Ski Boot Talk With Brent Amsbury

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Big Picture Skiing podcast. In this episode, we catch up with Brent Armsbury again, master boot fitter. Brent is always a wealth of knowledge, everything to do with ski boots. And in this episode, we discuss a recent trend he's noticing in plastics, so you'll hear more about that. It's also fascinating to hear his trip over summer to Europe to go and source some more narrow wooden lasts. So these are handcrafted wooden lasts that go inside race boots and more narrow boots in order to get a more customized fit from the get-go. Anyway, I think it's a really cool one to check into, as well as the stories he has about meeting this guy who creates these lasts. And he fits people on the World Cup, and some famous names you'll hear he's worked with. And so Brent got to see on the shelf all these different boots that had modifications to make them longer. Like you'll hear about how much room they get, it's because they downsize and pack their feet into really small boots, but then, you know, they need to punch the toes out. And he's got special tools, this guy in Austria, for doing that. Carbon fiber modifications and additions. So it's quite interesting. Hearing that stuff from Brent. And then finally, we look at liner modifications as well, and he talks through what he's had to do for a couple of customers in order to get them comfortable and no numb toes and warm feet. I've got some exciting news as well before we get started on the show. Coming soon will be an app version of the Big Picture Skiing website, so all videos will be accessible on phone more easily, be able to download offline you'll be able to join the community far more easily, and it'll be just a one-touch in. And so you can be on the chairlift, in the coffee house, checking those little pointers on what you need to do to help improve your moguls or your carving or your short turns. So look for that coming for this winter, the Big Picture Skiing app, and all members will be able to get that. They'll, they'll go straight into it, and I'm really excited about it. All right, without further ado, here's the chat with Brent Armsbury. Brent, you were telling me that there's a recent trend towards, uh, plastics in ski boots at the moment. What's— yeah, tell us what's going on.

Yeah, that's right. Um, let's call it back to the future, right? A little bit. Um, about 5 years ago, there was a big movement towards lighter weight boots. Um, there are boots like the Lang Superleggera, the Head NexoLite, um, you know, a lot of the hybrid boots like the Fischer Ranger and the Cochise. I mean, there was this big sort of movement that everybody was trying to make something lighter weight, and they used a plastic called PA or polyamide nylon. And it— this, this material was kind of cool. Like, oh, the Atomic Ultrahawks is a PA boot. It's a, it's a, it's a really lightweight plastic that's stiff. But, um, when I skied some of these prototype boots about 4 or 5 years ago, one of the, the characteristics that I noticed about the boot was that it has this sort of ceramic-y— it's light, but a kind of a ceramic-y feel to it, which means, like, if you hit it, it would make, like, a ting, like a tuning fork. And it skied like a tuning fork. Like, you could feel everything coming through these boots. The softer the snow, the better they felt, because the snow is like its own dampening tool. But the harder the snow, the more vibration you could feel coming through the boot. Like, you could feel Everything, everything the ski was transmitting, that boot was sending it right through to your foot. And you would think that's a good thing, like, oh, I can feel everything. But there's good vibrations and there's bad vibrations. So like, the good vibrations are the ones that kind of tell you, hey, there's stuff going on here, the snow's changing. The bad vibrations are the ones that kind of make your teeth chatter. Right? They're these high-frequency vibrations that make you numb and make you feel like you're just buzzing. And these boots had a tendency to do that. And it seems like we've come full circle. And so the manufacturers have gotten like, oh, maybe this isn't the best skiing feel in the world. And so what, what is the material that that really makes the boot feel snappy and alive and dampens out the bad vibrations but keeps the good vibrations, and it's PU, right? It's polyurethane, which we've been using for 40, 50 years, just new formulations. And so manufacturers, I feel the trend is we're going back to what we used before. In new formulations, but, um, it makes the boot feel more, um, damp yet snappy and alive. Um, and the boot just feels stronger and more progressive in its flex. So just to give you an example, right, so I get a pair of boots to go test last season, and I've been skiing my Head Nexo Lights for a lot, like a PA boot, and I get used to it, and then I get Chuck these new boots, right? And they're made out of PU, um, that previously their previous generation was this PA material. So that now I get a PU version and I chuck them on my feet and I go ski up at Snowbird, and it's like transformative, right? Like you can do no wrong. The boot's super nice, progressive flex. Super good edge hold. It's like, oh yeah, I've been missing that. Wow, that's cool. And so you can really see in the lineup of manufacturers that they're going back to PU. And so Dalbello reintroducing PU in their boots. Uh, Fischer Ranger now made out of PU, right? A lightweight boot that now got heavier but now skis way better. You're seeing other manufacturers kind of just stay with PU, like Lange and Nordica. They're like, wow, we've always been doing PU, but we're sticking to our guns. The Head Formula, right, the replacement to the Nexolite, went back to PU, right? So you're seeing these manufacturers creep back to the polyurethane that they have used for many years, and it's bringing the boot back to that more progressive, snappy, yet damp feel. And so, yeah, prices have gone up because PU is not the cheapest thing around. Neither was PA, but we've gone back to our roots. We're going back to a simpler, more organic type boot in terms of the way it's built. No major gizmos, nothing super fancy, just a straight-up PU boot like its World Cup counterparts, World Cup, you know, their cousins. And so I think it's better, right?

