A little sore about misfit boots

[SBrown]

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).

Depends on which Intuition. I have a pair of medium-volume Pro Tours that I can't use because while they do take up the space I needed them to, they are too bulky in the heel and push me up in the boot to where I feel like I'm in high heels when skiing. It's horrible. But I have used lower-volume Intuitions in the past to great effect.

 

[AngryAnalyst]

Depends on which Intuition. I have a pair of medium-volume Pro Tours that I can't use because while they do take up the space I needed them to, they are too bulky in the heel and push me up in the boot to where I feel like I'm in high heels when skiing. It's horrible. But I have used lower-volume Intuitions in the past to great effect.

Fair point - I’m not attempting to represent myself as some kind of liner or boot fitting expert. If you’re saying liners in general are not a decent alternative to shims or a potential solution to heel lift I’m confused because higher volume liners and shims really do fairly similar things in my simplistic understanding. I am about 100% sure this particular liner helped with heel retention because my wife said it did (and it is being used with the new boots) but if you’re saying they don’t in general I would be interested to know that.

 

[fatbob]

An industry pro may be able to comment but AIUI the difference between a 24 and 24.5 size stock liner for a given pair of boots may be as little as a cardboard spacer under the footbed in the smaller size. Which is why few bootfitters stock boots in half sizes.

Clearly going to an aftermarket liner might have a significant effect but then customer reaction is different - there are those that accept that stock liners should just be scrapped and those resistant to what seems like a blatant upsell and many more in the middle - they accept stock liners may have some limitations but still with boot cost being what it is aren't going to add $300 on top. Maybe the learning point is to communicate how open your wallet is at the initial fitting. & that requires that you trust the fitter implicitly.

 

[AngryAnalyst]

An industry pro may be able to comment but AIUI the difference between a 24 and 24.5 size stock liner for a given pair of boots may be as little as a cardboard spacer under the footbed in the smaller size. Which is why few bootfitters stock boots in half sizes.

Clearly going to an aftermarket liner might have a significant effect but then customer reaction is different - there are those that accept that stock liners should just be scrapped and those resistant to what seems like a blatant upsell and many more in the middle - they accept stock liners may have some limitations but still with boot cost being what it is aren't going to add $300 on top. Maybe the learning point is to communicate how open your wallet is at the initial fitting. & that requires that you trust the fitter implicitly.

Fair point. I too would be interested to know the difference in half sizes.

Next time I have a fit issue like this I will ask, forcefully, would liners fix it as opposed to waiting for a suggestion of them. Partly I am not sure (as I think I said) I know enough to tell you whether liners would fix it in general.

I am basically price insensitive to boots. My own feet are hard enough to fit I am seriously considering a purpose specific trip to the guy who set me up with my current pair when they break on the other side of the country. I understand the commercial point - but I at no point in time ever indicated I was interested in saving money on this. Maybe the lesson for the fitter is an expensive suggestion I might dislike would be better than letting someone else make the same expensive suggestion, discover I am amenable to it, and that the boot cannot be fitted with the the expensive new liner that actually solves the problem.

I am not sure whether a comfort guarantee conceptually extends to giving me an aftermarket liner if it is necessary for comfort, but I would be happy to ignore the question in actual fact if it was offered as a sure solution to the problem.

 

[AmyPJ]

So, has she skied the new boots fitted by the Swedes? If not, how do you know that those aren't going to have their own issues?

 

[James]

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.

Nice to know.
I'd recommend SoleLab in Chamonix, Steve the owner. It's on the Aiguille du Midi street just over the bridge back behind the storefronts. English is the first language there.
His footbed did wonders for me and I've had probabaly a dozen and a half over the years.

Also wrong liner size was an ab initio problem.

Yeah that's wrong. It would only be wrong shell size. Or wrong shell for your foot. The smaller size for each boot may or may not have a spacer. The spacer is like 1/16-3/32 thick. It may though, be exactly the same. That's right, zero difference between liners.
Hell, Lange only makes one upper cuff for 26 and 27 boots for their plugs. I assume RS's and others are similar.

I am not sure whether a comfort guarantee conceptually extends to giving me an aftermarket liner if it is necessary for comfort, but I would be happy to ignore the question in actual fact if it was

It doesn't. I mean legally? Who knows. Practically I've never heard of such a thing. The boot would be wrong, you'd start over.

There's a lot going on in the scenario. Not the least of which is thinking one should have heel lift.

How different are the feet? Possibly you'd go to the next shell size down. This would require major work.

I know SoleLab loves grilamid. They have no issues stretching it. I asked, but since it wasn't relevant to what I was doing didn't get into it heavily.

So, has she skied the new boots fitted by the Swedes? If not, how do you know that those aren't going to have their own issues?

Exactly.

What was done for the foot bed??

 

[Chef23]

Fair point. I too would be interested to know the difference in half sizes.

Next time I have a fit issue like this I will ask, forcefully, would liners fix it as opposed to waiting for a suggestion of them. Partly I am not sure (as I think I said) I know enough to tell you whether liners would fix it in general.

