Treating your feet really well

According to boot fitters, adding a thermoformed or preformed inner sole and an injected boot liner to your ski boots significantly improves their comfort and performance.

“It’s just not possible to obtain an optimal fit without moving to good inner soles,” says Richard Bellemare, head of the boot department at the Daniel Lachance Ski Service store. “We believe so strongly in their effectiveness that we only guarantee the boot fitting if we can add thermo-moulded soles.”

The French company Sidas is one of the leaders in the field and their pre-made and thermo-formed soles are available in several local shops.

“The market for inner soles has exploded in the past few years,” maintains Louis Blanchard, company rep for Western Québec. “The soles provided in ski boots don’t adequately support the foot, which compromises their comfort and performance,” he adds.

The argument seems logical. The soles in most ski boots are made of soft foam and provide no arch support. As a result, the foot rests on the hard, flat surface of the bottom of the boot and flattens out when the skier presses on the boot cuff to initiate a turn.

The result is a loss of energy which slows the reaction of the ski and compromises the efficiency of edging. Do you follow?

From the perspective of comfort, the addition of a moulded sole permits the support and placement of the foot, notably for the malleolus – or ankle bone – to be in the right place in the shell and the heel well seated in the boot’s back groove.

The injected liner

According to the experts, and a few skiers we met who have adopted it, the injected inner boot, or boot liner, represents the top solution in the search for comfort and absolute performance, if you agree to part with a few hundred dollars to get it.

We ran into Danielle Lapointe when she was having her new boots injected; she told us that she has always had a hard time finding a ski boot to fit her foot because her heel is narrow compared to the length of her foot. “My ankle always moved around in my boots, no matter how I tried to fix the problem.”

Louis Blanchard explains that these liners are mainly for two types of customer: those who have non-average feet, like Danielle, and skiers looking for high performance.

“It’s a more specialized niche market than for inner soles, but we’re seeing growth in it, too, in the past few years…partly because injected foam is softer and more comfortable than when this kind of liner was mainly of interest to racers.”

The injected boot liner replaces the original. When it is taken out of the box, it is “empty”. It is placed in the boot shell and then injected while the skier wears the boot. As a result, the foam fills all the free space between the foot, the liner and the shell, which gives a whole thing a millimetre-perfect fit. Those who have had it swear by it.

So we promise to check with Danielle to get her comments.

 

Alain Bisson47 Posts

Journaliste depuis plus de 30 ans, Alain Bisson a débuté sa carrière au Journal de Montréal à titre de journaliste à l'économie. Au cours des dernières années, Alain fut également directeur du pupitre et directeur des contenus week-end à La Presse. / A journalist for more than 30 years, Alain Bisson began his career at the Journal de Montreal as a journalist covering economics. In recent years, Alain was also weekend content director and bureau chief for La Presse.

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