Rental ski boot fitting

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 JuneBob 26 Dec 2018

Hi,

I'm trying to help a friend out with renting comfortable ski boots. She's a beginner but is struggling to get pain free boots. I was kind of hoping that in the 20 years since I last rented ski boots that they'd worked out how to make a comfy boot for beginners, but it appears not. Any hints and tips on how to make a rental boot comfy? She has a wide foot with narrow heel and big calf.

Currently she has a boot 2 sizes too big as anything smaller was too painful!

Thanks.

 

In reply to JuneBob:

Painful where? In what way?

Some foot pain in skiing can be caused by the wearer: e.g. scrunching toes up due to being tense (or boots being too big or loose).

Post edited at 20:44
 Trangia 26 Dec 2018
In reply to JuneBob:

Has your friend tried orthosoles?

https://www.shoeinsoles.co.uk/orthosole-insoles.html?gclid=Cj0KCQiA6ozhBRC8...

I use them for my climbing boots and in trainers and swear by them. Never tried them for ski boots, but the principle is the same. If she does decide to try them I'd recommend the full size ones, not 3/4 ones which I found slipped about in the boot. 

 wbo 26 Dec 2018
In reply to JuneBob:. My tip is to try on a lot more boots as , in my experience, having a big calf makes a lot of boots unusable.  To get a boot on it needs to be non optimally large in size.  Go for a boot with as low a cuff as possible . 

 

OP JuneBob 27 Dec 2018
In reply to captain paranoia:

The pain is mainly across the top and outside of the foot just in front of the ankle.

 

 

 Martin W 27 Dec 2018
In reply to JuneBob:

That sounds to me like the lower shin buckle and the buckle in front of the ankle may be done up too tight, perhaps in an attempt to reduce heel lift caused by the narrow ankle?

TBH I think your friend may be on a hiding to nothing expecting a rental shop to do anything more than a cursory boot fitting.  They tend to be oriented towards shifting in and out large amounts of kit that is more or less right for more or less averagely shaped people.  People with troublesome foot shapes that need specialist boot fitting, even straightforward stuff like moulded inners and shell reshaping, aren't going to get that at a rental shop.

I would suggest that your friend may have to bite the bullet and seek advice on a pair of ski boots for herself from a specialist ski boot fitter, such as Profeet in Fulham.  A pal of mine is very pleased with the boots he got from them a few years ago, having finally had to ditch the Salomon rear-entry boots that he'd been skiing in since the mid-1980s(!), and then struggled to find a modern boot that wasn't agony. These sort of specialist fitters are a step up again from the boot fitting services generally offered by the "high street" retailers such as Snow and Rock, and Ellis Brigham, which IME don't go any further than selling you Superfeet insoles and moulded inners (which are all very well as far as they go - I use Superfeet insoles very happily myself - but won't necessarily be sufficient for the most problematic foot shapes).

Another pal of mine wasted huge amounts of time and money, and spent many seasons of discomfort on the slopes, trying to find a well-fitting ski boot from various mainstream retailers.  It was only after he went to a specialist ski boot fitter that he was able properly to enjoy his winter pastime without pain.

Life - and the average ski holiday - is too short to ski in painful boots.

 summo 27 Dec 2018
In reply to JuneBob:

You can get gel shin protectors. That might make up for the inner wearing out a little, or less than ideal fit. 

But as said above. Try many boots, different brands will have different fits. 

 John Gresty 27 Dec 2018
In reply to JuneBob:

My wife had exactly the same problem, eventually we went to a specialist boot fitter and bought a pair of boots from him,  which he altered to fit with a made to measure inner. With hire boots, and also a bought pair, to get a comfortable fit round the ankle they were all much too long making the skiing much harder.

We used someone in Bicester who spend well over two hours measuring her feet, sorting out a pair would be a good  starting point, and then making a set of inners that resulted in a pair of boots that fitted well and were comfortable.  Expensive  but we had no option.

John

 deacondeacon 27 Dec 2018
In reply to JuneBob:

I'm on the last day of a weeks skiing trip right now. I've snowboarded for twenty years but never tried skiing so take my advice with a pinch of salt. 

I rented some skis and boots on the first day, and the boots felt comfy in the shop, even though I have very wide feet and also have morton s toe (my second toe sticks out further than the big one). My first skiing lesson was agony, pain in shins and side of foot and when I explained this to the instructor he showed me the correct way to put boots on. Basically the bottom two buckles are tightened fairly lightly, whereas I'd cranked them right up. This made them a little better but still uncomfortable.

By the end of the second day and you're not snowplowiNG everywhere things become much more comfortable. I found snowploughing very painful at first, not just on shins, but knees and thighs too.

Now that my technique is better I can happily ski all day in comfort, wearing the same boots that I was convinced didn't fit on the first day. 

 

Tldr: skiing hurts when you're learning, persevere and it gets better  

Post edited at 10:26
 mike123 27 Dec 2018
In reply to JuneBob: I agree with the above on there being little chance of getting some boots that don’t hurt . Are you on holiday right now ? If so  I suggest she makes a true calculation of the genuine per day cost  of the holiday . It’s very likely that buying a pair of boots In resort will cost somewhere around 1 or 2 days skiing . There is every chance also that the the boots will be fitted by somebody who has at least some idea of  what they are doing ( a post on here and other forums should find the best place to buy boots close to where you are ) . These boots will last 10 or more years . Divide the cost of the boots by 70  to get a rough per day cost . Compare this to all the other things and see that it really is very small to transform the experience from type 2 to type 1 fun .

OP JuneBob 27 Dec 2018
In reply to JuneBob:

Thanks for all the advice. We're on holiday now, and she was just trying skiing and planning to ski 2 or 3 days so it's not really worth buying boots this time. She tried another pair today, it was a bit better, but then another skier crashed in to her and she hurt her knee, so this introduction to skiing isn't going so well yet!

 


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