Farewell to Velcro

Meh on velcro—hear the gear editor out. 

In my role as a pack maker, I said farewell to velcro years ago—velcro was cool technology in the 50s and 60s, but in 2024, I’m over it. My aversion to velcro started during my days as an XC skier, where pole straps and skate boots all used velcro and inevitably the velcro wore out before the rest of the strap/boot. Some of my early sewing explorations were replacing the velcro “loop” on my XC pole straps. All this goes to say, I’ve been building disdain for Velcro for 10+ years at this point. 

In the ski touring boot world, it seems at least some manufacturers are on the same page as me, while others have yet to see the light. In the 2010s, we learned that a velcro strap is tough to get tight without some sort of mechanical advantage, enter the velcro strap-buckle seen on boots like the Scarpa F1 and Fischer Traverse. This design was awesome in 2018—light, simple, wide power strap, etc. but it has persisted without change (especially in the case of Scarpa) into more recent models like the F1LT, Salomon MTN Summit, Dynafit TLT X. In their stock form, we are talking about threading and adjusting not one, but two(!!!) velcro straps to don/doff the boots, in addition to adjusting both straps at every transition on the Scarpa. Compare this with the Tecnica Zero G Peak or other models that have moved on from velcro; a superlight cam buckle with a G Hook, paired with a lightweight wire/ladder buckle. The F1XT almost gets it right, with a ladder buckle, but they throw in a skimpy velcro power strap that ought to be removed/replaced before one uses the boots.