the answer to "WTF is wrong with my boots?"

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mntlion

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by arne_and

Sorry for the newbie question, but does this apply to touring boots as well? Having only 2.5mm room in front of the toes and behind the heel sounds VERY tight for the uphill.?

---

yes, 2.5 mm is VERY tight, but the 5-15mm is a range. so most will be 5mm

25mm is WAY to much

---

So I finally got around to measuring the shell fit of my size 25.5 Radiums. With the foot weighted I seem to have 15 mm behind the heel when the toes are lightly touching, and perhaps 1-2 mm on either side. With the foot unweighted there is several mm more space on the sides. So for a touring fit the size sounds right to me.

When I try to buckle down the instep buckle (1) to the max tight setting while still not wearing liners, I have several cm free space above the foot. I can easily pull my foot out of the shell with this one buckle closed. This is with one very thin footboard in the shell. Is this normal? The problem I have when skiing with the stock Garmont liner is that the boot is too roomy over my foot, even though I have a thin footboard, a custom footbed in the liner, and crank down the two lower buckles all the way. I wear two pairs of thin socks, since one pair leaves me swimming.

I have also used the boots with Zipfit touring liners. In this case the foot is held nicely in place without tightening the buckles all the way. Also, they do not pack out during the day. The problem with these liners is that the heel pocket is so narrow that it causes massive blistering on touring. They are also a bit cold, but that is the case with the Garmont liners as well.


(1) I don't know if that is the right name, but I am referring to buckle two when starting count at the foremost buckle on my four buckle boot.

1) use a thin shim, under the footbed, in your garmont liners. this is keep the width about the same, just raise your foot up to fill the extra room

2) blisters usually are from movement, not pressure. movement happens when you have extra room. pressure is from tight. If the zipfits are tighter, then you should not be moving, so you should not get blisters, but you might get pressure points.

Thanks for your quick reply!

1) I have tried shimming both in the shell and in the liner, but when I shim enough to get low enough volume my big toes are squished and become painful. I tried the cut out the toe area of the shims, but this did not really help. I imagine this is because I have big toes pointing upwards, and even though there is room below them they still get pressurized. I did try to have the toe box of the shell increased at the local shop, but he was unable to increase them much (using a heat gun). It seems the Radium toe box design is not easy to work on with heat, lots of plastic there.

2) I would tend to agree, but there are definitely blisters on the insides of my heels from the Zipfits, and they are definitely narrow in the heel. So it seems my heels are wandering up and down, and the narrow heel gives more friction than the looser Garmonts. The Zipfits have lacing, but it was not enough. I'll try some heel retaining devices similar to the Dynafit ones on the next tour to see if that helps.

1) maybe a 1/2 or 3/4 shim might be better then a full one.

2) try other sock combos (2 thin ones?) to get the tightness, but no blisters. are the blisters on just the inside of the heel? better footbeds might help too

For both forward lean and heel lift issues, there are a few simple diagnostic exercises that can help you fix these issues.

First, standing in both boots with feet a little less than shoulder width apart, straighten your legs so that your knees are locked without lifting the heel of the boot off of the ground. Now, notice what happens. If you fall on your face, your boots have too much forward lean. Weight should be on balls of feet, heel should be unweighted but touching, or just hovering over the footbed. You should feel balanced, springy and solid. Now relax, bend your knees. Weight should now feel evenly distributed across the foot, with most concentrated under the mid-foot. Does your heel immediately bear weight, or drop some distance before it hits the footbed? If it drops, you need one of two things (or both). If your weight with knees locked was on your toes, or you fell on your face, you need less forward lean. If your weight w/ knees locked was on the balls of your feet and you felt relatively balanced, you need to put a heel lift in the boot to bring the footbed up to meet your heel.

Have a friend hold a plumb-bob next to you, against your shoulder (roughly in the middle of your body from front to back). With knees slightly flexed, shins touching the front of the boot, center mass should be over the mid-foot. With legs straight, knees locked, center mass should be over the ball of the foot.

