Re-Booting Up

Since the death of my regular ski boots happened, I've had to pick up a new pair that has proven to be not so much fun to break in. The Atomic boots I selected apparently have a decorative plastic flair near the toe box that has resisted much of the efforts to stretch or re-mold the plastic. I've been in with the boot fitter several times over the past two weeks now working on tweaking the stretch, and kept returning to find the same areas causing pain in my foot.

Finally in a plea to get me out of his hair, the boot fitter offered to come to the slopes with me and do some on hill adjustments. While he was there he set up several other sessions with various folks who have been stopping in with him to just make a work trip out of it. We gave him a pass for the day in exchange for his time with the ski school staff and went to work.

Watching this guy work on adjusting boots to compensate for knock-kneed or bow legged stances (aka 'canting') was as close to magic as I've ever seen.

One instructor, who has been skiing for 30 something years was with me. We did practice balance runs across the hill;
holding the up-hill foot in the air one time in each direction
holding the downhill foot in the air one time in each direction

Basically this is a great test of your ability to balance on edge. The senior instructor though could not get his edge to hold, regardless of what he did. His body was shaking all over, arms moving in directions to support balancing movements, and when he did hold an edge his ski started to turn. We attempted to do some medium radius (about a 2 second count in length) carving turns, where the senior instructor was just skidding out each and every turn. We basically were watching more of a Z shaped turn than a C or S shaped turn pattern.

The boot fitter spent a few minutes taking measurements from knee to toe angles and then placed some temporary shims below the instructors feet, allowing the boot+binding pressure to hold the shims in place. Taking one run with the new shims, the boot fitter recalled the instructor placed different shims in and asked me to join for the third run. This third run, on the same terrain with the same skier/instructor, appeared to be a completely different skier. Each turn the skis were on edge, lined up, angled properly, and allowing the skier to be in control. I was shocked to see the transformation by simply putting shims under the feet.

My own skiing was changed with the discover that I'm a little bow legged and knock kneed in my stance. Canting my left boot out 1 degree, and my right boot in 2 degrees gave me a noticeable difference in my carved turns.

End results, go get your boots aligned this season. You'll find it was worth every penny.