Testers love getting into the Nordica Promachine 130 every time they test it because it does three things that help their personal testing protocols. First, it resets their standards of narrow boot fit tension--meaning, it's tight the way a 96-98mm performance boot should be and it gives them a good benchmark on which to compare others. Second, it skis at the top of the performance curve for power, quickness and an intuitive connection between skier intent and ski result--not every narrow 130-flex can claim that. Last, it makes each tester a little better skier for wearing it--many of our crew makes mention that the Promachine 130 could be, or should be, their boot.
Tight is one thing for a narrow all-mountain boot, but tight without hotspots and numbness is a feat of boot design wizardry, and the Promachine 130 is one of a handful of gold medal level boots that accomplish this year after year. It's elegant in its simplicity--an ideally shaped shell matched with a firm but well-sculpted liner that experts put on (with four normal and easy to use buckles) and go skiing. It has an elasticized power strap with a cam-lock buckle for closing the already well-wrapped boot top. And that's it--nothing extraneous or unnecessary.
While the Promachine 130 employs traditional polyurethane plastic in both cuff and lower shell, the Tri Force shell design thins plastic in non-critical areas for better fit-wrapping and ease of entry and exit. This has the added benefit of lightening the boot a bit, and while this is not a boot that would ever trade off performance for ounces, testers say that it is noticeably light and agile underfoot, with big rebound energy. The Promachine 130's quickness is matched by its stability and deep-trenching edge power, say testers, who gave it matching, near-perfect scores of 4.94 in both the Quickness and Steering metric as well as in the Edge Power criterion. This is one of the most balanced boots in terms of combining brute strength with agility, testers say, commenting that this fact helps ground their scoring within the category for the performance tests of other models.
Balance itself is a highlight for testers--one of our bootfitting and alignment savvy testers said the Promachine 130 might be the best balanced boot, ever. And while there are a lot of well-balanced boots out there, to hear this guy say it is high praise for the Promachine, certainly.
Some boots require making some adaptations to one's skiing style in order to figure it out. Other boots simply don't transmit the desired message to the ski, often making skis feel longer or edges duller than they are. And then there are boots that require no change to a skier's style or approach and that command the ski in a highly intuitive way--skis will feel slightly shorter and more responsive, and the edges feel sharper. This last kind of boot invariably rises to the top of the best boots regardless of category. Testers will comment that they forgot that they were testing a different boot than their own and instead made an unconscious transition to simply skiing, looking for the best line or the best snow at the edge of the run.
These are the boots that make skiers better and that make our testers wish they had one of their own. The Promachine 130 is one of those boots, they said.
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