Next, find something about 1 foot or so high to jump off of. Standing on top, jump off and land centered over and evenly on both feet, flat on the boot sole. Did your toe go BANG? If so, double check the shell fit...probably too long.

Lastly, standing on one foot, jump up and down landing and taking off as flat on the sole as possible. Do this 6-7 times rapidly on each foot. Pay attention to your foot inside the boot. Does it move a lot? Is it coming off of the footbed and falling back down a lot, or just weighting and unweighting? Do you fall over? If so, which way?

Use these simple exercises to get your boots set up so that you can do these exercises without feeling off balance or tentative. Not all boots can be easily adjusted for forward lean (kudos to dalbello for building so much adjustment into the kryps), so you may have to get creative. You can use the "canting" (actually cuff alignment, not true canting) bolts on some boots to actually straighten the cuff.

For example, I have stupid fat calves, so I had to bend back the rear of the upper cuff on my Dobies to get my fore-aft position right. Think about it, the thicker the calf, the more acute the delta between tib/fib and foot.

Get this right and you will have more energy, less fatigue on the hill, and feel more hero-like than a six pack of red bull can ever accomplish. Provided, of course, the buckles are on the outside......

Hope this helps.

Thanks, excellent input!

thanks W1, nice to not have to answer everything...

good tests for balance too.

No problem, happy to help. Folks can PM me if you want help working through the exercises...I can provide phone contact info if necessary.

BTW....my favorite footbed so far is the ALINE...and I am not affiliated with the company. Find it more dynamic and easier to align properly than any others I have used (and that is a fair amount). Plus, nice that it's way cheaper than customs. I have mine under my intuition liners, liners molded over them. There are arguments either way, but I find it works better for me.

None of this is a substitute for a GOOD bootfitter....GOOD being the operative word there. If your boot fitter puts everyone in plug boots and says you can't get enough forward lean, well, unless you are Bode or Daron, get a second opinion. Those of us that ski varied terrain, especially on newer, less traditionally-shaped skis, don't always benefit from a traditional race fit.

Happy fitting all!

So,spent last 2 days at the local molehill trying both boots with four (4) different liners and 3 different footbeds. And a carpet knife.

Result : It is dawning to me that the shells are too narrow. For 2 years,three different "bootfitters" have said that I have small and narrow feet. And I have believed them without thinking twice.And suffered. And now this guy from interwebs,MntTiger or something suggests that I actually might have width issues with my boots,instead of whatever...
Damn,I feel so damn stupid now...


Measured finally my feet and they are about the 97-100mm wide..
And,regardless of the liner,I had all the time problems in the outside of the foot,at the second buckle. Depending on the thickness of the liner,it was a allcompassing foot-torment or just bad pain/cramp at the spot.
So: After finally getting my head pulled out of my arse,I will go to the shop tomorrow and make them punch a bit more space at the second buckle.I really,really,relly hope that it would finally solve my issues...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mntlion

2) try other sock combos (2 thin ones?) to get the tightness, but no blisters. are the blisters on just the inside of the heel? better footbeds might help too

---

Yes, just on the inside. The footbeds are custom (although that does not guarantee quality). I think the liner has gotten slightly wider in the heel area, probably because of the hiking, so I might get less blistering next time. I did wear tape over the heels, BTW. I might try a super thin nylon sock (yes, the type my girlfriend buys :redface:) as the inner sock next time.

new footbeds with more support.......

if the blisters are on both sides = heel lift
if the blisters are on inside usually = pronation = better/custom/more supportive footbed.

www.yoursole.com

So here's the deal. Bought a pair of Tecnica Dragon 120's earlier in the season from a bootfitter, and things were OK for the first couple of days. Little bits of pain here & there, but I wanted to give the liners a little time to pack out before making any substantial changes. The original fitter did hook me up with a wedge of dense foam on the left tounge to try to re-direct shin pressure to my tibia as I've got a nasty scar that is somewhat sensitive on the outside of my left leg (for the record, this works great - 0 pain in my leg).

