Custom Ski Boots with Molded Liners

I didn't know it, but I've been suffering for nearly 25 years with ski boots that didn't fit properly. They've always been too tight around my ankles and since one of my feet is slightly larger than the other, one foot is either floating around or one has my toe crammed into the end. No matter what, at the end of the day, my feet are seriously hurting. One of my expert skier friends said "Dude, it doesn't have to be that way. Kick down for some custom ski boots." Kick down is right, custom ski boots are expensive. I guess almost everything having to do with skiing is expensive, but custom ski boots are easily double the cost. So, to save a bit of money, about 40% I just purchased a pair of custom ski boots for the upcoming season during the off season.

There are three main pieces to custom ski boots. The first part is ski boot foot bed, the second is the ski boot foot liner and the third is the ski boot shell.

One of the most important pieces to a custom ski boot is getting foot beds molded to your feet.  A composite of glue, plastics and cork is the high end way to go for a great foot bed.  The custom foot bed process involves selecting the foot bed for your boot.  If you go with cork, the cork is heated, then while it's maleable, it's placed on your foot with a plastic bag around it.  A high powered vaccum is inserted into the bag and the air is rapidly sucked from the bag and compresses the foot bed into the foot creating the perfect foot bed that is a mirror of your foot.  Custom foot beds can really help people with unusual shaped foots like feet that are two different sizes or if you have high arches.  Although, people with a common foot shape swear by them as well.  The great thing about about custom foot beds, is they can last fifteen years or longer.  Once the foot bed is completed, it's placed in the shell of the ski boot.

Ski boot liners are a very important part of getting the perfect fit of your ski boot.  To get a liner fitted to your foot, ankle and calve it's similar to the foot bed process, but the pressure applied to mold the liner comes from the boot itself.  After the liner is heated, it's placed back into the boot.  To get the liner extra tight, a toe cap my be put on your feet and held in place with a ski sock.  You insert your feet into the ski boot, and tighten the crap out of the boot.  During this part of the process, it can become painful and numb.  Very similar to wearing uncomfortable ski boots for a day.  Cosmo, the boot fitter I went to, handed me an ice cold coors light to drink while my feet where clamped down in the boots molding the liner to my feet.  He had me stand on a piece of two by four with my toes up and my weight forward against the forward piece of the boot to add pressure.  After about ten minutes, the liners were a perfect fit.

One of the interesting things about getting custom ski boots, they can be fitted with off the shelf ski boots and punched and pressed to fit your foot perfectly.  Cosmo, the world's greatest boot fitter - He fits some of the worlds greatest skiers, will study your foot, pull and twist your ankles and recommend a shell for your feet.  When he analyzed my feet, he was able to tell that I had turned my right ankle a few times more than my left and which boot would fit me best.  He recommended a Full Tilt Professional boot for my long and sort of narrow feet.  The liner and custom foot beds where in them and I began to worry.  Crap, they were pinching my ankle and my larger foot felt like it was hitting the end.  He examined my foot in the boot, made some marks and placed a hydraulic punch in the boot to expand the ankle area and stretch the boot a tad.  After he customized the shell to my foot, I put on my freshly fitted custom ski boots and couldn't believe how good they fit. 

It's a wonderful thing to meet an expert craftsman and to be the beneficiary of years of study and practice. Cosmos is located outside of Truckee, CA and I highly recommend making a trip to see him if you've suffered from uncomfortable ski boots in the past. What he can do to make a ski boot feel comfortable is magical and worth every penny.  Call and make an appointment and tell him your learned about him from Paul on HubPages.