I think it's better. Yeah, it sort of sounds— yeah, it makes me, uh, it's good because it makes me think that it's people, the manufacturers, are thinking about the end result feeling. Like you said, not, not so many maybe features or all these bells and whistles, like, how does it feel in the end? Because that's what we all love and, and you want. And the snow can change, so you don't want a boot that feels only like tolerable when it's perfect soft, soft snow. Yeah. So yeah, and amazing how sensitive— like, you know, you said you tried the, the new version of it and you're like, oh, can really feel it.

Yeah, you could really feel it. I, I felt felt a lot more positivity with the, with the product. And, and it's just kind of weird because you're, you, you're playing with previous generations that are supposed new innovation, and it was, but it's like you just tip the needle a little too far towards this new lightweight innovative concept, and it just like, well, oops. We went too far. So now we got to pull the needle back to the middle, and we're just going to have to just deal with the fact that boots are going to be 50, 100 gram, 150 gram heavier, but they just ski better, right? Yeah. So, like, who cares about the 150 grams on each boot? Yeah, the touring world, that's a different story. But like, in the alpine world, it's okay to be a little bit chunkier and heavier because it just skis better. Yeah, nice. Yeah.

Now, now, this, uh, this summer you also went to Europe. I did. And what was the purpose for that?

Because you've come back with some new, new toys, new, new equipment for the shop. So, um, for many years I've been using a wooden lasting system. It's like a— the wooden shape— when you make a shoe, you have a shape Um, and so for a ski boot, it's, it's actually a wooden inner shape of the boot. And for many years I've been using these to, to widen out boots, to reshape the boot more like the, the customer's foot. But I had them in a wide version. It was really for the big, wide, chunky feet, and we've been really successful with these. And so I, I was like, man, do you make them narrower? Like, do you make these for like high performance, maybe even World Cup boots? And yeah, I did. I found somebody who makes them for World Cup racing boots and for narrow lasted high performance boots. And so I got a hold of the guy who distributes them, makes them and distributes them, and he only speaks German, right? He's a little shy about his English. And, um, so I use Google Translate and I use my best German, and so I called him up and we got talking And my wife's German, by the way. So I know enough German to clunk along in the language. And so we had a little discussion. He's like, hey, all right, that's cool. So, okay, I get you a bunch of these and a bunch of these. I'm like, hey, it's going to be kind of expensive to ship these things. And I'd actually like to see where you make your lab. Like, I'd like to see your outfit. So why don't I go over there? Pick them up myself. We can spend the afternoon talking about your cool stuff, and, um, I'll put a— pack them in, and then I'll take them to where I need to get them shipped. And it was a really fun experience. This guy, um, his name is Hubert, and Hubert, I found out, is one of the direct suppliers to many of the race rooms in the World Cup. So he makes tooling for Head, for Dalbello, for Nordica Tech. I mean, he makes tools for race rooms. And so I went into his lab and it was like the most amazing place you've ever been to because he had, he had boots from, um, you know, he had boots from Wendy Holdener, he had boots from Bode Miller, he had boots from, uh, Alex Pintarol. I mean, he had all these World Cup boots that the techs have thrown back, like, ah, we don't use these anymore, here you go. And I got to see World Cup boots in their final resting place and all the grinds and the shapes and the punches and all the crazy things that go on and the carbon fiber that they add and the lifters. And it's super cool, and it was really, really fun. And I got to see things I hadn't really seen as much of before. And yet, and then same time, I got my really cool lasts so I can take a, uh, World Cup racing boot and now I can re-last it. I I can completely change the shape of a World Cup racing boot to be more anatomical in an organic way and less grinding, less punching. I can get that foot shape in there closer to the person's foot without going to extremes.

So it's kind of cool. That's unreal. Have you used them a few times already with some I have, yeah.

World Cup boots, yep. Um, yeah, I put— I reshaped a few racing boots already, and the results are really nice. I mean, we don't have to— we just don't have to thin the shell out as much. We don't have to punch quite so hard, and the boot just feels more organically, naturally fitted as opposed to kind of classic traditional methods.

And so, um, it's kind of, kind of a, kind of a get-around of like the, the Fischer Vacuum in a way, like a It is different.

Yeah, yeah, it's like Fisher vacuum but, um, with a little bit more extreme approach, right? Because we have to build up a simulation of your foot on a wooden form, and then we got to cook that boot in an oven for 12 minutes up to 240. Then I got to slip this whole thing inside, buckle it down, and it's got to cool for 2 hours.

Yeah, for the plastic. So do you stick onto the wood? What do you stick onto the wood? Because it's probably going to be pretty firm.

Yeah, we use hard cork. We use natural cork that's hard cork, like corkboard cork. And so we stick it on there, shape it, right? And so we, we take, we take measurements of your foot and then pictures and then simulate all the little points that we need to push out. Love it. Yeah. And then build that on there. And so it's like a simulation of your foot, and it goes in, reshapes the boot, then it cools. And then we pop it out, you know, do a footbed or whatever. And then maybe if we need to do a little touch-up, it does— it doesn't take much with a grinding ball at that point. It's like, yeah, zip, zip, zip, zip, zip, zip, you know, align it, cant it, out the door goes. And it's just a more organic process.

