Ski boots - A pain that I no longer want to be used to

I hope you get some good news from Profeet :D

And, if anyone else is thinking of buying boots etc. from them they have a sale on now:

http://www.profeet.co.uk/news/2011/03/25/ski-sale-now-on!

Ally

Another possibility is that the boot was subjected to excessive heat (>70°C) which welded the insole to the inner boot, it wouldn't be the first time this has happened.

The "cheapo plastic wedge" was presumably a heel lift, they are usually made of either polypropylene, hard EVA foam or cork all of which are standard boot fitting materials.

I've been using custom insoles for about 20 years and have never felt the need, nor have I been told to have them checked annually. If your body undergoes a physical change i.e. weight gain / loss then you might need to have new insole made or your boots refitted.

it always intrigues me when people complain about shops and boots on forums..... all very difficult to say what is right or wrong with the boots that the complainant has but there is probably a reason for everything that has been done to them... footbeds don't get glued in, but if the liner is heated on a boot drier they can stick to the base, the foam, or plastic wedge below the ankle is probably to do with some limitation of ankle joint motion so needs to be there. now all this is without seeing the boots or the feet.

often times customers come to people such as myself or profeet because they have tried all the "regular" options without success, sometimes there is unconventional stuff done, but it is normally done for a reason, mostly because the conventional stuff hasn't worked, now sometimes this is due to a salesman not knowing his job, sometimes it is down to biomechanical issues that the skier has, these are issues that no boot fitter can solve...if your ankle does not bend i cannot make it bend for you, i can make the cuff of your boot more upright, or raise your heel to try and reduce the angles inside the boot then fill the gaps under your foot,I can even give you some stretches to do, but if it is fixed it is fixed and sometimes this causes pain, if stretches are required and you don't feel the need to do them, again i am unable to control this..... if there is a problem with a boot i would like to think my customers can come and talk to me without the need for them to shout about their problem on a public forum before i have had the opertunity to put it right.... there are two sides to every boot fit, that of the customer and that of the fitter, fitting ski boots is an ongoing two way process which requires feedback from the customer to the fitter in order to establish what is working and what is not, when that feedback loop is lost then the fitting becomes based on the experience of the fitter alone (probably the most important part) but without the feedback of the client the fitter does not know if the theory is working in practice.

this post is not a defence of anyone good or bad, although it annoys me when shops bad mouth each other especially as both mentioned are reputable shops with great fitters running them (if indeed this is what was said and not just an embelishment) i just feel that sometimes the fitter seems to get the brunt of the abuse, maybe some of this is due, but maybe the skier also needs to take responsibility for their own body and fitness, I for one like to explain why a boot will hurt to my clients if i feel that i am not going to give them pain free skiing, it is all about managing expectaions and giving the consumer the best that is available to them, now for some people this may be a reduction in pain of as little as 50% or maybe as much as 90% and for others it is absolute comfort and performance...there is a balance out there, but our bodies play a lot more of a part in that balance than you can imagine

CEM - Your post covers boot fitting perfectly in terms of an ongoing process, but I think the frustrating part when buying from a larger chain is the lack of consistency of perhaps being able to consult with the same person each time. With skiiers like myself, I go once maybe twice a year and want to enjoy my days there and having problems with the boots tarnishes the experience slightly, but obviously not enough to not enjoy the days and want to keep going back.

I am not nieve enough to expect rigid ski boots to be entirely comfortable on my feet 7 hours a day but some guidence to how tight they might feel, how tight they should be on the buckles etc. for the fit of my feet, level of skiing and conditions would help.

I think what you offer over the chain stores for boot fitting is the consistancy of speaking to the same person about the boots and your experiences of boots either yourself or consulting with many different levels of skiier that you fit boots for.

Having had 6 trips to a well know chain, seeing 6 diffrent boot fitters, and have had the boots replaced 3 times telling me they are the wrong ones for size and flex, got footbeds made, had then redone and then back a further couple of times trying to make the current pair more bareable, I'm still not there yet as the first hour or 2 of each day of this years trip was unbareable at times and time to consult someone like you, which is your point in your post.

Reading all this fills me with a lot of comfort, as either I have got "normal" feet or my boots actually do fit me perfectly. It must be annoying and painful for those people who cannot get boots to fit properly.

Tony,

you are lucky.....

the single biggest problem we see as boot fitters is a lack of available motion at the ankle joint, can be caused by a tight calf muscle can be cause by other problems, but it is the biggest cause of pain, there are things that can be done to minimise this pain, often simple strethes will have a dramatic effect...the problem comes when the customer feels that the stretches are not really exciting to do and doesn't do them..... we know the ski boots work, it is YOUR body that doesn't always work with them

cem wrote:
the single biggest problem we see as boot fitters is a lack of available motion at the ankle joint, can be caused by a tight calf muscle can be cause by other problems, but it is the biggest cause of pain, .....
the problem comes when the customer feels that the stretches are not really exciting to do and doesn't do them.....

Point well made Cem - it is so much easier to look for a technical solution, ie: adjust or buy new boots, than work holistically on all the elements that make up an enjoyable and pain free days skiing.
My biggest break through came after about 6 years of holiday skiing after leaving the Alps (lived and worked there for years) when my old, stiff, boots really were hurting and my old, tough, fast, style of skiing was no longer viable.
New softer boots (Technica - still a lovely fit)and a lesson to get my head around a more relaxed skiing style set me up for many years enjoyable ski holidays.
And any pain I get now is self inflicted - trying to outdo a fit 16yo for example!
:oops: