Snow and ski - AT Boot fit

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In article ,
Ryan Pfleger wrote:
This Christmas Santa Claus left me with a pair of Garmont Mega Rides.
However anytime I am faced with a footwear sizing decision i am also
inevitably paralyzed with fear at screwing it up somehow. I guess I've been
burned too many times in the past with poor fitting boots that I'm maybe a
little overly paranoid when it comes to fitting. These boots come with the
thermoformable G-Fit liners, and I haven't baked them yet because I'm a
little unsure about the sizing. I've been wearing them around the house for
a pretty fair amount of time over the last couple days. The shells seem to
fit fine. I have about a finger and a half width of room in the heel of the
boot with my toes at the front.

_ That seems a bit big to me. I don't know how big your fingers
are though. The Garmont liners don't take up excess space well,
so it's important to get a really good shell fit. You should be
using a dowel to check with anyway, if you can get your hand in
there the shell's way too big. You want 3/8 - 1/2 an inch of
space in the shell and the shell should roughly fit the shape
of your foot.

With liners my right foot feels pretty
good, length is good, a slight hotspot on the inside of my ankle bone, and a
little bit too much room in the heel.

_ This is possiblely a symptom of too big a shell.

With the buckles locked down its
absolutely impossible for me to squirm my toes to the front of the boot(but
plenty of wiggle room), kicking the steps as hard as I dare (for fear of
breaking the indoor steps (I don't want to wear the boots outside yet),
still leaves me with enough toe clearance on the right side. On the left
side with the liners in I have the same hotspot at the inside of the ankle
bone, a little bit too much room in the heel again, and a couple additional
problems: the width across the ball of my foot feels a little tight, and the
biggest problem is toe room lengthwise. Skiing would ok, but walking
downhill and kicking steps etc, my toes would be hitting the front of the
boot.

_ While it may seem counterintiutive a smaller shell can actually
help with this as it will lock the foot in place and keep it from
sliding forward. Wiggle room is easy to create with thermoform
liners. Your feet should not be sliding that much in the boot.

I replaced the stock insoles with superfeet and that helped a little
(I have high arches and without the extra arch support my feet elongate a
lot when they're weighted). I don't have enough experience with the
thermoformable liners to know. If I bake these liners, I think the ankle
hotspots and the too roomy heels will probably disappear.

_ The hotspots yes, roomy heels is questionable. Thermofit liners
are much better at squishing than expanding and the shell locks
your heel down. IMHO, heel fit is the place to start, everything
else can be easily fixed. Heel fit is the one place that's hard
to retrofit, I've learned over the years to never leave the shop
with a pair of boots that have any heel lift. It just gets worse
as the liners pack out and fixing it requires a lot of work. It
may very well be that you don't have a Garmont shaped foot and
you might be better off in other boots.

The big question
is will I be able to eke out enough extra length in the toes of that left
foot? I read the baking guide on telemarktips.com and it talks about
getting extra toe width. What about length?

_ You can't really get much if any extra length via a thermofit,
maybe a 1/4 an inch at most. The only good way to get extra
length is to put a wedge under your heel. This will tighten up
the fit in the heel and effectively shorten the length of the
foot in the boot.

Also, if I go a half size
bigger to 27.5 Garmont's shell is still the same, the only thing that
changes is the liner. Does the liner size really make that much of a
difference with the thermo-flex liners?

_ I THINK the liners only come in Metric whole sizes. ( ie. 24,
25, 26... and IMHO you need to be looking a the next size smaller
shell. At least try it on to see if it's totally out of the question.

Anyway, like I said the right boot
feels pretty darn good so I'm not certain I want to change anything size
wise there.

Any advice?

_ I'd shell out some money to a real bootfitter and have them
build you some custom insoles and double check the fit of the
shell. From everything you've said it sounds like the shell is a
bit too big to me. Also, from what I've heard the Garmont liners
can be a bit tricky to get the thermoforming just right, you
might be better off doing that in the shop rather than your
stove. While is possible and relatively easy to do the thermofit
at home on a stove with the intituition liners, it's also pretty
easy to ruin a pair of liners that way as well.

_ Be cheap everywhere but your feet. If you get these boots
right they should last you 6-10 years.

_ Lastly, if whatever reason a custom insole and bootfitter
is out of your budget, these insoles are probably the best
you can do short of a true cork custom insole. I've been using
in my skates and they work pretty well.

http://www.itsyoursole.com/

_ For skiing make sure you get the ones with the thin padding
layer not the thick one. You can't really do useful things with
boot fitting until you get the insole down.

_ Booker C. Bense

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