After they packed out, I was still having foot pain issues later in the day (neuroma??). I was getting numbness in a couple of my toes (both feet) and some NASTY cramping on the outside bottom of both feet. I'd also feel a wierd sensation shooting up my leg from the numb area of my toes for a couple of days after skiing. Went to another bootfitter for custom footbeds (original fitter put my on SuperFeet greens - new footbeds are instaprints) and a little bit of tounge & baseboard work, and the numbness is gone. My feet are actually quite comfortable as long as I a) unbuckle my bottom 2 buckles on the lift (not a problem) and b) stick to groomers & smooth surfaces (this is obviously a problem). As soon as I start skiing hard in bumps or trees, the pain in the outside bottom of both feet gets pretty intense - to the point where I'll actually consider going inside for a few minutes to take my boots off. Usually I can manage the pain by loosening my buckles on the lift ride up, but it's really annoying.

The boots are a damn near perfect shell fit - both length and width. Both the original fitter who sold me the boots, as well as the second fitter agree that the shell shape & size is right for my foot. It's possible that I need a little shell work done, but the second fitter I saw (unfortunately his shop is ~3hrs from home) was reluctant to do any shell work until we'd exhausted all other options.

Chances are I'll be heading back to see fitter #2 in the next couple of weeks, but I was just curious if you had any ideas/suggestions.

Also, any shot an aftermarket booster strap will stiffen these things up a bit? They're soft as hell for a 120 flex. I don't recall what the flex was on my old Lange Banshee's, but they were WAY stiffer than these Tecnicas.

Thanks!

Any number of things going on. See mtnlion's posts earlier about checking for width. Pain that ramps up when skiing varied snow indicates that your foot is tensing up to steer the boot more...often meaning there is slack in the fit.

After you have gone through mtnlion's checklist, run through the balance/stance exercises I posted above, and get back to us with the results. Bet you have some heel movement....

Also, sapling-sized calves, tree-trunk sized calves or average?

w/ out footbeds = no go. Mine ae fairly "thick" and without them I'd be swiming in my boots... don't get me worng - they are not too big, but with out the beds it'd be unpretty. My pain may be due to simple ovbertightening right out of the gate. . generally if
i loosen them up on the chair afte the first t2o runs I'm ok for the rest of the day.
I still ahve to tighten over the course of the day,

Calves tight? dunno. Pain is 100% in foot - like they are being squeezed to death.

I can forward flezx the shit out of my boots without heel lift - heels go back but not up.

Forward lean - can't say as I've never experimented with this and won't get a chance for another 10 months min (its bike season here now)

Stiffer / Softer = same.

I think my feet are just pussys and it takes them a couple runs to sack up.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mntlion

try a few runs without the footbeds. Yes, without ANY footbed at all. I know that you need them, but it will give me some more info. also the pain relates to the footbed somehow as it is better without any weight on the foot. (is that correct)?

are your calves tight? can you keep the foot flat on the floor, and get your knee past your big toe? (thinking that the pain might be tight calves, and as the loosen up with a few runs it getts better) try a few stretches before skiing/putting the boots on.

any better with more or less forward leen in the boots? what about stiffer or softer?

pain is not "normal" but some moving of the buckles is normal thru out the day.

---

Flexing the boots isn't a good test for dynamic heel lift or float. Did you try the things we posted before?

Also, try starting the day with much looser buckles. Does this make it better or worse? Agree on keeping in your footbeds, BTW.

Here's my answers to Mntlion's questions:

1) BOW with the buckles tighter or looser?

Looser is better

2) BOW with thinner or thicker socks?

Same

3) BOW with any footbeds (custom, stock, none, etc)?

