I spent some time getting the RS140 ready to ski. Like many manufacturers, Head adds some extra material on the zeppa to simulate a bit of arch support, but if you are using a custom footbed, it just puts the instep into the roof of the boot. If this is the case, why do it? Well, there are people that prefer to ski without a footbed so I guess for them it is helpful, but in my case, it was not so much that it was painful but it stopped blood flow to my toes and made them numb. So, I just sanded down the footbed, adding a few millimeters of room; as we have said before, "In bootfitting, a millimeter is a mile," and I need whatever millimeters in that area I can get.
The other modification I did was to add a grippier sole* to the boots to make it safer for walking. Head offers a very good Vibram sole that I used on my Langes last year, but for these I chose to use the Tecnica replaceable soles. I had two reasons for doing this: first, completely for aesthetics. They are white/gray and don't look like I made a modification. Second, it is the same hole pattern as their GripWalk soles, so once I swap to GW, it will use the same holes. Speaking of GripWalk, yes I was one of the people questioning why we need this sole design, but one thing I try to be is open-minded. We just put out thousands of dollars to make our test skis GripWalk-compatible, so I thought I also needed to spend some time in what could be the next trend. Once I get the boot dialed and fit, along with the new bindings all mounted up, I will be swapping the soles over.
One thing I did not have to do was replace the stock power strap with an aftermarket Booster strap, something that again, I have had to do to my previous boots. Head's "Dynamic Double Booster" does a great job of containing my chicken leg and still providing positive rebound.
First day on snow:
Like most times in a boot of this caliber, it is unrealistic to expect a perfect fit out of the box, and the RS140 is no exception. I thought I would get it on snow to see what actually needs to be done. This will be a three-step process. The first step is to take the boots out with my Boot Doc liners and to see how that goes. Well, good, not great. Let's start with the pluses. First, I love the reaction of the boot. The RS140 shell is as close to my foot as any boot has ever been; with just my foot in the shell without the liner, I have no side-to-side movement in the shell. Add in my Boot Doc foam liner, it is extra snug, starting-gate snug, to a level that I do
not require. The other aspect that I found surprising was that I didn't have to move the upper bails, something that is usually the first thing I have to do with almost every boot. Not only did I not have to move the bails, I am only about two-thirds in on the bail.
Now on to the minuses... I still need room on the roof over my forefoot. I am confident that I will be able to address this with a tonguectomy. Lastly, it was it was cold out, and with the installed heaters that was not an issue -- until I went to take the boots off. It was just not happening. This has not been an issue for me since I had my old Nordica Patron Pro a few seasons back. It was the first time since then I had to turn on the car heater, sit in the passenger seat, and put the boots under the heater for five or so minutes; then the boots peeled off.
On to Stage 2:
Next, I will take out the boots with the stock liners. In installing the stock liners, the initial fit didn't feel as good, but the more I wore them, the better they felt. They actually feel more workable than the Boot Docs in this application. I still think I will need a first met punch (which will be part of Stage 3), but I would like to get the boots out on snow before doing that. I also think the stock liner will be easier for getting the boot off in the snow. In hindsight, I should have probably started with the stock liners first.
*When you add nonstandard soles, the boot lugs need to be routed back to DIN standards.
