Forums Boots Broken Lace Mechanism Viewing 10 posts - 1 through 10 (of 10 total)Author Posts March 15, 2012 at 11:14 pm #576628 Silver_touch 1 PostsHopefully someone out there in the intraweb can help me out with this. I just bought a pair of Spark Deelux boots and managed to break off the locking mechanism for the lacing system on one side of the boot by catching the lace loop on the binding strap of the opposite foot while touring (you can imagine what happened to the rest of me when physics took over). Now the actual locking mechanism is gone (plastic slide that goes over the laces), and one side of the loop is hanging free from where the plastic cross piece that holdes it inside the boot cracked (I know I’m not making too much sense with that description right now). Basically there is now no lock on this section of the laces.I’m not sure if this has happened to anyone else, but if so how did you deal with it? Thankfully it’s the section over the top of my foot and not the ankle so it’s still usable. Just a piss-off considering I’ve had the boots for 2 days of touring.ThanksAg March 16, 2012 at 4:12 am #653610 HikeforTurns 1114 PostsInteresting, not a fan of those lock mechanisms. I would return them to the shop or call deeluxe March 16, 2012 at 4:23 am #653611 iriecoyote 291 Posts @HikeforTurns wrote:Interesting, not a fan of those lock mechanisms. I would return them to the shop or call deeluxeFor sure get a warranty repair/replacement on that situation.The biggest deal-breaker for me on the spark boots was the lacing system seemed brittle and difficult to repair in the field. April 11, 2012 at 5:15 am #653612 South Island Split 66 PostsI have broken one of these pieces on my Sparks as well. Fortunately the dealer I bought my boots from replaced it straight away. Those pieces are definitely a weak point in the design. Be careful to not flick the locking mechanisms out when the laces are too short as it puts extra stress on them. February 5, 2014 at 4:51 pm #653613 MagnusIceland 12 PostsI just had this happen to me, when i was going to tighten my boots after the hike the green thingy was gone… Sent the dealer a mail hopefully it will be sorted quick. February 5, 2014 at 8:54 pm #653614 Jefe009 675 PostsI had those same boots last year and the same thing happened to me… luckily my local dealer had some extra green lace lock things, as they had a few similar complaints before mine. Check with the place you bought them…www.splitlife.net February 5, 2014 at 10:32 pm #653615 J.P. 29 PostsI had the same problem with mine. They last me only 4 rides before my lace broke. I traded them out for a pair of Independent BC and I love them. November 15, 2014 at 2:10 am #653616 nickstayner 700 PostsI have had all generations of the Sparks and broken the lace mechanism (the ones on the lateral and medial sides of the boots) on every single boot! Poor construction quality is an understatement & a part of what led me to a hardboot setup. I’m not totally sold on it for all snow conditions though, and hence want to figure out how to fix the Spark. Planning on calling them up and getting more, but has anyone come up with a decent alternate way of fixing this problem? November 16, 2014 at 5:37 pm #653617 mtsurfr 48 PostsFirst – IMHO, if you can return them,,, DO IT! If you can’t and want to make them work, here is my 2 cents.I rode them for the last 2 seasons and never really been happy (for several reasons other than the obvious one that the lacing system was awful). Even when the lacing mech was still working ‘properly’, it would slide and loosen throughout the day. I took them back to my local shop (World Boards in bozeman) to see what could be done after a year of use and Jay, the owner, offered to have a boot repair shop take out the speed lacing system and sew in eyelets for traditional lacing. He had been wanting to see if this would work since basically everyone has had these issues, so since he covered the cost and since i was already past being able to return them, I went with this option (Very cool thing for Jay to do even after a year of use!). Honestly, it was a big big improvement. If your thinking of keeping these boots, that would be my suggestion. If your interested, i can send you a pic. This was not enough improvement for me in my other areas of distain with this boot to keep wearing them, so they will be siting no my shelf this year, but again, that is due to other reasons. So if the lacing is the issue for you, this might do the trick. I’d do it again in a heartbeat over replacing the speed lacing part from Deelux. November 17, 2014 at 8:34 pm #653618 nickstayner 700 PostsThanks for the response. I may go that route, and I agree that Jay’s customer service is legendary. It’s not a pressing issue for me and I’ve actually been pretty happy the 1st couple times out on the new setup. Viewing 10 posts - 1 through 10 (of 10 total)You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
