Boot Fit Tips

Can't say I'm too surprised.  Encouraging in-store purchases is basically dissuading people from purchasing from the House.

Bullshit I'm persuading you to pull that.  I address this specifically in my post.  You pull that enough, eventually that shop goes under and you're SOL.  And even if it doesn't, it sucks for the shop kid whose time you're wasting because he's missing out on commission money catering to your sorry ass.  I don't mind too much if you know what you're looking for and there's maybe one or two different boots you want to try on, but if you're spending hours and hours trying on boots and relying on their input without any intention of patronage that just sucks.  Just buy it in the shop, in the post-Sierra world it's unlikely you'll save that much money unless you manage to find it lightly used.  At least give the shop a chance to price match.

First off it's it's "you're" not your.

Second, he kind of wrote out boot fitting and buying in a nutshell, what else do you want?

He flamed because you falsely accused him.

No one said it was easy finding the right boots.

See second post of thread.  

If that doesn't work, Salomon might let you buy a pair of liners but there's no guarantee they'll be the same liner shape after a couple years and they might be pretty expensive.  At that point it's probably better to buy new boots.

Buddy set me up with an ankle wrap.  You stick them outside of the inner liner, between the liner and the outer shell.  As to which are better, depends on your foot and the boot.  Probably easiest to go down to a local ski shop.  Maybe a snowboard shop if you're lucky; generally I find snowboarders don't know squat about nuanced bootfitting unless they're up in the mountains.

 

I posted earlier on the Bay Area Yahoo group for riders & skiers inquiring about this very piece of extremely valuable knowledge you might have. Hook a brotha up!

Basically the entire point of my point is that there's no way to tell until you try stuff on. Different brands size differently, even sometimes from model to model within the same brand. Buy it and pray, basically.

Yea, Bay area is tough.  Sierra (and before that, Tri-City) apparently killed off a ton of small shops in the area 10-15 years ago.  Not that may left with any kind of expertise.

Come to think of it, I don't know if they have boot fitting expertise per se, but the folks at Sports Basement are worth talking to.  I've shot the breeze with them in the past at various stores and they seem really on top of things.

Is that Bay Area Yahoo Group pretty active?  I need a crew when I get back down to the Bay, none of my friends are that into riding as I am.

Where do you go to school?

Did they stretch your shell?  I've heard different things on that, some bootfitters say they won't do it on snowboard boots, but I've heard a couple snowboarders tell me they've gotten it done and it worked out.

What did they charge for the whole deal?  I think I might need some stretching on my "knuckle."

I remember Ride having a pretty narrow last.  Salomons used to, but they seem to have widened over the years.  I hear Nitros are pretty narrow but have never tried on a pair.

Interesting.  I got pretty wide feet and Burtons tend to fit me well.