Lace me up!

I have been looking at fixing mechanisms again for the brace and am still very taken with the Boa system which seems to be used in everything from running and cycling shoes to snowboard and motorbike boots. It is spoken very highly of on most forums and many professionals are singing their praises. They have also started to be introduced into medical design form tourniquets (see above right) to forarm casts.

Boa specialise in wire lacing system, they use a combination of titanium wire and plastic crank twist casing. You always have to be careful with you use of metal in rehabilitation products, especially products such as the medical back brace where the subject may have to go into MRI’s etc. However this would not be an issue with Boa due to their choice of materials i.e. titanium which is not only incredibly strong but also not magnetic and so would not interfere with equipment such as MRI’s. It would still interfere with any form of X-ray however any choice of metal will do this. With this in mind there are alternative manufacturers such as Sidi who use a plastic form of wire. There are also other systems such as speed lace by a company called Burton. This acts more like a toggle where you slide the toggle along the lace to the base of the foot and locking into place by releasing a spring mechanism. Although this system is possible I am concerned about the reliability of it and so would like to see if I could get some more information on the Boa and Sidi systems first.