I am basically price insensitive to boots. My own feet are hard enough to fit I am seriously considering a purpose specific trip to the guy who set me up with my current pair when they break on the other side of the country. I understand the commercial point - but I at no point in time ever indicated I was interested in saving money on this. Maybe the lesson for the fitter is an expensive suggestion I might dislike would be better than letting someone else make the same expensive suggestion, discover I am amenable to it, and that the boot cannot be fitted with the the expensive new liner that actually solves the problem.

I am not sure whether a comfort guarantee conceptually extends to giving me an aftermarket liner if it is necessary for comfort, but I would be happy to ignore the question in actual fact if it was offered as a sure solution to the problem.

Generally the difference in half sizes is the thickness of the stock foot bed not the liner thickness the shell and liner are the same they just have different footbeds. That is why usually shops only stock half sizes and if you have custom footbeds it doesn't really matter

 

[SBrown]

Fair point - I’m not attempting to represent myself as some kind of liner or boot fitting expert. If you’re saying liners in general are not a decent alternative to shims or a potential solution to heel lift I’m confused because higher volume liners and shims really do fairly similar things in my simplistic understanding. I am about 100% sure this particular liner helped with heel retention because my wife said it did (and it is being used with the new boots) but if you’re saying they don’t in general I would be interested to know that.

No, I am not saying that at all. I'm saying that changing the liner size is not the obvious fix you seemed to think it was. In bootfitting, very little is obvious.

 

[James]

That piece on the right is what came with a Lange plug to take it from 27.5 to 27.0. Maybe 1/16 thick. The liner itself is exactly the same.

The position you're in now is the boots fit in the store from the Swedes but haven't been onhill? Wasn't that the same in the beginning?

 

[François Pugh]

I'm no boot fitter, but here's my 2 cents:
1. The first question asked by the boot fitter after the foot is in the boot for a try-on and the fittee is encouraged to walk around and flex the boot, in my experience, other than where are the tight spots and does it hurt anywhere, is,"Does you heel lift up?"
2. It sounds like a too big boot was used, instead of doing a ton of work on a smaller boot, but all my experience is with downhill boots, AT may be different/harder to fit.
3. A boot fit guarantee in my experience just means you can keep wasting your time (and gas money) returning for adjustments until you die of old age or just give up (I gave up after a half dozen trips).

 

[Erik Timmerman]

Next time I have a fit issue like this I will ask, forcefully, would liners fix it as opposed to waiting for a suggestion of them. Partly I am not sure (as I think I said) I know enough to tell you whether liners would fix it in general.

I'd be surprised if any boot fitter would say anything more than "maybe".

 

[markojp]

Honestly, it sounds like th Swedish guys were sort of stumbling around in the dark as well. Next time you're in Chamonix, find Jules Mills. He's the very real deal.

All the other stuff, different sized feet (this is common) that let the fitter (perhaps) to fit the large foot instead of the small. Wife skis for awhile, liners pack out, small foot is swimming. Boots should be fit to the smaller foot, and space made for the larger as necessary if performance is important. Duct tape is absolutely awful for dealing with blisters. I'm surprised this was suggested. The Swedish 'smaller liner' on the small foot doesn't fix the fact that the shell might still be too big, or the heel simply has too much volume for the shape of her leg. It's really hard to say from a keyboard without eyes on what the deal is, but on the observation that your wife has been lifting her heels in her boots and it doesn't hurt her skiing.... it does. She's just excellent at compensating which speaks much about her general athletic ability to sort that out going forward if she's interested. Other than that, there are really just too many unknowns here to diagnose. Hopefully you can find the right fitter to sort things out. Anything else is like asking for a trim and a shave over the internet.

 

[markojp]

I must admit that I'm still confused a 24.0 and 24.5 liner are very likely the same size .

Unless they're Scarpa AT boots.... This all matters.

 

[AngryAnalyst]

So, has she skied the new boots fitted by the Swedes? If not, how do you know that those aren't going to have their own issues?

She hasn’t and I don’t. I do know she was able to walk a mile in them back to the hotel without pain or heel lift which was a big improvement (she kept the fancy new liners so they came a bit packed out).

 

[AngryAnalyst]

No, I am not saying that at all. I'm saying that changing the liner size is not the obvious fix you seemed to think it was. In bootfitting, very little is obvious.

Was it obvious to me? Clearly not. Could it have been obvious to a trained professional? I don’t know, but I think so. It doesn’t seem particularly occult.

 

[AngryAnalyst]

Nice to know.
I'd recommend SoleLab in Chamonix, Steve the owner. It's on the Aiguille du Midi street just over the bridge back behind the storefronts. English is the first language there.
His footbed did wonders for me and I've had probabaly a dozen and a half over the years.


Yeah that's wrong. It would only be wrong shell size. Or wrong shell for your foot. The smaller size for each boot may or may not have a spacer. The spacer is like 1/16-3/32 thick. It may though, be exactly the same. That's right, zero difference between liners.
Hell, Lange only makes one upper cuff for 26 and 27 boots for their plugs. I assume RS's and others are similar.


