A leitmotif in western philosophy is the observation that the everyday world of mankind resides between two extremes; today, we have a better idea than ever just how extreme the extremities are, the gulf between them so vast that the laws of the quantum world of subatomic particles can’t be satisfactorily reconciled with the behavior of the universe’s largest objects.
The ever-expanding options confronting the boot buyer may seem as dauntingly vast
as the innumerable galaxies in the Universe.
What in the name of all that is holy does this have to do with the realities of today’s ski boot market? Here’s the link: today’s boot buyer confronts an ever-expanding universe of boot procurement options. It’s only human to feel helpless when confronted with choices as vast as the firmament. Among the infinitude of alternatives are outlets where the service component hovers at or near zero, others that operate at long distance and, at the opposite end of the service spectrum, purveyors of customized solutions that unite the usually segregated spheres of equipment fitting and coaching.
As the Alert Reader has probably already surmised, all boot acquisition options are not created equal. A couple of vignettes culled from recent bootfitting adventures will illustrate this point.
Let’s call our first subject Secondhand Sally. Sally acquired her boots at a ski swap, unassisted. They feel great, so she says, but her feet move around a bit. A quick measurement reveals that Sally’s feet ought to feel unconfined, as the shell is three sizes too long, not to mention likewise too wide.
I point out to Sally the sub-optimal nature of her situation, but she’s not about to part with her shrewd acquisition. An off-the-rack insole adequately intensifies the illusion that her feet are stable, and so off sallies Sally into the sunset, any hope of successful steering forever tantalizingly out of reach.
At least Sally could get her chosen boots on. The customer we’ll call Online Ollie couldn’t even clear this relatively low hurdle. I’m sure the online customer service rep counseled Ollie that his large feet would fit the boots that sat between us, the tags still on them. What the long distance boot fitter couldn’t see was that Ollie’s feet weren’t just large, they were humungous, and his calves were the same circumference as my thighs.
Had we tried anything as foolish as attempting to put the boots on, the best we might have managed is getting his great toe halfway down the cuff where it could dangle, like a miner’s light dropped into a cave, just inside the void.
Ollie’s odyssey in bootfitting ended happily, with both he and his equally prodigiously shod father gleefully ensconced in ultra-wide 4-buckle boots and the shot-in-the-dark online pair safely returned whence it came.
As many of you have surmised, I can’t resist a Teaching Moment, so, adopting a rhetorical tone, I asked Ollie, father and son, what they had gleaned from this experience. Faced with two furrowed brows, I volunteered that maybe the Internet was a great place to buy commodities, like salt, but perhaps wasn’t the best place to shop for technical equipment that needs to be fitted.
My seed landed on fertile ground. Ollie père, a man of ample dimensions, recalled ordering – I kid you not – a Batman outfit for Halloween that, although ostensibly XXL, wasn’t prepared for the challenge of encasing all of him. Ever since, I can’t get the image of Ollie the Elder, stressing every seam in his Caped Crusader costume, out of my mind.
Such are the perils of bootfitting. Balancing the scales, there are also unexpected rewards, as in the case of a customer we’ll christen Custom Cam. In the misty past, Cam was an accomplished skier but he dropped out several years ago and his old gear is long gone. Motivated by grandparenthood to return to the sport, Cam plunged into the world of online advice and fortunately happened upon Realskiers.
Cam took advantage of a Realskiers’ membership prerogative and contacted me directly with a special proposition: would I consider skiing with him, diagnose his needs and outfit him accordingly? Given the logistical barriers, I suggested more expedient solutions, but Cam waved them aside. In his estimation, he’d found The Guy, the one person who seems to know how all the pieces fit together, and decided to entrust himself to my care. I’ll let you know how it all turns out.
Clearly, not many skiers are willing or able to adopt Cam’s approach, regardless of its merits. Coaching and equipment adaptation customarily commingle in the elite world of championship racing, but instruction and equipment selection rarely intersect among the general skiing public.
Instead, the vast majority of skiers live between the extremes represented by Sally and Ollie on the one hand and Cam on the other. They cross the threshold of specialty ski shops with trepidation, suspicious of every salesperson’s approach, for they still bear scar tissue from retail battles barely survived in years past. How can they know that behind the mask of the salesman’s smile is the mind of The Guy (or Gal) who actually has their best interests at heart?
You can’t be 100% certain, at least according to the dicta of quantum mechanics. But you can drastically reduce the uncertainty by visiting a Realskiers Test Shop. These are shops we’ve vetted, we know, we trust. We all need friends and capable counselors to guide us through the maze of human existence. These are your guides, at least for the skiing part.