, I can appreciate this!

I picked up my Krypton Pro's on Friday, but haven't skied them yet. The 27.5 Kryptons are marked with a sole length of 316 mm, versus 310 mm for my 27.0/27.5 Flexons. I tried using a spring loaded shoe tree to crudely measure the difference in internal lengths and got 4 mm longer for the Kryptons.

I normally wear size 10.5 street shoes. With my feet in the Krypton liners (out of the shell) my toes are pressing against the stretchy neoprene material around the edge of the toe box. With the liners in the shell it feels like there is plenty of toe room, but I doubt that I could drop down a shell size. The stock liner is thinly padded in the forefoot, which is good if you need the volume but bad for warmth. I'm going to try using the Garmont G-Fit liners from my AT boots in the Kryptons to get a snugger heel fit and to reduce weight.

The stiff tongues are much harder to flex by hand than the soft tongues, but the additional stiffness isn't as noticable on the boot except for the strong rebound. Installing the flex insert in the cuff stiffens the boot considerably. There are two positions for the flex inserts and the high position reduces the range of motion to that of a conventional high end boot.

The ramp angle adjustment disappeared from the Raichle Flexons about 4 years ago when they replaced the screw mechanism with an elastomer "shock absorber". The newer Kneissl branded Flexons replaced the hard plastic footboard with an elastomer one, like the extras supplied with the Krypton Pro's in addition to rigid foam footboards. I prefer this arrangement over a built-in ramp adjustment since it weighs less and is more versatile. It's easy to add a heel lift to increase angle, and the foam footboard can be planed down to increase volume.

I agree that a replaceable toe tread would have been a nice improvement.

I weighed the various parts of the 27.5 Kryptons and my (spare) unused 2002-2003 27.5 Kneissl Flexons on my postal scale:

Krypton shell (one boot w/o liner & footboard): 4 lb, 1.9 oz
Kneissl shell (one boot w/o liner & footboard): 3 lb 6.2 oz
Krypton rigid footboard: 2.2 oz
Krypton elastomer footboard: 4.4 oz
Kneissl elastomer footboard: 4.2 oz
Krypton liner (one boot w/o insole): 1 lb 1.5 oz
Kneissl Thermoflex liner (one boot w/o insole): 8.2 oz

Great stats.

So welcome me to the Krypton club. Picked up a pair of 306mm shells off eBay at a price where I could justify jumping in. Only a month left in the season, but knowing that the Krypton won't be changing for next season I decided to take the plunge.

Welcome to the club. I will PM you the secret handshake.

The Krypton is taking a beating over at the TGR forum:

http://tetongravity.com/forums/showthread.php?t=28461

Those are aome of the guys that should be on this boot!

Great line there: They are ugly though, and I sorta feel like my feet are in Darth Vader's ski boots, but I also feel like I rule the universe in them. So I guess it's an even trade off

I had tried the 'stock' liner, I was swimming in it, it is a no go..for me. When I got mine back in December, I was the first "non Dalbello" employee to get them. I got mine without liners since I was using my Thermoflex liners anyway, when i got mine, the stock liners weren't even in the country yet. Again, my initial review is linked up in post #3.

here is a steal of a pair on ebay...better hurry, less than 2 hours left!!!!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...sPageName=WDVW

oohh, great deal- too bad they're not my size.

 Looks there has not been much activity here as of late, but I have some question about the latest krypton id boot.  I bought mine at the end of this past season.  I'm not using it for racing so I thought I'd attempt to take out the firm foot bed and replace it with the softer option they give  you as an alternative.  probleim is, the foot bed seems impossible to remove.  any suggestions about how to do this myself?  there doesn't seem to be any good mechanism to pop the thing out.

Turn it upside down and give the shell a goo wack on the floor. 

Don't forget to clean up the "goo".  This method does work.

 I assume you're talking about the boot board(Zepa), not the foot bed.  
Phil is sort of correct, but he is a terrible spiller...........errrr. speller

Give it a GooD whack on the floor.  Don't do this on your new hard wood floors or you may have to answer to your wife, unless she is like me 

And if that doesn't work, then see what you can doo  with Phil's goo.
But, clean up the mess.

Hey!  How come I never got to learn the secret handshake?  

 Thanks for the tips!  I'll give it a shot this eve.

 Just a re-cap here, the whack method most definitely works.  I gave it a good hit on the deck (outside), and it was able to loosen just enough to get a screwdriver in there to seal the deal.  No goo needed!  Thanks!