Advice on ski boots please!

Polarbear2020

I need advice on ski boots. My current pair are ok (Lange 90degrees or something or other) but I find are just not cutting it anymore as my skiing has improved dramatically. They allow too much movement of the foot itself even when seemingly done up "tight". My ski`s are Head Supershape-magnum and I need a pair of boots which will take me from carving on groomers to aggressive off piste skiing, but preferably a pair I can wear all day with out being in too much agony(Obviously I appreciate often the best boots are normarily the most uncomfortable) Please help me because I am fairly clueless about ski boot fitting.
Also any heads up on where I could go to buy boots who have staff who are knowledgeable in this field??? Staff can sometimes have less of a clue than I do...

jimdev

What pair of boots you have is possibly less important than how accurately they fit.

Your boot fitter is terribly important. You can get someone who goes "you like this colour?" and after letting you try three pairs of boots, sends you out of the shop without any adjustment.

The most important adjustment to the boots is to throw out the footbed and get custom moulded ones, as this sets up the alignment of your entire body and can make skiing a lot easier.

Then the boot should hold you firmly without any room for your foot to knock about. You should keep going down in sizes until you get this, even if it is uncomfortable some places. You know you have gone too small if you toes are curled up, but they should not have empty space in front of them, your toes should be just "gracing" the front of your boots.

You should not have to ski with discomfort though, boots that fit accurately as opposed to just super tight are not slippers but they shouldn't cause you pain.

These tight spots or pressure points should be ground too thin out the outer shell and/or blown (where the plastic is heated and then stretched with a device that looks like a giant garlic crusher). Any spots that have too much space can have extra padding glued to the outside of the inner liner to fatten it out (I have this above and behind my ankle as I have quite thin ankles, it stops my heal lifting, which was causing discomfort from rubbing all day and probably not doing my skiing any favours).

You should aim to start with a boot that fits well and needs minimum adjustment as this will always produce a better end result.

People's feet come in a wide variety of shapes, as do ski boots, if you have wide feet certain models from certain manufacturers are designed for this, and others for people with narrower feet. A competent boot fitter will be able to tell which models might work with your foot from a quick look at you with your socks off.

You can buy boots either in the Great Outdoors in Dublin or in resort, G.O. are good for boot fitting as far as I can tell. If you are only going to ski on snow, then getting them in resort at the start of a week's holidays has the advantage of letting you repeatedly get small adjustments until they are just right.

One last note: socks. Get and use thin ski socks for the first week and for fitting the boot. Use thicker socks once the liner has packed out to your foot but never more than one pair.

Lastly, if your boot fitter isn't looking to spend a good long while getting them right, including making all these adjustments, go to another shop, in Europe, there are more bad or lazy boot fitters than good ones.

Other posts in here on buying ski boots:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055199072
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055197261