It doesn't. I mean legally? Who knows. Practically I've never heard of such a thing. The boot would be wrong, you'd start over.

There's a lot going on in the scenario. Not the least of which is thinking one should have heel lift.

How different are the feet? Possibly you'd go to the next shell size down. This would require major work.

I know SoleLab loves grilamid. They have no issues stretching it. I asked, but since it wasn't relevant to what I was doing didn't get into it heavily.


Exactly.

What was done for the foot bed??

Thanks for info on liners. Learned something new. Always buy the shell break size.

I was mostly joking about a comfort guarantee including an aftermarket liner (though the name does seem to suggest it?). Does it usually include returns of boot can’t be fitted?

Concept Pro did a great job on my boots - was super impressed by their ability to stretch my own Grilamid boots. Something about everyone there using touring boots I think means they figured it out faster than anyone else I’ve been too.

I don’t recall off hand how different her feet were. I do know the right foot was always comfortable, the left never. We kept the original footbeds so (from the boots that never fit) so there was improvement.

 

[AngryAnalyst]

View attachment 69002
That piece on the right is what came with a Lange plug to take it from 27.5 to 27.0. Maybe 1/16 thick. The liner itself is exactly the same.

The position you're in now is the boots fit in the store from the Swedes but haven't been onhill? Wasn't that the same in the beginning?

Not really - first go around we had them hill for somewhere between 10-15 days before this problem surfaced when we tried hiking. This time we tried walking first. I am aware this is not an ideal controlled test but (1) our trip was over and we needed to fly home and (2) I am honestly not sure where I would rebuy boots from that is within a 3 hour drive of my house at this point (I have about two shops I’d be willing to try based on recs from this board, part of the issue is not a lot of people seem to work with Grilamid in New England).

Honestly, it sounds like th Swedish guys were sort of stumbling around in the dark as well. Next time you're in Chamonix, find Jules Mills. He's the very real deal.

All the other stuff, different sized feet (this is common) that let the fitter (perhaps) to fit the large foot instead of the small. Wife skis for awhile, liners pack out, small foot is swimming. Boots should be fit to the smaller foot, and space made for the larger as necessary if performance is important. Duct tape is absolutely awful for dealing with blisters. I'm surprised this was suggested. The Swedish 'smaller liner' on the small foot doesn't fix the fact that the shell might still be too big, or the heel simply has too much volume for the shape of her leg. It's really hard to say from a keyboard without eyes on what the deal is, but on the observation that your wife has been lifting her heels in her boots and it doesn't hurt her skiing.... it does. She's just excellent at compensating which speaks much about her general athletic ability to sort that out going forward if she's interested. Other than that, there are really just too many unknowns here to diagnose. Hopefully you can find the right fitter to sort things out. Anything else is like asking for a trim and a shave over the internet.

I understand it sounds like they were bumbling around. I confess in the middle of it I started wondering if they were the smartest bootfitters I had ever worked with or the dumbest given the amount of time that went into the first set of boots. I am not sure I have a definitive answer to the question unfortunately but they did notice something nobody else thought to ask about (heel lift) and I will say they managed to produce different failure modes every day for my wife (so they were changing the boots). My perception of them as highly competent stems in part from an excellent punch they did on my own AT boots which finally made them fit and they got it first try. No idea how they comp to Jules but I’ll keep the name in mind in case I need services again there.

The issue wasn’t really liner packing out significantly because the fit problems on left foot started end of day 1.

To be clear, I was not intending to endorse the view the heel lift didn’t matter (her skiing has had heretofore inexplicable quirks that I’m wondering about in light of new info). I am looking forward to seeing if the right boot makes her skiing even better. The uphill problem was more acute because it’s easy to notice blisters.

 

[markojp]

Jules does 'civilian' fitting in the fall and winter, and works with several WC athletes during the spring/summer. He worked for Lange doing race boot development and now does the same with Salomon. Sidas also flies him around across oceans to do boot fit clinics.

 

[James]

Jules does 'civilian' fitting in the fall and winter, and works with several WC athletes during the spring/summer. He worked for Lange doing race boot development and now does the same with Salomon. Sidas also flies him around across oceans to do boot fit clinics.

Where does he work in Chamonix?
It's a small world. Steve at Solelab has equipment from Sidas when they moved the factory. Works with Salomon also. He also has a unique, or one of two and very expensive, alignment machine built for Sidas that he almost never uses anymore.

 

[fatbob]

Where does he work in Chamonix?
It's a small world. Steve at Solelab has equipment from Sidas when they moved the factory. Works with Salomon also. He also has a unique, or one of two and very expensive, alignment machine built for Sidas that he almost never uses anymore.

He used to have a small place on the Rue du Moulin I think but I don't think it's there anymore. Steve and Jules know each other very well I am led to understand and at times have been best buddies/mentor/protege and at others fallen out masively.