Walt wrote in
:

Mike wrote:
I just had 3 days skiing at Mt Hutt, NZ. I wasn't skiing as well as
'05 and am doing a post mortem on that.

Last year I had rental boots and I had 1 shin blister. It didn't
even really affect me. This year I am skiing with my mail order
Langes and they were so bad it really affected my performance. These
Lange comp 120 fr medium fit have some heat fitting process which I
never got around to.

Was I not buckling the boots hard enough and hence slipping around?
I've skied for 35 years and only these last two times have seen this
come up. I've skied in raichlë and dolomites: no prob. I checked
out a medical manual, and it said that people with suntans are more
likely to bruise, which I have been doing pre trip both times.

So what gives? Is it all down hill from age 40 on?

Read what VTSkier and Moonman have said. The bottom line is that no
one can ski worth crap in poorly fitting boots. I certainly can't.
(Now, whether I can ski worth crap in properly fitting boots is beyond
the scope of this reply.) And you can't buy boots by mail and expect
them to fit well.

What they all said.

I'll add a data point: I have that boot, or its close cousin (not sure
about the fr medium fit bit), not purchased via mailorder: I tried it in
the store to make sure I was in the right ballpark. The plan all along
was to go to a highly recommended bootfitter and spend the time and
money to get them properly fitted, but I just had to try them in out-of-
the-box state first, just to prove to myself that bootfitting is worth
the money. Result: the performance was intoxicating and addictive, but
oh, mamma, the pain. It's a real performer of a boot, but it's also
very demanding.

Soooo...a new pair of footbeds and a buncha grinding later, and they
look like they'll be somewhere on the tolerable-to-good scale, although
I won't really know until we've got some snow again -- I tried them on
the last day of the season that I'd want to do any skiing, when
everything was melting as fast as it possibly could, and I didn't do any
skiing for fun after that.

So, go find a bootfitter, but not just a "decent" one -- go to the best
one you can find.