The Gist
What do testers like most about the 2018 Tecnica Mach1 130 LV (aside from a consensus that it skis like a thermonuclear weapon of downhill domination)? They like that this narrow fits like a narrow! Meaning, there's an obvious differentiation between the fit tension (squeeze factor) of the medium-volume MV and this narrow class LV. The anatomical shaping for the wider points of the foot's anatomy is still here in the LV, just slimmed down to grab a hold of the foot and leg with the death grip of a zombie reaching up through the dirt. And that's a good thing!
The Fit
Most testers had a few minor hotspots at the typical locations, depending on their particular fit issues—and they made mention of these mainly in the form of praise. Meaning, they cited the boot's tightness as a virtue, and agreed that in the narrow width group, some bootfitting should be needed for all but the most slender of kangaroo feet. Fit scores were evenly arranged along the tight side of the spectrum, however, indicating that the anatomical shape is right, with curves where they belong to better match the shape of the human foot. More than a few testers mentioned that the tongue and flex feel is firm against the shin—not in a problematic way, they said, but they cautioned that the boot is not for sissies.
Performance
Strong like bull. Sports car flat cornering. Pure polyurethane power. Testers loaded their test cards with comments like these about the Mach1 130 LV. Many mentioned that this boot drove the ski on hard snow as strongly as the race-bred boots of the Frontside category, but managed off-piste junk with ease and forgiveness. Virtually all testers approved of its stance angles for athletic skiing.
Cool Features
The Custom Adaptive Shape (C.A.S.) bootfitting features are the same here as they are on all the Mach1 boots for men and women—the C.A.S. shell is dimpled in common fit problem areas to aid with heat stretching and the C.A.S. liner is both heat moldable and grindable. In addition to these helpful fitting tools, the Lift Lock buckles are handy—they stay locked open when pushed to their end stop and the Power Lock power strap hook-in-loop connection sidesteps having to thread the strap webbing through a cam-lock buckle every time. These top-shelf niceties are found on the Mach1 130 MV as well.
Kudos
Caveats