Tried custom & trim to fit superfeet - haven't tried stock or none

4) BOW skiing, standing, or feet un-weighted (hanging off a chair lift)?

skiing hurts more than standing. Unweighted is good.

5) BOW thru out the day (and when does the pain start?)

Typically later in the day. Pain usually starts after i've been out for ~2hours and/or ski difficult terrain

6) BOW on the first vs the third day?

same

7) BOW on harder or easier terrain?

Worse on harder

8) BOW with the power straps (velcro straps) tighter or looser?

How loose? I have tried just about everything besides gapering it and letting them flap in the breeze.

9) BOW if you do any particular movements, or actions?

Once the outside of my foot starts to hurt, if I push down with the tips of my toes (causes 'em to flex at the 1st knuckle) pretty hard, I get some relief.

I'll do weasel1's excercises tomorrow night.

The pen is pointing at the part of my foot that hurts:

http://img710.imageshack.us/img710/3748/footg.jpg

try no footbeds (the lateral arch of the superfoot might be bugging the spot from the bottom, causing it to press on the shell)

try getting the shell wider at that part of your foot.

thanks for the pics and full answers, helps ALOT

also, the big toe, and all the way down the inside is usually a straight line, looks like your foot has a curve? (camera angle?)

NO IDEA if that is related to this boot problem, but just something that is not common, and might not be a problem at all.

I think your problem stems from the amount of hair on your shins. You need to shave that shit STAT! :D

hobbits need boot work too.....

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mntlion

try no footbeds (the lateral arch of the superfoot might be bugging the spot from the bottom, causing it to press on the shell)

---

Thanks, I'll try this out on Saturday. For the record, I've already swapped the green superfoot bed out for an Instaprint that I had molded for my foot.

Quote:

---

try getting the shell wider at that part of your foot.

---

Based on Saturday's outcome, I'll likely swing by bootfitter #2's shop that evening to have him punch out the shell in that area.

Quote:

---

also, the big toe, and all the way down the inside is usually a straight line, looks like your foot has a curve? (camera angle?)

---

Mostly camera angle. It's a pretty straight line - with the exception of the ball of my foot, which protrudes a little bit and breaks up the otherwise straight line. Both bootfitters have mentioned the two biggest irregularities with my feet: damn high arches and a long heel to top of foot measurement.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Caucasian Asian

I think your problem stems from the amount of hair on your shins. You need to shave that shit STAT! :D

---

Heh. What can I say, I'm a second cousin of Sasquatch. In partial defense, my left leg is much more jungle-ish than the right due to 10-12 surgeries in the past 6-7 years that have required my left leg to be shaved. Shit just comes back thicker every time!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mntlion

hobbits need boot work too.....

---

Dude.. I'm 6'4" 230#. Way too big to be a hobbit! :smile:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by weasel1

For both forward lean and heel lift issues, there are a few simple diagnostic exercises that can help you fix these issues.

First, standing in both boots with feet a little less than shoulder width apart, straighten your legs so that your knees are locked without lifting the heel of the boot off of the ground. Now, notice what happens. If you fall on your face, your boots have too much forward lean. Weight should be on balls of feet, heel should be unweighted but touching, or just hovering over the footbed. You should feel balanced, springy and solid.

---

I fall on my face. If I lean the upper body backwards I can almost keep the balance (but I guess that doesn't count ;) ). The Garmont Radium have only one forward lean position. The external mechanism looks like it could be replaced, but I don't think they offer replacements with other lean options.

Adding ramp inside the boot in the toe area is out of the question, there's already little room there.

I use Dynafit Vertical ST, which adds more forward lean (heel 10 mm higher than toe). I did the tests on flat ground with boots only. On the ski it will be even worse.

I guess my best option will be to shim up the Dynafit toe piece?

