A little sore about misfit boots

[AngryAnalyst]

My wife and I recently finished a trip significantly impaired by her ill fitting boots. The boots were purchased at the start of the season from a professional fitter and never fit quite right, though the specific problem that ruined the trip was not apparent until recently.

I am frustrated that the original boot fitter substantially misunderstood my wife’s foot and did not take the symptom she had that started the trip disrupting chain of events seriously when it surfaced before we left. I am also not particularly happy about the way she was dealt with when we tried to have that symptom addressed at the original shop before we left (recommended treatment for a blister caused by a ski boot - buckle boots tighter and/or duct tape foot (how can the latter be a long term solution? Aware it does in a pinch)).


I am fully aware boots do not fit all the time (I dread the day I need new ones) and that miss fitted boots are not always a case of fault. This was a really hard to diagnose problem. The shop that finally figured it out on our trip had her iterate through 4 solid days of shell and liner mods with the original boots before the “real” issue became clear and seems to have been solved with new boots. That said, I would think an excellent boot fitter might be expected to have diagnosed the problem in the first instance and not created 5 days of cleanup work, our standard trip day saw my wife grimacing in pain and an après visit to the local shop.

So, Pugski, what is the right outcome here? At a bare minimum, I would recommend anyone I was friends with in real life stay far away from the original store for what it’s worth (reduced but not fully resolved by a refund). I am not sure if I’m out of line pushing for a (full or partial) refund in this case. I think but am not sure the original shop does guarantee fits so I am in some sense entitled to one but I am conflicted about pursuing it (due to passage of time/not giving them a chance to solve it (though that would not have been practical here)).

Advice?

 

[cantunamunch]

So, Pugski, what is the right outcome here? ...

Advice?

Whatever else, do recommend the pants off the store that actually diagnosed and sorted your problem. Up to you if you wish to share details and symptoms of what led up to it.

 

[AngryAnalyst]

Whatever else, do recommend the pants off the store that actually diagnosed and sorted your problem. Up to you if you wish to share details and symptoms of what led up to it.

That one’s easy. Concept Pro in Chamonix.
https://www.conceptproshopchamonix.com/

The boot fitters we worked with are both named Nicholas and I think both Swedes. Less sure about the second part.

Judging from the clientele (mix of expat guides and visitors), they are the go to in the Chamonix valley if you speak English better than French. Our experience with them was great. Shop also does great tunes if your skis have been assaulted by the alpine rocks or simply left too sharp past the rocker line by an overzealous tech.

 

[fatbob]

Really hard to know whether you have a legit gripe or not without details. The initial fit cna only ever be as good as the feedback the customer gives and some problems may not manifest until the boot is being skied. So if you had the boot initially fitted by a lowland ski shop then maybe they were limited in what they could do. And buckling tighter might be a valid solution to blister causing if the blisters are forming from the slop of movement.

 

[cantunamunch]

The initial fit cna only ever be as good as the feedback the customer gives

This is absolutely true - and also true now on an incident scale - I think the original fit shop needs to get feedback on the fit they did and the consequences. After that, it becomes a matter of tone.

 

[AngryAnalyst]

Really hard to know whether you have a legit gripe or not without details. The initial fit cna only ever be as good as the feedback the customer gives and some problems may not manifest until the boot is being skied. So if you had the boot initially fitted by a lowland ski shop then maybe they were limited in what they could do. And buckling tighter might be a valid solution to blister causing if the blisters are forming from the slop of movement.

Fair point. Here are the broad strokes:
1. A shop in Vermont fitted the boots, my wife skied on them the entire season to see if there were problems. Call the shop Vermont Shop #1.

2. My wife was advised she had easy to fit size 24.5 feet, so there was fairly minimal punching or other custom work done at the initial purchase.

3. Despite having “easy to fit” feet my wife’s left foot is apparently somewhat smaller than her right. She had unskiable amounts of slop day one. Different Vermont shop (Vermont Shop #2) put some shims under the foot bed. Slop reduced but not gone.

4. Revisit original shop (Vermont Shop #1) after 3 ski days. Butterfly shim put on back of boot. Wife’s foot gets cold due to lack of circulation.

5. Visit new shop in Boston (Boston #1) after 5 ski days, they diagnose cold left foot as due to overly tight fit and remove some material from shim. Also cut the liner a bit (which is annoying but not a big deal).

