BOA LACING
They’re the innovative wiring system found on run trainers, bike shoes and helmets. But are there more benefits of Boa for tri than a secure fit? Tim Heming ventured to Austria to find out
The hills are alive with the sound of trail runners and mountain bikers. As winter draws in, it will become snowboarders and skiers – and this is just the staff of the Boa office on any given lunchtime. 220 has landed in Mondsee, near Salzburg, and the heartland of The Sound ofMusic, to stay in an imposing converted monastery adjacent to the church where Julie Andrews’ Maria was married in the 1965 Oscar-winning musical (apologies for the plot spoiler). We’re not here to study Von Trapp family history, though, we’ve arrived to learn about an innovative company that’s hitting all the right notes in endurance sport.
Boa is one of those brands we’ve all seen. Many of us will be familiar with the system in everyday use, but fewer able to pinpoint exactly what and where from the name alone. This, its marketing department hopes, will soon change. In a sentence, it’s an innovative closure system, and it’s far more ubiquitous than we might credit. At its most basic, Boa is lace replacement, but it works with many different types of footwear, from racing spikes to firefighter boots, trail shoes to snowboarding boots. Then there are its other uses, from tightening bike helmets to securing medical braces.
In fact, by the time our grand tour by gracious host Hilke Badegruber culminates with stepping into the stock room, it’s little surprise to find
thousands of unique dials, wires and guides, with each one having its specific function to complement a particular brand or type of closure. As Hilke explain, Boa’s strength lies in its partnerships, the message being: One size does not fit all.
LESSON IN EDUCATION
Founded in 2001 by Gary Hammerslag, the company owes its genesis, in part, to Gary seeing his father undergo heart surgery. The pair felt patients shouldn’t have to go through the same invasive and rudimentary techniques, so developed their own catheter solution using prototype wire technology that improved the speed and effectiveness of the angioplasty procedure.
The rest of the inspiration came from the Rocky Mountains. When Hammerslag, an extreme sports enthusiast moved to Steamboat, Colorado, in the mid-1990s, frustrated by the fit and performance of existing snowboard boot laces and clamps, he adapted the medical tech to provide a dramatically improved closure system. Now the heavy-duty footwear could finally be comfortable, being incrementally adjusted without even taking your gloves off.
Boa’s main headquarters and newly-launched testing facilities – its Performance Fit Lab – remain in Colorado, in Denver, but it has expanded its reach to premises in China, Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong, along with its European base in Mondsee. It now employs more than 200 staff. The sectors it’s moved into have also broadened from cycling and golf in 2006 to protective equipment and ski touring by 2011, to the present day, where
Boa now works with over 400 different brands, and you’re unlikely to see a golf shoe in Asia without the fitted system.
What does this mean for tri? Not only bike and run shoes, but helmet closures. A sign proclaiming, ‘YOUR HELMET SHOULDN’T FIT LIKE A BRICK’ in bold print delivers the Boa philosophy with the subtlety of a brick as we head towards the kitchen for a gratefully received first coffee of the day.
For run shoes, Boa opts for smaller dials and lightweight wires wrapped in textile, so they don’t cut through increasingly wafer-thin uppers, but there is a challenge breaking into this market. With such myriad choice and consumers so familiar with traditional laces, the Boa closures, which add an approximate $10 premium, haven’t been widely adopted by brands, and largely isolated to simple lace replacements on already inproduction shoes.
For Boa, this is a wasted opportunity. They’d far rather be working in partnership to develop design and functionality of the product from the outset, the importance of which might seem overplayed until 220 witnesses a pull test experiment, where the machine exerts increasing tension on the lace, guide and attached upper, until the device fails at its weakest point. In this case it’s the stitching of the upper coming apart, and that could prove valuable feedback to the shoe brand that may need to strengthen or rethink its product. This isn’t the only test that takes place to extremis. There are also hammer tests, slurry tests, dirt tests and brick-kick tests – the clue to each being in the title. It’s marine-level resilience training, backed up by a Boa guarantee that means the system will be freely replaced for as long as the shoe lasts.
Hilke also surmises that runners are still somewhat sceptical of the system, pointing out, with some irony, that if high altitude climbers fully trust Boa closures when they’re scaling a rock face, perhaps joggers might be less wary. The lesson is perhaps one of education.
For now, trail is a market where Boa envisage more gains. Working with younger, more agile companies, or those with smaller trail ranges that are seen as a place to experiment, there’s also an easily understandable benefit of providing systems that offer an alternative to unpicking mud-caked laces, or an inability to tie with frozen fingers. Grippier dials to tighten and then quick release even with gloves on could also come into their own in more gnarly environments than urban runs.
