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If you can only afford to buy one thing new - please
buy a good pair of boots.
Get them professionally fitted at a proper ski store.
Tell the boot tech there what you're doing - skiing
for the whole season. You need a boot that is going
to be only one or two notches below a brands top boot.
Basically each brand has a different shape 'last' -
a pattern for the type of foot that their boots will
fit. So a Rossignol boot fits a straighter foot than
a Salomon boot or a Lange boot, etc. Some brands last
will be straighter, other more curved through the foot,
some will have a higher or lower arch (under the foot)
others a higher or lower instep (the bit on top of your
foot), others will have a different overall volume around
the toes and forefoot, and so on.
A good bootfitter will sit you down, ask you a few
preliminary questions about how you ski, etc, then he
will get you to take off your shoes and socks and look
at your feet. If you go into a store and a bootfitter
suggests some boots without even looking at your feet
- walk out. They don't know what they're doing. You
cant afford to make any mistakes with your feet.
After looking at your foot he'll get you to try some
boots. The socks you should wear (they might have some
for you) should be as THIN as possible. Sounds opposite
to what you think but a thin sock lets the boot fit
better, and lets air circulate around the boot keeping
your foot warmer than a thick sock.
He may or may not do a 'shell fit', which is where
they take the liner out of the boot and put your foot
in the shell to check that the shell is the right size.
When you put the boot (with liner in) on, you want
it to fit tightly but not uncomfortably - over time
the lining will pack out a bit so you need to take this
into account. An ideal boot should fit tightly around
the heel (you should only be able to raise your heel
about 5mm if you try) and should hold you across the
forefoot very snugly - but leaving room for you to be
able to wiggle your toes easily. If you stand up straight
you should feel the front of your boot with your big
toe, and when you bend your knees (as though you're
skiing) your toe should come back from the front of
the boot.
What you want to look out for is the boot squeezing
or pushing anywhere that isn't natural - you should
be able to feel the boot all around your foot. If when
you look down on your foot it is naturally straight,
you dont want the boot to curve it in, and if your foot
is quite curved you dont want it to straighten it out.
Your foot will feel stress if this happens and you will
notice after wearing them for a few minutes. Yeah -
wear the boots for about ten minutes at least.
Some boots have heat-moulding lining that fits to your
foot when they heat them up (Salomon) or simply over
time (Rossignol). But remember this will not compensate
for the boot itself being the wrong shape for your foot
in the first place!
Also everyone's left and right feet are different sizes
so each foot will fit a little differently - with boots
there are a lot of things you can do after you have
chosen one to make it fit perfectly, or to get rid of
any little niggles. For example if you find a toe is
rubbing too much or you have a prominent sixth toe or
something like that you can 'blow' the boot out to compensate.
One thing to remember though is that you can 'blow out'
a tight fitting boot, but you cant fill in a loose fitting
boot - if in doubt err on the smaller size.
Another thing is arch support. Generally because everyone
has different shape feet boot manufacturers ignore arches
and just make boots flat under the foot. One thing i
recommend (and the boot fitter will probably as well)
is getting foot beds made. Basically they heat up a
specially made foam/plastic thing and you stand on it
and it molds to the shape of your foot. This prevents
the arch from collapsing (which is seriously painful)
under the pressure of being crammed into a boot , and
stops your foot sliding around in the boot. Completely
indispensable. Again if you don't get them in the UK
you can buy them out in the alpes.
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