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Boot recommendations for wide feet

 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
So my boys are 15 and 13. They've taken after me and have really wide feet. Every ski trip one of them ends up having to change hire boots at least once or twice. I'm assuming their feet are being squeezed as the complaint is numb toes.

And it does affect their skiing with lots of stops and boot off time.

I've never looked back since getting a proper fitted pair but loathed to spend on the kids and only lasting 1 season.

Any views on boots that are better for wide feet? Wonder if I can try the second hand market you see.
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 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
I don't know of rental boots are different to retail boots, but I found that Atomic and Scott tended to have wider boots than other brands.

It really depends on how big their feet are, and how much they are still growing. If they are already on adult sized boots, then you need to be wary of buying second hand worn out boots (or rather liners), or boots that have already been molded or stretched to someone elses feet. Anyway, the chances of finding a pair of boots for each of them that doesn't need money spending on them to get them to fit is pretty slim. So you may well be better off to stay with renting.

It also depends on how often you ski (you say each trip). No one ever said skiing was a cheap holiday wink
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 Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
I recommend you take them to a bootfitter and let them decide, but if you are looking for a second hand one, I would go to any brand that has the widest boots in the market.
Right now, I guess it's the Nordica Cruise line (https://www.nordica.com/global/en/men/boots/wide-104mm/cruise). They are 104mm and should be good for them in case in you don't want to have a brand new one fitted. That was my first boot, it wasn't fitted for me and it was good enough.

I have a really wide foot as well, right now I have the Fischer Ranger One(https://www.fischersports.com/ranger-one-130-vacuum-walk-1490?c=157) with 101mm but it was fitted to me and we had to stretch it 4 times to make it fit correct. When I'm skiing hard and have to make it tight, it still hurts, I just got used to.
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Wide boots?
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 Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
I wouldn't know the answer for kids. Assuming they are approaching adult weight and shoe size you might have some joy in some of the wider lasted boots out there - simply look for those where the reference size is above 101mm but don't expect them to be cheap or have particularly high availability on the secondhand market. If you can measue the kids properly with a Brannock device you might find the width is not that extreme or you can get there in sizing up shell sizes (though that brings its own problems).

A further thought is decent footbeds which stop the foot flattening and spreading. Those of course would be transferable between rental boots.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
The other thing to check is that they aren't doing up the buckles on the top of the foot too tightly. This can cut off the blood supply leading to numb toes...
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 Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
olderscot wrote:
The other thing to check is that they aren't doing up the buckles on the top of the foot too tightly. This can cut off the blood supply leading to numb toes...


That's a good point - numb toes can be down to cold or nerve impingement above and beyong "tightness" in the toe box
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 After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
@kettonskimum, I was always told I have wide feet. As it happens, I don't. I have wide feet only in comparison to my very skinny ankles.

But as an adult I can buy narrow boots and have the forefoot stretched out. Which doesn't really help you. A proper sizing might illuminate.
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 You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
under a new name wrote:
I was always told I have wide feet.

Me too, but I don't think it necessarily carries into adulthood, or the spectrum becomes so much larger that you don't register any more. As a child, I remember my parents always taking me to the one shoe shop in town “that measure your feet properly”, only to be told that as my ‘H’ width feet were practically off the scale, and that if I wanted to wear shoes at school I was having the one pair that had been dug out from the back of the store room whether I liked them or not Confused

As an adult, my feet are still a bit wide, but not unusually so. My fitting issues seem to stem from high arches and short toes, which make my feet kind of square. I can't wear pointy shoes, but don't need my ski boots blown out if they're not from the narrow end of the last choices. Flip-flops generally don't work for me either, as my feet are not the correct proportions.

None of that really helps the op, except to know that they may grow out of their problems. In the mean time, good luck on the second hand market.
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Ski the Net with snowHeads
@kettonskimum, numb toes can come form a number of things not just the width of the foot, and being as most rental boots are wide then this is the least likely cause of the problem.... are either of them by any chance (or were when younger) toe walkers? a high instep and limited flexibility at the ankle is far more likely to cause numb toes then simply the width of the feet. as with everything always difficult to tell without seeing the offending feet, if you can get basic dimensions i can give you a better idea if it is width..... place the foot on a piece of paper, mark back of heel and tip of longest toe, and either side of the foot (try to be accurate and not just put the pencil vertical as that will ad 3-4mm each side to the width) this will give an idea of width proportionate to length

For those who were told by Clarks as a child that they had H width feet, welcome to the world of marketing!!! a Clarks H is basically a EE or EEE on an international scale, Clarks just dumped EE and EEE instead of G and H nobody else did, so when you asked in a different shop for an H fitting they shrugged and sent you to Clarks the staff in most stores didn't know they had just substituted letters.

but hey, lets not get too bogged down with a sizing system derived from the span of the hand and 3 barley corns, metric / Mondo point (the length of the foot in cm/mm) is so much more accurate
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
@CEM, ha ha too funny I was a Clark’s “G”
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 And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And the measuring machine Shocked Shocked
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 So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
@under a new name, the flouroscope! an open x ray to make sure your shoes werent too tight
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
Shocked I’ve not seen one of those – my mum didn’t trust machines, so the shop we went to had a hand-held wooden measuring doofer, with a ribbon tape. Incidentally, not Clarks (they had machines Laughing ), but an independent Clarks dealer.

I’m not sure the marketing made a big difference, apart from customer perception. It wasn’t like there were loads of kids’ shoe shops locally anyway.

It took me years to figure out how my shoes should fit though. They were too big for well over a decade, until I realised the problem, possibly slightly assisted by using fitted ski boots.
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 Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Scarlet wrote:
Shocked I’ve not seen one of those – my mum didn’t trust machines, so the shop we went to had a hand-held wooden measuring doofer, with a ribbon tape. Incidentally, not Clarks (they had machines Laughing ), but an independent Clarks dealer.


When I was very young, I remember that our local shoe shop had a Fluoroscope..... https://blog.nms.ac.uk/2016/05/03/youll-never-believe-how-1930s-sales-assistants-measured-your-shoe-size/

I never saw it used though.
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