More Retro memories????

Never skied them. My brother did, and he also skied Scotts. I skied Cabers.

Nothing like a hot wax fit.

Whoa! Now those are unique...tell me more.

Both my mother in law and a good buddy of mine skied in Hanson Boots. My bud and I had the same size shoe so I tried his once. The hard rubber liner was cold I mean COLD. the flex was odd. That front seam kind of forced the sides of the boot to balloon outward when you flexed forward.

Flexons they were not.

Rosemonts were cool too. Let's see some "thigh high's* too.

The handy clip on the front could be moved up and down in the holes to adjust the flex.

THe orange and black boots on the top row are the first Salomon rear entry boots. (Before that, they were just a binding company.)

The orange ones were the expert version -- they had an exterior metal plate riveted on the inside ankle. One of my friends had them, threw them out on a house move or something along the way and regretted it.

I had the non-expert version, which were gray and black. Same but without the metal plate. They were great boots.

Unfortunately, the internal heel hold down cable snapped (later inspection showed rust) skiing down STH at Snowbird. I stuffed a spare sock inside and kept skiing.

At the end of the day, I couldn't get them fixed (the shop suggested finding the Salomon rep, as if I would have any idea how to do that). Wound up buying new boots that eveining at the base area store for full MSRP retail.:

(Much later, back home, a shop tech tried to fix them by splicing the cable, but it made too big a lump. I saved them for a long time, gave somne parts (the front part of the sole with the toe lug, held on with screws, I think) to my friend with the orange ones. Eventually decided there was no hope of resurrection and pitched them.)

Salomon made a few technical improvements later (and much later dis-improvements which helped kill the category), but I think that first year was the best looking.

Flex adjustment is a great thing. I find I like stiff boots on ice and soft ones everywhere else. (Fore/aft, of course. Laterally stiff always).

I think these were from the 1980's....They were a ski boot that didn't have a flat bottom. They had a unique binding system as well. Instead of steping "into" the binding, the bottom of the boot clicked in, leaving sole area on top of the reast of the bindings. I can't remember what they were called.

Those orange Hansons were usually paired with Olin Mark IIs and were standard gear for some horrible back seat skiers.

I tried to find a pic, but no dice.

:

I skied the San Marco AXR for a few years (lower photo, 2nd/middle row, 2nd from the left). Great skiing if it fit (or you could bear it). Extremely low volume and close fitting. Great snow feel and super responsive.

I still have my Hanson "I'm an Exhibitionist" t-shirt.

That's gotta be a favorite on retro day. Somehow either it's shrunk or I'm expanding. Well, I was 17 when I got it I think.

i skied with hanson boots in the late 70's or early 80's ? i had to spray a lite coat of wd40 into them to get my foot to slide into them. they didnt last long the wd40 rotted the insides.

This really brought back some memories. I had a pair of Hanson Exhibitions (bright blue). Worst boots I ever owned. They sold me a can of some kind of silicone lubricant with the Hansons so I could slide into that hard rubber liner. Wicked heel lift put me firmly in the backseat.

And I also owned Scott Superhot's - another short-lived member of the rear-entry fad. Except I had some fun in those. They actually skied OK for me, and their near weightlessness was a blast.

Around that time, I bought my wife the Salomon SX-92. She did OK in those.

Of course, none of the above fit the foot. And none of them flexed like a real ski boot.

A couple of lifetimes ago, I spent two winters working at the Hanson factory in Boulder. Our crew made the liners in the back of the facility. We used a turntable platform loaded with 2-piece ceramic molds that we injected the rubber like material into. In this current era of six sigma quality control, it is amazing to think about the incredible failure rate we had. Some shifts would have over a 50% scrap rate! We sprayed silicone into the molds as a release agent. Too much and the liner's outer texture would be ruined. Too little and the liner would stick to the mold and would rip apart when trying to pry it out. Then there was also this little hook on the instep that secured the liner to the shell. This hook could easily tear off when pulling the liner out of the mold. One of the managers was supposed to have insulated his house with all the scrapped liners we produced.

For a factory located in the People's Republic the chemicals we used were pretty dirty. This black goo would come in 55 gal drums and we would pump this into a machine that would introduce a catalyst and heat the mixture that would then be pressure injected into the molds. The hot goo would foam up and then harden.

Employees would get the free use of brand new boots. Of course I had to have a pair of the Spyders, which were the stiffest "race" boots with a Spyder brand decal on them. I weighed all of 145 lbs back then and those boots might as well been made out of titanium or concrete. They were also fricken cold. I ended up skiing in a pair of Langes. You supposedly could adjust the stiffness by moving the clamp on the front of the boots. Some people just took it completely off, I don't think it would really affect the flex whichever way you adjusted it. I had forgot about the silicone spray needed to allow your foot to slide into the liner!

When the boot business went under the Hansons, or at least one of them, continued to make the bead filled flow packs for use in wheel chairs seats and other such medical uses.

The Hansons were like rock stars in Boulder for a short period of time. One of then drove a convertible Saab that everyone thought was incredibly exotic at the time. Many people had never even heard of a Saab back then. They even bought Spyder from David Jacobs for about a year before Jacobs bought it back. You used to be able to get Spyder slalom sweaters with flow packs in place of the normal padding.

Yes Phil, but the problem was more than topskin deep. The Mark II had a cracked edge in the front, a one piece edge in the back, and the waist of the sidecut (we didn't think they were straight sided back then) was something like nine inches behind the midpoint of the ski. It was just made for sitting way back and heaving your shoulders around to turn.

Great story, thanks for sharing~!

Just bought a pair of very slightly used Raichle (sp?) leather boots with buckles! (woo, hoo!) They went for $1.99 at the Salvation Army. They look just like the stuff that was in fasion when I started skiing. Unfortunately they are too small for me, so I won't be using them, just putting them in my cabin as conversation pieces.

Spent a day at Loveland in some demo Hansons back in about 1977 while my boots were getting warranty work. They had a smooth neoprene lining that was absolutely air/water tight. At the end of the day, you could literaly pour out the water. Was not impressed, or maybe I was since I still remember it to this day!

Ditto - had some San Marcos of that vintage & loved them. Also, my Dad had some Cabers that pretty much blew.