I failed to get video this weekend, but I made an interesting discovery/observation.
I loosened my boots. A lot. Well, relatively. The uppers that is. THe lower two buckles I've always had at nominal pressure as I am 2 sizes down from street shoes and I feel it. No pain, but definitely snug. Tightening the lowers would be pointless to unpleasant.
But I've always torqued down on the two upper trying to get decent fit around my very low volume instep and ankle.
However, my right foot was hurting and cramping and I loosened both boots up to the point that I had pretty much no contact at the shin. I could stick my index finger into the top of my boot. It was snug, but there was room for the finger. To be clear, this is fore/aft. Laterally, the boot fits relatively snugly at the ankle bones even if I don't latch it at all.
I was really worried that this would make the boot sloppy and give me trouble controlling my skis.
Not only did I not lack control, on MOL flat terrain, I could ease into the front of my boots and keep a more or less neutral, or even slightly forward position. Due to the abundance of cat tracks on Heavenly's NV side, I had lots of opportunities to experience this.
On steeper terrain I felt just fine like this. Very neutral. It was moderately deep powder to big soft bumps at Heavenly this weekend, so I wasn't really trying to stomp on the shovels anyway. I do think this would have been harder to do with the boots looser like this. Next weekend should be firmer, so I will see how that goes.
I am reading this to mean that I need more forward lean to the boots?
Remember, these are heat moldable boots and I had them molded with a fairly upright stance. But it also means they can be remolded to a more forward stance. I need to remold anyway, as the canting on my right leg has slowly been coming back toward neutral over the last few months.
So, do you read my experience the same way? How important is it for the fore/aft to be snug? Am i going to struggle on firmer conditions because of this? Or have I found an obvious, or even unlikely, solution? Should I remold with more forward lean, or just keep skiing with them "loose"?