The new Hoji-designed Ridge Pro boots from Dynafit.
Last spring, Dynafit debuted their downhill-oriented four-buckle Tigard boot which skied like an alpine boot but at 1559 grams was too heavy for some light’n’fast Dynafit diehards.
With the Feb. 1 release of the new Ridge Pro Boot designed with Eric Hjorleifson, Dynafit drops about 300 grams off the Tigard for a claimed weight of 1250 grams which puts the Ridge Pro closer to light-but-stiff boots such as Fischer’s 1280g Transalp Carbon Pro (read our review here) and Tecnica’s Zero G Tour Pro (1320g). (After standing pat with the successful Zero G Tour Pro for several years, Tecnica has a new model coming for ’24-’25 with a stated weight of 1290.)
Hoji has been involved in plenty of Dynafit’s boots over the years, so much so that their locking system (reimagined slightly for the Ridge Pro) is called Hoji Lock. But rather than simply lend his name to a boot, Hjorleifson is deeply involved in the design and he home-built a prototype of the Ridge Pro to prove the concept before it became a production model. You can see him skiing the prototype and hear more about his process in this video.
Here are the basics:
What jumps out about the design is the floating tongue which promises smooth articulation and 70 degrees range of motion when unlocked. The buckling system is streamlined with a cable and dial (like BOA but not BOA) over the forefoot and a single ratcheting buckle on the shin with a Velcro power strap for good measure.
An early tester from another outlet declared the Ridge Pro “the biggest leap forward in ski touring gear since the advent of the pin binding”. Which seems unlikely, but we’ll reserve judgment until we step into them. We expect to test a pair of the Ridge Pro boots soon and will follow up with an in-depth review after we’ve put it through its paces on snow.
There are four different boots in the Ridge lineup: the men’s Ridge Pro described here so far, the Ridge (not pro!), and women’s versions of each. The Ridge boots use fiberglass/Grilamid instead of carbon fiber/Grilamid and thus are 30 grams heavier and 10% less stiff than the Ridge Pro, but otherwise are essentially the same boot.
The Feb. 1 release of the Ridge Pro is a limited run, but common sizes are available for now. Try here, here, and here.
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