6. Wife skis boot downhill without issue for 1-2 months (probably 7 days).

7. We go touring for first time in Vermont (these are AT boots) and wife develops large blister on left foot. Is advised to tighten buckles and duct tape foot by Vermont Shop #1. This seemed dumb to me as a long term solution.

8. Go to Chamonix and ski a day. Visit Swedish bootfitters. They make the reasonable seeming inference that she needs a size 24 liner for her left foot to stop her heel lifting (how is this a hard leap of deductive logic?).

9. New liner is unbearably painful despite heat molding. Nicholas #1 creates extra space.

10. Even with extra space, liner is unbearably painful. Nicholas #1 molds the shell next day.

11. With shell mod and new liner, boot fits but the cooking process on the Grilamid plastic seems to have reduced flex. Also some toe box tightness.

12. Nicholas #2 tries to fix the boot with some cork under the foot to correct for my wife’s very tight Achilles. Turns out my wife has skied at a high level for over 20 years thinking you’re supposed to lift your heel and this doesn’t matter much for downhill skiing on firm snow, but it does mean you will get blisters if you walk uphill very predictably. Perhaps also responsible for her being a bit slower than I am through moguls?

13. Finally convince Nick #2 to give up on the old shell after a day of skiing (we were soft pushing for new boots since step 10 but the Nicks’ were trying hard to engineer a solution that saved money...I do wish I had pushed harder for new boots earlier as they cost much less than a day of this vacation and I was at no point telling them to save me money) and buy new ones. In contrast to Vermont Shop #1, Nick says my wife has high volume feet for a size 24 liner and a restricted shell selection.

14. We walk into the sunset in new boots, hopefully happily ever after but haven’t yet had a chance to ski in them. I have left out the large number of blisters my wife developed in France, but there were several.

A couple of points stick out to me:
1. Why didn’t anyone mention liners? At no point did I indicate a preference to save money (really, nobody recommended them earlier than Nick #1).

2. Obviously 24.5 smaller liners are creating the heel lift, a wider lasted shell with thicker liners produced a much better fit. Is there some reason this is not an obvious solution?

3. I understand that my wife’s belief boots are supposed to let you lift your heel makes noticing the problem hard so I would be much more sympathetic if Vermont Shop #1 had engaged with her instead of attributing heel lift caused blisters to inadequate buckle tightness in step 7.

4. Somehow Nicholas the First and Nicholas the Second figured out my wife’s problem despite bad feedback.

At the very least, I feel comfortable saying Vermont Shop #1 is objectively worse at bootfitting than the Nicholas’s are. That seems like useful information for the world to have. Posting it with proper nouns seems slightly anti-social to me but it is fair in a way.

 

[LiquidFeet]

@AngryAnalyst, this is a hard call.

I had a very bad experience buying a pair of boots with a shop in NH that has an exceptional reputation among high end skiers and racers. The bootfitter responsible for putting me in that boot is a highly trained and certified bootfitter who receives kudos from all kinds of skiers. When replacing that two-sizes-too-big boot, I had another very bad experience with a different master bootfitter who has an even higher reputation among New England instructors.

In both cases, the relationship between these guys and me deteriorated as I ended up going back for mods, since the boots were the wrong boots for me, they advertised a guaranteed fit, and it took time for the problems to show up. I have not and will not post the specifics of who they are.

I know both these bootfitters do excellent work for other skiers who will come to their defense. That's understandable because their experience is different. I think this just happens for whatever reason.

You know how people like to say that skiing is inherently risky? Same thing goes for buying boots.

 

[fatbob]

12. Nicholas #2 tries to fix the boot with some cork under the foot to correct for my wife’s very tight Achilles. Turns out my wife has skied at a high level for over 20 years thinking you’re supposed to lift your heel and this doesn’t matter much for downhill skiing on firm snow, but it does mean you will get blisters if you walk uphill very predictably. Perhaps also responsible for her being a bit slower than I am through moguls?
.

Not trying to be an arse here BUT this seems very much relevant to the question of whether a bootfitter did a good job or not. Is it reasonable that a shop will assume that a seasoned skier of 20+ years will know that the heel should be held securely and be able to give feedback if not? My opinion doesn't matter and clearly you have made your mind up as you have a right to do but reading the long list this jumped out at me as the point of causation. It doen't strike me that the Cham guys hit the solution quickly or easily - was the original store given that much time?