I am surprised that touring boots add too much forward lean, aren't they in general less aggressive than alpine boots?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by weasel1

Now relax, bend your knees. Weight should now feel evenly distributed across the foot, with most concentrated under the mid-foot. Does your heel immediately bear weight, or drop some distance before it hits the footbed? If it drops, you need one of two things (or both). If your weight with knees locked was on your toes, or you fell on your face, you need less forward lean. If your weight w/ knees locked was on the balls of your feet and you felt relatively balanced, you need to put a heel lift in the boot to bring the footbed up to meet your heel.

---

When I bend the knees slightly, the weight is on the ball of the foot. When I bend a bit more, the weight is evenly distributed across the foot.

The heel drops a little bit.

I didn't do the rest of the tests. However, when my binding adds 10 mm rise in the heel, I am not sure they will be so relevant to do with boots only. I guess I should make an inclined board to simulate the added lean, and do the tests on that.

Arne- If you fell on your face (I did that to an orthopedic doc once...he still did a great job on my shoulder anyway.) you have too much forward lean. Do you have sizable calves? A thicker calf creates more forward lean by pushing the lower leg shafts forward, like your own built-in spoiler.

Make sure you have removed any spoiler or other extraneous plastic add-ons behind the calf. You may also benefit from a little heel lift. This will address what I am guessing is some dynamic heel movement and also lift your calf muscle out of the boot a bit.

If this doesn't work, you should discuss bending back the rear spoiler on the upper cuff with your boot fitter. I haven't done this on a Radium, so not sure how amenable to this it will be, but it really helps if you can do it.

Do the rest of the tests, but this is almost certainly a significant contributing factor to your issue. Too much forward lean will float the heel and result in significant movement (causing blisters).

Thanks for the quick feedback.

My calves are normal, I think. I'll retry the test with the original liners, this was with zipfits which are higher volume than the originals. I haven't checked if they add more behind the calf.

There are no spoilers or other add-ons.

Note that the blistering only happens when walking, never when skiing. I don't really notice much heel lift when skiing.

When walking, the cuff levers the foot forward, and even the best walk modes are going to result in some movement. Stabilizing the foot and leg in the boot will help reduce this. You will notice a significant difference in your skiing and touring if you can address the lean issue.

Thanks, I appreciate your feedback. I did some more experiments:

First with the Zipfit liners

The first two tests were done clicked in to the bindings to get the extra heel ramp.

Have a friend hold a plumb-bob next to you, against your shoulder (roughly in the middle of your body from front to back). With knees slightly flexed, shins touching the front of the boot, center mass should be over the mid-foot.

Seems to be about mid foot.

With legs straight, knees locked, center mass should be over the ball of the foot.

Seems to be about middle of toes.

Next, find something about 1 foot or so high to jump off of. Standing on top, jump off and land centered over and evenly on both feet, flat on the boot sole. Did your toe go BANG? If so, double check the shell fit...probably too long.

No bang, landing was OK.

Lastly, standing on one foot, jump up and down landing and taking off as flat on the sole as possible. Do this 6-7 times rapidly on each foot. Pay attention to your foot inside the boot. Does it move a lot? Is it coming off of the footbed and falling back down a lot, or just weighting and unweighting? Do you fall over? If so, which way?

It does not really move, just unweight. I don't fall over. Same for both feet.

Then with original liners

First, standing in both boots with feet a little less than shoulder width apart, straighten your legs so that your knees are locked without lifting the heel of the boot off of the ground. Now, notice what happens.

Still falling on my face (not literally ;) ), but might be slightly less than with the zipfits, hard to tell.

Lastly, standing on one foot, jump up and down landing and taking off as flat on the sole as possible. Do this 6-7 times rapidly on each foot. Pay attention to your foot inside the boot. Does it move a lot? Is it coming off of the footbed and falling back down a lot, or just weighting and unweighting? Do you fall over? If so, which way?

The foot moves around, even though the toe buckles are max tight and I have a thin bootboard. I don't fall over.