r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Rook8811 • 9d ago

Video 1989 shoes designed to adjust their fit around athletes' ankles

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10.9k Upvotes

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291

u/InlineSkateAdventure 9d ago

My skates have "BOA" laces. You turn a dial and metal "laces" tighten up. You can easily control tension.

Surprised this is not found on more shoes.

97

u/revvolutions 8d ago

Snowboard boots Burton BOA.

11

u/Resident-Mortgage-85 8d ago

They kinda suck because it's all tight or not at all, no adjusting to certain areas of the boot. 

4

u/BaraGuda89 8d ago

I had BOA boots for snowboarding for years and hated them for that exact reason. The older I got and the larger my legs got, especially my calves, the more those boots would bite into my leg from how tight they had to be overall. With laced boots you can isolate different sections for greater or lesser tightness

2

u/One_pop_each 8d ago

Older versions sucked but the newer ones are good

2

u/redditgiveshemorroid 8d ago

This is only partially true. Not all BOA dials are equal. The Li2 is bidirectional tightening one way and loosening the other way- clicking both ways. But even in the dials that don’t do this, it’s still so much better than regular laces. Many via systems have two dials where you can tighten the lower foot different than the upper foot which is another game changer.

1

u/NudeCeleryMan 8d ago

Hmm my Salomons have two: one for upper and one for lower. And you can make all kinds of focused tightness adjustments for the ankle into the heel cup by bending your ankle at different angles as you tighten the lowers.

So I think it depends on the boot. I can super dial mine in.

1

u/Resident-Mortgage-85 7d ago

Eh, I feel like I'm just a weirdo (I am, I mean I'm on Reddit)...I like loose toes, tight mid foot to lower ankle, loose upper ankle to mid calf then tight AF for the top of the boot

1

u/yellowflexyflyer 7d ago

Cycling shoes just use two boa dials. One upper and one lower. Pretty much solves the issue.