 

[AngryAnalyst]

Not trying to be an arse here BUT this seems very much relevant to the question of whether a bootfitter did a good job or not. Is it reasonable that a shop will assume that a seasoned skier of 20+ years will know that the heel should be held securely and be able to give feedback if not? My opinion doesn't matter and clearly you have made your mind up as you have a right to do but reading the long list this jumped out at me as the point of causation. It doen't strike me that the Cham guys hit the solution quickly or easily - was the original store given that much time?

Well, we were in there twice post purchase. If they had taken the issue seriously the second time they might have been able to get a third visit the following day. Do you think 10 minutes with my wife and telling her to buckle up and duct tape is a serious attempt at problem solving?

Also wrong liner size was an ab initio problem.

Completely agree this was a hard problem and not an expected “failure mode” for the the fit. Whatever you may think I have not made up my mind about what to do about it. Now,I am sure for myself they missed up. I am not sure if it is a bad screw up or not. If you think nobody could reasonably have noticed the problem that is obviously not true - somebody else did notice it.

 

[cantunamunch]

Whatever you may think I have not made up my mind about what to do about it. Now,I am sure for myself they missed up. I am not sure if it is a bad screw up or not. If you think nobody could reasonably have noticed the problem that is obviously not true - somebody else did notice it.

At the very minimum, you should calmly tell the person in charge at the 'duct tape' shop what happened and why you are sore at the work his shop did. He might stand on his pride and tell you that shell fit problems shouldn't be fixed at the liner, he might be apologetic or a jerk about it, but you should not leave it without the shop knowing the outcome.

 

[fatbob]

I must admit that I'm still confused a 24.0 and 24.5 liner are very likely the same size (unless the particular brand breaks on the full size). Evryone has slightldifferent sized feet - very few shops offer different boots for each one because of cost prohibition. I think if you really want the best fit regardless of how much stuff you have to buy you need to state that upfront - rightly most shops will try to fit a single customer from a single pair of boots.

 

[SBrown]

I must admit that I'm still confused a 24.0 and 24.5 liner are very likely the same size (unless the particular brand breaks on the full size). ...

Yeah, exactly what kind of liners are we talking about here? I think you are more likely to find differing fits in different brands and models of liners of the same size, it isn't one size across the board. I have allll the liners, and even the same size Intuition in different models fits my foot and fills my boot differently. So no, liner size is not an intuitive fix, at all.

 

[LiquidFeet]

It should not matter that the buyer doesn't know as much about liners in general as the bootfitter/seller.
The buyer tried to get a functional modification from the seller, and that didn't happen.
The suggestion by the shop that sold you the boots that YOU should apply duct tape and buckle tighter is a sign that the guaranteed fit is missing and the shop employee is ignoring that responsibility.

 

[AngryAnalyst]

I must admit that I'm still confused a 24.0 and 24.5 liner are very likely the same size (unless the particular brand breaks on the full size). Evryone has slightldifferent sized feet - very few shops offer different boots for each one because of cost prohibition. I think if you really want the best fit regardless of how much stuff you have to buy you need to state that upfront - rightly most shops will try to fit a single customer from a single pair of boots.

Ah, I may be doing a poor job of explaining then (or I may misunderstand something). I think the difference between most brands 24 and 24.5 is liner thickness, not shell size. My wife was sold a shell that is a very slim fit last which worked (I think) because she had a thinner 24.5 liner in it instead of a thicker 24 liner.

I dot not expect to be sold two different liners or shells for the obvious reason you point out. I do expect someone to realize when part of why a boot is fitting poorly is a too thin liner.

Am I misunderstanding how boots work? Incidentally, it is probably easier at initial sale to sell everyone the thinner liner in a given shell size.

Also, I thought Lange shells broke on full size as did almost all brands other than Scarpa (her replacement 24 Nordica is a single mm smaller than the 24.5 Lange).

 

[AngryAnalyst]

Yeah, exactly what kind of liners are we talking about here? I think you are more likely to find differing fits in different brands and models of liners of the same size, it isn't one size across the board. I have allll the liners, and even the same size Intuition in different models fits my foot and fills my boot differently. So no, liner size is not an intuitive fix, at all.

I’m imagining something like an intuition liner would have thicker foam and do a better job of heal retention, as well as rendering shims redundant. Step 8 was written as a size 24 liner, a more complete description is a size 24 Palau liner (which seems rather like a French intuition but I know nothing else about it).