THE SHOE OF SAGAN
More familiar territory for most triathletes will be the Boa closure on a bike shoe. Often sprinters will be seen reaching down to ratchet up their Boa device for maximum effect before emerging from the peloton for the final sprint in a stage. Boa is listed as suppliers to the men’s road cycling team Bora-Hansgrohe, which includes three-time world road race champion Peter Sagan. They also sponsor the Canyon-SRAM women’s pro team, where the riders don’t fall in line behind a particular shoe sponsor, but all the brands they do wear are already working with Boa. With no two pairs of feet, or shoe brand, cut the same, it means the Boa closures can be adopted by every rider without the potential compromise of being worn on an ill-fitting shoe of the overall team sponsor.
TRI CONSIDERATIONS
More pertinent still is that many professional and age-group triathletes use the technology, particularly for middle and full iron-distance races, where the ease of Velcro straps for a flying mount and quick getaway in shorter races is surpassed by a more secure and comfortable fit over the longer distance.
Through a quick query on Facebook group ‘The Ironman Journey’, one triathlete reported how ‘hot foot’ and ‘sore knees’ were alleviated when moving from Velcro straps to Boa’s ratchet style closure on a pair of Sidi bike shoes with a carbon sole. Another opted for the Bontrager Velocis Road with a single Boa closure on the heel to help make the shoe snug and stop a tendency to grip with the toes. A third used the Specialized S-Works with a Boa closure and a novel folddown heel for all his races as ‘the fastest to get into and fasten on the bike.’
Other considerations come into play, too. Duncan Shea-Simonds, multiple Kona qualifier who’s been racing triathlon so long his first bike shoes “were a pair of Dunlop Green Flash”, says the Boa system has never malfunctioned for him. “That’s included a handful of crashes where Boa closures have taken impact and abrasions, but so far at least, never let me down,” he says. “Conversely, lever-ratchet closures have given up the ghost after crashes, Velcro loses its stick, etc…”
Shea-Simonds’ current road bike training shoes use a double Boa system, “primarily selected for comfort and ease of accurate adjustments on long rides,” but while it might be more of a concern for those looking for gains at the pointy end of the field, he does have reservations about aerodynamics. “I’m aware that bike shoes are an area where precious watts can be saved,” he adds. “To that end, Boa closures, on the side at least, have been ruled out on race shoes for me. Instead I’ve recently switched to a Giro Empire, with elastic laces as the ultimate aero solution. They’re definitely more stretchy in the upper compared to my road
“IF HIGH ALTITUDE CLIMBERS FULLY TRUST BOA CLOSURES WHEN SCALING A ROCK FACE, PERHAPS JOGGERS MIGHT BE LESS WARY”
“RESULTS HAVE SHOWN THAT THE BOA FIT SYSTEM TRI- PANEL CONFIGURATION IMPROVES STRENGTH, SPEED AND POWER TRANSFER OF AN ATHLETE BY UP TO 5% ACROSS FIVE KEY MOVEMENTS”
Boa shoes, but the aero gains trump any possible losses due to stretch in the upper, and it’s a comfort compromise I’m happy to make for a race shoe.”
SUCCESS IN SIMPLICITY
Shea-Simonds’ views underline the importance to Boa of proving its system’s performance gains, and it’s why it has just launched its 2,700 square foot Performance Fit Lab comprising motion capture space, floor-mounted force plates and even an indoor hiking path. It’s also partnered with the University of Denver to release a first study attempting to show how the ‘Boa Fit System enables faster, more powerful directional changes through a seamless connection between equipment and body’.
The study was conducted with 31 athletes completing five key movements in four different upper configurations, one with laces and three with varying Boa performance fit configurations. The results showed that the Boa Fit System tri-panel configuration improves strength, speed, and power transfer of the athlete by 1.5-5% across five key movements. Statistically relevant, but still early days in testing, and perhaps less applicable to triathlon as a chiefly straight-line sport.
In addition to studies measuring agility and speed, Boa has named two other performance benefit categories it’ll explore – power and precision, and endurance and health, with validation studies due to be conducted in 2020. The first study looks at performance and power in golf and the second efficiency of race, road and trail running.
“Our research group is one of the first to use biomechanical performance variables to examine shoe upper design,” says Daniel Feeney, a biomechanics research engineer at Boa. “We’re leading the industry by using innovative methods and the latest equipment to scientifically prove the meaningful benefit of Boa’s impact on fit.”
With innovation comes imitation, often cheaper and inferior, and Boa has taken out patents to protect its intellectual property, including one on the quick release cartridge-bayonet of the dial. Equally important is protecting its relationships with brands, where it must continue to show how much value it can add.
Yet for all the tech and testing, like so many inventions, Boa’s brilliance lies in its simplicity. Using the system is straightforward and there are few problems unless, as Hilke explains, someone has overindulged in the après ski and takes the snippers to the snowboard wires because they don’t realise they’re quick release. In an increasingly complicated world, this isn’t a system that’ll tie you up in knots, but it might just replace a few.