Boots too stiff with rubbishg footbed ? Cody T

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I'm half way through reading the Cody Townsend interview in Powder Magazine. Well worth a read especially for Coaches and Instructors (Educators and Teachers Laughing

)

His comments struck a cord with my own thinking:

https://www.powder.com/gear/cody-townsend-thinks-your-boots-are-too-stiff

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Agree 100%

I'm on 90 flex at a body + kit weight of around 100kg

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Disagree somewhat. I like a stiff boot. YMMV.

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It would be interesting to know just how "soft" the softer boots were - I suspect still pretty stiff.

As for the idea that those not competitively racing on firm surfaces probably want less stiff boots, well yeah that seems fairly obvious.

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For people to be able to swap components around and it not be noticed then they must have been from the race range.

The current Fischer race catalogue has cuffs available between 110 and 190 flex with an identical appearence.

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There's kinda two points to make here. The first is that he's talking about high-level racers, and that with no reference for how stiff they were and how much softer they went to get the improvements it's not really very meaningful.

Having said that, at the recreational level it's quite common (as an instructor of adults) to come across people who have fallen victim to the idea that he's talking about, that more high-end kit will make you ski better. That includes people who haven't got the technique to hold their shins forward all the time, and these will be the ones who suffer most if they've gone too stiff. Exacerbated by the fact that many people at an intermediate level want to buy a boot to progress into and use for many years, whereas in fact it can often be part of the reason they fail to do so.

So yeah, there is such a thing as too stiff, but did anyone ever really believe otherwise?

The stuff about the footbeds is less clear, I've never really heard of the problem he describes, having always had heat-moulded footbeds which are b definition the correct shape for the foot.

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When I started skiing again ( after mainly slowboarding) I got a good few years out of some supersoft Salomon Performas. Probably did help me get modern skiing a bit better.

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@Dave of the Marmottes, I do think there's something of a learning advantage with soft boots, sometimes, for some people, in that it's much more evident when your weight is too far forward or back and it can help to find the right position and to be able to hold yourself in it.

A bit like years back when they would sometimes get you to ski with the boots unclipped, although IME that was completely useless, as the instructors that tried that didn't use it as a part of teaching the required skills and movements you (I) needed to be able to correct the problem. So soft boots or stiff, if you have a problem you need to fix it from within, whereas some people come to rely on the boot to hold them in the 'right' position even though their weight is not centred.

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@Chaletbeauroc, I would love to see your statistics on people you have taught.
The % of learners who are genuinely too far forward must be tiny.
This probably applies to intermeds and relatively advanced skiers as well.

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@Rogerdodger, Yes, very few skiers consistently have their weight too far forward, I agree. That's not at all what I was suggesting.

How many people, though, complain about pain in the shins caused by banging or rubbing on the front of their boots? Tons. I used to be one such, and sought for solutions by going for stiffer, closer fitting boots, putting up with the pain on the basis that if the boots held my feet and legs in the right place then that would help.

This is what I mean by stiffer boots possibly disguising the underlying problem, which for me was that I was not using the lower leg muscles to pull my knees forward, so my upper body would get pushed forward or backward by every terrain change. And each time would result in my shins or my calf muscles pressing into the boot, so each time I thought the problem was that there was too much movement in the boot, so would try to get them tighter still, making them even more painful but utterly failing to address the issue.

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@Chaletbeauroc, good points re his constituency.

Also must be remembered that your boots need to be stiff enough to drive your skis.

I don't know, but strongly suspect, that the mantra should actually be similar to what we have for suspension setups for racing motorcycles. You want it as stiff as necessary and as soft as possible within that contraint. In other words, you need the stiffness for control and to prevent 'bottoming out' (where you use up all of the suspension travel and then have none) but you want it as soft as possible otherwise because this improves the the tyre in contact with the surface.

Obviously, a suspension system is far more complex but the principles remain the same where you want to keep the ski/tyre in contact with the surface as much as possible for both control and speed.

Two seasons ago the airline failed to deliver my kit and I had to rent boots. The only ones available were 110 flex and, to be honest, I think they had been used extensively so probably had a lot less. For me (95kg and 1.89m) these were way too soft and the boots quite literally 'collapsed' until they reached the point where the shell couldn't move any further. So, there is clearly a point at which you need a stiffer boot ... but that point is probably a bit softer than we might think.

You know it makes sense.

@Blackblade, an interesting take. Makes sense to me...

I used Braehead boots once. What a nightmare.

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My hard snowboard boots have movement limits within which they flex controllably. Flex is entirely controlled by a spring - not the shell. Spring stiffness is tuned to my weight. I can move the boot between the two limits in normal riding conditions. If I weighed more, I'd need a stiffer spring. That specific feature is the most important thing in the boot. Almost nothing else matters. Getting "progressive flex" (the springs are linear) is the key thing. My guess is that with practice you learn how to apply the spring as needed; perhaps that's what someone is describing above.

Back in the day I did experiment with hyper-stiff systems, but for snowboarding those don't work that well.

Of course my snowboard is much faster than any skier in powder, thanks.

Anyway, to my ski boot question: surely heavy people need stiffer boots than ordinary sized people?
It's not about willy length, it's about how much weight you're applying to the system.

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@phil_w, "Of course my snowboard is much faster than any skier in powder, thanks."

are we up for the challenge?

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The 2013 BASI Alpine ski manual talks about boots (pp405).
They have reasonable text: "[you need] smooth, progressive forward flex" without any "abrupt halt".
They point out too that "ability", "height & weight", and "type of skiing" affect how stiff that flex might need to be.

I'd argue with the order of those factors, specifically "height & weight".
I weigh half what many skiers weigh, but I couldn't possibly be twice as tall as them.
So weight is a much more important variable of those two, because it has a much wider range.

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The article was about racing, in speed events. He could have been originally using 170 flex for tech events and 150 for speed.

@phil_w, I know this has been debated at great length but - agreed - height really doesn't have a lot to do with it. The boots (and skis) don't "know" how tall you are.

And yes, yes, I get that there are leverage effects at work, but somewhat trivial when comparing gross 65kgs vs 95 kgs.

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Race flex or not he does touch on a problem for a lot of skiers -

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You know it makes sense.

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Help!!

Boots too stiff with rubbishg footbed ? Cody T

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