BOA Ski Boots

BOA is the dial you see on the lower shell. Turn it and it winds a thin steel cable through guides across the forefoot, pulling the plastic around your foot in place of the one or two buckles that used to close it there. It moves in small clicks, it works with gloves on, and pulling the dial up releases the whole thing at once. On most boots the cuff still closes with a buckle and a power strap. Some boots put a second dial there instead, which is what Dual BOA means.

A dial changes how a boot closes and nothing else. It does not make a shell wider, narrower or deeper, so a BOA boot on the wrong last fits no better than a buckled one. A dial pulls the lower shell in one continuous wrap, so you cannot close the forefoot and the instep independently the way two buckles let you, and there is no setting left standing for next time. It is also easier to overtighten, because an even wrap gives you no hot spot to warn you. And if the shell needs opening up later, the cable guides are fixed points your fitter works around.

Neither, and a fitter will not tell you otherwise. A dial spreads the closing force along a cable that wraps the forefoot instead of pulling at the two points where buckles sit, and it adjusts in small steps you can make on a chairlift. Buckles are simpler, they close the forefoot and the instep independently, and every fitter has worked on them for decades. The boot that fits your foot is the better boot, and that is decided by the shell and by what goes inside it, not by what holds it shut.

Double, or dual, means two dials, one on the lower shell and one on the cuff, so the wrap across the forefoot and the hold around the leg are tuned separately. Salomon calls it Supra Dual BOA, Atomic calls it Dual BOA, Nordica writes BOA DD for dual dial, and Head builds the Kaliber with two from the start. Whether it suits you is a question about your leg and your calf, not about the number of dials. Nordica even builds one boot the other way around, with the dial on the cuff and buckles below.

Not on its own. The dial decides how evenly the shell closes around a foot that already fits inside it, and the width of that shell is fixed. The boots here run from a 98 mm last on Atomic's Hawx Ultra to 103 mm on Tecnica's Mach BOA HV and the Lange Concept, measured across the forefoot at a size 26.5, and no dial moves those numbers. What does change the fit is what goes inside. A custom orthotic holds the foot in a neutral position and a foam-injected liner fills the space a stock liner leaves. Both are options at a fitting.

No. Ski boots and liners are fitted in store only. The shell has to be chosen on your foot, and a custom liner or orthotic, if you add one, is built the same day. A dial does not change that, because the dial only closes a shell that has to be the right one first. Browse the models here, then book a fitting at any of our 29 stores. If the store does not have the model you want, we will track it down.