 

[Tricia]

12. Nicholas #2 tries to fix the boot with some cork under the foot to correct for my wife’s very tight Achilles. Turns out my wife has skied at a high level for over 20 years thinking you’re supposed to lift your heel and this doesn’t matter much for downhill skiing on firm snow, but it does mean you will get blisters if you walk uphill very predictably. Perhaps also responsible for her being a bit slower than I am through moguls?

For clarification
Do you mean she thinks you're supposed to have a heel lift, or that you're supposed to be able to lift your heel?

 

[AngryAnalyst]

Just because it seems to have become a major point of contention and is not really a primary point in my mind:
The size 24 vs 24.5 is because I assumed almost all brands shells broke on the full size. No specific knowledge of Lange shells. I assume a thicker liner would have reduced heal movement and, in fact, the thicker liner when purchased in France did exactly that. It just made the shell not fit as well.

 

[AngryAnalyst]

For clarification
Do you mean she thinks you're supposed to have a heel lift, or that you're supposed to be able to lift your heel?

The weird one - be able to lift your heel by putting your weight forward (incidentally, I doubt I could ski if I could do that in my boots).

 

[LewyM]

Is the shell fit actually "wrong?" If yes, then it is fair to be annoyed with the original shop. If not, I'd hold your fire - boot fitting is complex and can be a multi-visit, full season process. But I agree, suggesting duct tape as a remedy without addressing the shell or asking more questions is lazy.

It is easy to know if the shell is too big by just popping out the liners and doing some investigation with a flashlight. If the shell is basically the right length, basically the right shape, it should be assumed that some work is required to get it dialed in. But it the shell fit is in reasonable range, you don't really have solid ground to be asking for any more than continued work - or ultimately a swap with the original shop.

If the problem is a slipping heel, and the shell fit is reasonable, that could mean that a design with a tighter heel cup is better. But that is feedback that the skier needs to give the fitter - there is data that a fitter can obtain by sheer observation, but even a great fitter will not assume that there is a problem in the heel pocket if the shell fit appears in reasonable range and that feedback isn't provided.

I don't really know about the liner theory. Liners pack out over time and are highly variable in size as @SBrown said above. I view liners as an enhancement, additive to performance but never the "correction" to a fit problem. They can, however, make things worse if the solution is a mismatch for the situation. But usually, what matters is the shell fit and the work to adapt the shell. If that is sorted out, after-market liners, adjustments to stock liners, all work great. If not, no liner will solve fit problems.

Ultimately, great boot fitting is requires active listening (by the fitter) and precise feedback from the skier. If either of those elements are missing, if the chemistry isn't right, the odds of success diminish.

 

[AngryAnalyst]

Is the shell fit actually "wrong?" If yes, then it is fair to be annoyed with the original shop. If not, I'd hold your fire - boot fitting is complex and can be a multi-visit, full season process. But I agree, suggesting duct tape as a remedy without addressing the shell or asking more questions is lazy.

It is easy to know if the shell is too big by just popping out the liners and doing some investigation with a flashlight. If the shell is basically the right length, basically the right shape, it should be assumed that some work is required to get it dialed in. But it the shell fit is in reasonable range, you don't really have solid ground to be asking for any more than continued work - or ultimately a swap with the original shop.

If the problem is a slipping heel, and the shell fit is reasonable, that could mean that a design with a tighter heel cup is better. But that is feedback that the skier needs to give the fitter - there is data that a fitter can obtain by sheer observation, but even a great fitter will not assume that there is a problem in the heel pocket if the shell fit appears in reasonable range and that feedback isn't provided.

I don't really know about the liner theory. Liners pack out over time and are highly variable in size as @SBrown said above. I view liners as an enhancement, additive to performance but never the "correction" to a fit problem. They can, however, make things worse if the solution is a mismatch for the situation. But usually, what matters is the shell fit and the work to adapt the shell. If that is sorted out, after-market liners, adjustments to stock liners, all work great. If not, no liner will solve fit problems.

Ultimately, great boot fitting is requires active listening (by the fitter) and precise feedback from the skier. If either of those elements are missing, if the chemistry isn't right, the odds of success diminish.

It’s sort of both - getting her heel to stay down in the original shell required a liner too thick for the shell to accommodate simultaneously with her foot. A wider shell allowed the liner that kept her foot down to peacefully coexist with her foot.