Instep height of new Dalbello DRS World Cup vs. Scorpion 130 and/or Lange Z?

Sole chamonix custom liners and foot beds are part of the deal. If you are FIS standard you are spending enough time in Alps not to have to worry about buying in UK :-).

Physicist is based in California so he's hardly likely to go to Chamonix just to buy a pair of ski boots. If he did he would probably go to the Bootroom at Sanglard sports as they fit World Cup racers. There is a lot more to boot fitting at this level than footbeds and custom liners.

Come on SB, Sole guys trained under Jules and have plenty of world class clientele of their own. My point was only that when get boots properly fitted you are getting a shell, new liners, new foot beds.

Can I assume that we at least agree that if you are a going for such a niche high end boot just go to a proper boot shop who will do their job and provide you with the most suitable boot for your feet. You are clearly spending a considerable amount of time in them so why would you save a few 100$ not having them fitted.

Does Sole stock plug race boots? I thought they sold mainly freeride boots, remember I'm talking specifically about <95 mm lasted racing boots and not >95 mm lasted recreational boots. This is a very specialised area. Fitting as most people understand it is only part of what's involved, the boots will most likely require other work as well. This requires specialist equipment; this device is used for machining the soles to the desired angle; it costs €4500,



if you don't specialise in fitting racing boots then it probably isn't worth buying one and all the other gear you'll need as there won't be enough demand to make it viable. As these boots are so narrow they have to be fitted, they have very thick shells so the boot fitter grinds out the shell until it fits the foot.



They are available with or without custom liners, some people like foam liners some don't. Skiers who buy these boots don't usually worry too much about cost, they are willing to pay whatever it takes; I think it costs about $200 just to get a pair of boots canted in the states.

SwingBeep wrote:Does Sole stock plug race boots? I thought they sold mainly freeride boots, remember I'm talking specifically about <95 mm lasted racing boots and not >95 mm lasted recreational boots. This is a very specialised area. Fitting as most people understand it is only part of what's involved, the boots will most likely require other work as well. This requires specialist equipment; this device is used for machining the soles to the desired angle; it costs €4500, .....

if you don't specialise in fitting racing boots then it probably isn't worth buying one and all the other gear you'll need as there won't be enough demand to make it viable. As these boots are so narrow they have to be fitted, they have very thick shells so the boot fitter grinds out the shell until it fits the foot.

They are available with or without custom liners, some people like foam liners some don't. Skiers who buy these boots don't usually worry too much about cost, they are willing to pay whatever it takes; I think it costs about $200 just to get a pair of boots canted in the states.

SwingBeep, sorry to leave you the burden of having to try to explain to Ranchero what's going on. [And thanks for your effort here.] For some reason I'm not getting email notifications of replies, even though I click the email box.

I'll add that, here in the US, having a canting machine is much more common than stocking plug boots. Pretty much all good shops can do sole planing (or lug routering + installation of Cantology wedges, for those boots w/o solid soles), but only a tiny subset of those stock plugs. That's because canting is seen (correctly so, IMO) as applicable to a much broader section of the skiing population than plugs. Essentially, ski boots are orthotic devices, and as such need to be properly canted for each skier. And the need for canting isn't restricted to performance-oriented skiers. Many "stuck" intermediates are stuck because they're too bowlegged or knock-kneed in their stock boots to be able to balance on their edges.

Typical prices I've seen for alignment and canting are ~$100 to $150

Ranchero_1979 wrote:Come on SB, Sole guys trained under Jules and have plenty of world class clientele of their own. My point was only that when get boots properly fitted you are getting a shell, new liners, new foot beds.

Can I assume that we at least agree that if you are a going for such a niche high end boot just go to a proper boot shop who will do their job and provide you with the most suitable boot for your feet. You are clearly spending a considerable amount of time in them so why would you save a few 100$ not having them fitted.

Ranchero, you're making a bunch of assumptions that simply don't apply here. You're incorrectly assuming that I'm asking for info. on the internet to avoid working with a fitter. No, I have a fitter. Actually I have two experts I work with. One is an expert fitter who is considered one of the top bootfitters in the US, and works at one of the top specialty shops in California, about a five hour drive away at my "home" ski area; the other is an alignment expert I fly out to see after the fitting is done. I already have the custom orthotics.

The problem is that neither of them stock these plug boots, and the boot companies don't let the stores order them for try-on and then send them back if they don't work. So I need to make my best guess, and if it doesn't work I have to try to sell it on Ebay or one of the ski forums, and then order a different boot, losing hundreds of dollars in the process. As SwingBeep says, I'm prepared to spend significant $ on the whole process (obviously, since I'm flying out of state to have the alignment done), but that doesn't mean I like to waste it. Are there places I could fly to that stock both of these boots? Maybe. The closest that might stock both is 1600 km away; the closest I know that does carry both models is on the other side of the country (4000 km away).

But regardless, I'd rather buy from and work with the fitter at my "home" ski area, since fitting plug boots is an iterative process that requires grinding/skiing/grinding/skiing/grinding, etc., until they get dialed in. Sure, maybe I could mail-order the boots from a store that allows returns, but then I'd be left having to pay my fitter for all the boot work, which would be included in the price if I bought directly from him. Plus it's just more courteous to buy from him. And even then, I'd still like to have an idea if the boot would work before mail-ordering it. My fitter will gather info. as well, but it's also beneficial for me to gather info., since the more informed I am as a customer, the better the outcome, since my interaction with the fitter is a collaborative process.

And by the way, every pair of boots I've ever purchased has been custom-fitted by an expert bootfitter, starting with the first pair I bought, 42 years ago, using money I earned as a teenager mowing lawns. So I've been doing this a long time.

Now do you understand why I'm trying to get info. beforehand?