Pics of my Alpinestars Tech 6 boots after 5 hours

[96speed]

I am very disappointed in the quality of these boots so far. They are very comfortable, but they seems to have a defective sole. The picture was taken after about 5 hours of riding--3 hours of trail riding and about 2 hours of flat land bayou riding. It is also worth nothing that 80% of my braking is done with the front brake only.

This is a pic of the right boot. As you can see, the ball of the foot is really torns up from the brake lever. Strangely enough, the pegs on my bike are much sharper than the brake lever. The boots are a size 13 and I'm a 245 guy--I'm not exactly a lightweight by any stretch, but this is a little ridiculous IMO. I have contacted A-stars and will be sending them in for a look over. It will probably take nearly a month, so I went ahead and picked up some Gaerne SG-10s. Hopefully the Gaernes will hold up better.

Also, I will look into getting a longer brake lever. Since my foot is so long, the lever naturally lands underneath the 'planned' contact point of the boot.

Ryan

 

[mkelly04]

My tech 6 soles are junk as well, I'm in the process of replacing them with tech 8 soles to see if they hold up. It looks like the tech 8 replaceable insert is much harder then the tech 6 sole so hopefully it will last.


Are you sure its your brake lever causing all the damage?


If you look at the boot the damage extends almost to the middle of the boot, too far for a brake pedal to reach.

 

[KiwiBird]

Are you sure it's not hitting the peg when you kick start the bike? I destroyed a pair of boots with some super sharp IMS pegs, looked to be in the same place as yours.

 

[96speed]

Are you sure it's not hitting the peg when you kick start the bike? I destroyed a pair of boots with some super sharp IMS pegs, looked to be in the same place as yours.

That is a pretty good question. My brake pedal is pretty dull compared to the pegs. I kickstart pretty aggressively, too. However, I usually kickstart with with kickstarter in front of the heel of the boot. The chewed up section of the sole is a bit far away from when I kickstart. That doesn't make a lot of sense, but basically, my pegs aren't 6" long to reach that part of the boot/sole.

I will make a mental note to think about it this weekend when I'm working on my bike.

Ryan

 

[cnielse5]

I wear out all my right boot soles becuase of how I start my bikes. I have not found a sole yet that holds up to my abuse for more than 2 seasons. Thank goodness for replaceable soles.

 

[76GMC1500]

Feel your kick starter for sharp edges, mine takes chunks out of the bottoms of all of my shoes. I file down the edges periodically, but they come back.