jclinares wrote: Sun Feb 16, 2025 7:46 pm
Gonna ride on the Insanos all week, and might come back with more impressions on them, once I've had a chance to try them a little more.
Wish me luck breaking them in. These things are stiff.
Update on the Ride Insanos, after a full week of mostly freeriding at Mt. Baker.
Overall impression is that these boots are great. They are probably the stiffest boots I've owned lately (previously was on the Burton Photon, and then the Salomon Malamute). The first thing I did was pull out the factory insoles (honestly, they don't look too bad), and put in my Superfeet insoles. First couple of days were a grind, while they started to break in, and I had to take more breaks and loosen up the boots. I don't heat-mold my boots, but these kinda made me wish I did, for a couple of days.
Comfort-wise, they started to feel a lot better after the first couple of days, and I was able to go back to my usual riding day routine. Flex-wise, right now they are still very stiff, and I found them really hard to flex laterally for stuff like ollies and butters. My guess is that they'll break into a solid stiff flex, which is what I prefer, but the softening process seems to be taking longer than with my previous boots. Not a complaint, just an observation.
The boots are extremely responsive, and I didn't have any issues driving my stiff boards in all conditions. They feel damper than the Malamutes I was riding on last year, and for me, that's a good thing, because riding off-piste at Baker can be a workout of unpredictable, varied terrain and conditions, and they added to the stability of my whole setup.
Can't speak much to warmth, since the weather was pretty mild all week I was there, but I can speak to waterproofness: we got everything from powder, to slush, to full on rain, and I never felt like water was leaking into the boots. So we're all good there.
One of the things I liked the most about them, which I mentioned on my previous post, was the lacing system, which felt like it tightened very uniformly, and it really does. Even the liner, with its little tab to make it easier to pull on the cords and hold them tight, was a welcome improvement over other boots I've tried. The tongue has a few "channels" to guide the BOA cords, and I was afraid they wouldn't really work and the cords would just end up going wherever they wanted, but the channels do a good job of settling the cords into the right place.
One of the features that stiffens the boot is the injected plastic tongue. In my opinion, this is a good feature, and it does seem to work to help drive the shin back on toe-to-heel movements. However, one of the issues I had is that, if you're not paying attention while tightening them, it's easy for the tongue to catch on the side of the shell, and then you're tightening the shell while the tongue is biting into it. Happened to me a few times, and I had to loosen the entire thing to put the tongue in its proper place. Easy to do with the BOA system, but it's something I'll have to keep in mind while I have these boots.
Overall, if you're looking for a stiff as hell boot that's extremely responsive, and has a very comfortable lacing system for both liner and shell, I'd definitely recommend to try on the Insano. If you don't like uncomfortable break-in periods, though, definitely heat mold these at the shop, before riding them on the mountain.