Yeah, very cool. Okay, so back to, back to Hubert's workshop. What, what was maybe— what was one thing you saw that was like a modification that was, whoa, I've not really seen that before or heard about this?

And, um, the modification that impressed me most was he's able to punch the toe box on a boot almost 2 sizes. Whoa. Yeah.

So he could— if you're normally a 26.5— I'm normally a 26.5—

he can make the boot almost 28. Yeah, he can make it almost 28. Wow. Yeah. So some of these World Cup boots, what they do is they downsize so much to get the fit really close that they— you've got to punch the toe box so your toes are hanging over the toe piece. Yeah. And so that's the way the racers want it. Like, they want to be super tight and super anatomical, leaves a nice thin liner, but they, they go so downsized, like they can't put the boot on in its regular way. So you punch the toe box 15 or 16 millimeters forward. You got to put lifters on so that when you mill it, it can hang over the binding toe piece. The binding toe piece. Yeah. And he showed me a few of those. It's like, it's ludicrously— right.

And then you're allowed to say whose names, like athlete?

Um, I'm not, I'm not going to. Okay. Okay. But um, we're going to protect the innocent, but, but we— but what he showed me was many boots for some World Cup athletes that this is what they do to punch the toe box far enough so they can get in a small enough size. Yeah. Um, and, and, and I'm not saying that every— any, um, every World Cup athlete— I mean, he showed me some women's, uh, World Cup athletes' boots, and they're not like that at all, right? Like, they just drop into them with a little grinding and some standard lifters, and they, they bring the boot board down and set the ramp angle just very, very standard, right? But then he showed me some pretty wild, like, whoa, this is the way they like it. And he has also every race binding in his inventory. He has a— he's a sample of every race binding. So he can set it up and put the lifter on and test to make sure it meets the DIN clearance so it doesn't impact the toe piece. So he's got a marker, he's got the Atomic, he's got the Look, he's got every race binding out there available. And so he can test every one to make sure that he can talk to the race room tech and go, yeah, you just follow my method and it's going to do— and it's going to clear it and it's not going to cause an interface problem on the binding. So it was— it's super, super cool. It was, it was quite enlightening.

Yeah, yeah. It's like, I guess, your point that like you don't need— like, the best people aren't necessarily customizing crazily. It's just if your foot is a little bit different and to make it work because you're quite narrow and you need to downsize, like, there are ways around it. To— like this guy's kind of figured out.

Yeah, so I mean, not every top athlete wants to downsize that much. I mean, it depends on how they fit, but there are some that just go, I need it so tight. I, I— this is, this is the way I want to control my ski at 80 miles an hour. Okay, yeah, yeah, this is, this is my— this is where my brain wants to go. And so They're, you know, they're indulged that way, right? Like they, they have to push the boots that far to get—

What about, what was some of the materials? You mentioned carbon and stuff like that. Were there, what were some of the other modifications they were doing there?

Yeah, we definitely, I definitely saw some boots with, you know, with the, with the carbon, they had carbon fiber backs, higher backs, um, to support some of the downhillers. When they come off a jump, they don't want to feel like the boot's folding backwards on them. So they've, they've got a carbon fiber bolt-on reinforcement in the back. They've got reinforcement on the front. He had some really cool 3D, 3D-printed reinforcements for the tongue as well, so that you can reinforce the front shin of the boot so your booster strap can go through it. And bring another plate up against your shin to generate more direct force over the ski. So these were prototypes he was playing with. Yeah, just little gadgets like that where it's reinforcing areas of the boot where they're— where these racers are pushing things so far to the edge that they need these added reinforcements to, to keep their stance in the best possible position when they're pushing, when they're pushing boundaries. Yeah, that's cool.

What a cool trip.

That's—

yeah, as a boot fitter, that's like your— like, you get this insight to, to like what's happening right at that cutting edge, like the Formula One.

Yeah, it's F1. It's F1 for skiing. It's, it's super cool and it's super fun.

Excellent. Now, you've had a couple of people recently come in for fits and they've been more on the, on the tricky end. I thought it'd be interesting to just share, like, you know, some people might not fit a ski boot very well, or you'll give an example of a lady with a really bad injury. Yeah, do you want to go through maybe—

sure, about the lady first? Yeah, so we had, uh, an older lady, uh, come in And she had experienced a pretty traumatizing injury. And it was like, it was not like a car wreck or anything. It was really simple. So she was stepping up on a stool to reach something in a closet. And when she stepped back down backwards, she misstepped and came down her foot and she snapped it, right? And we call it, it's called the Lisfranc injury. And she snapped the base of the foot and folded it in on itself. And pretty ugly, right? Like, this is— you don't like it if you snap any body part in half. And that's what she did. She snapped her foot in half. Um, got— went to an orthopedic surgeon. Orthopedic surgeon did a fabulous job putting it all back together. And so the foot in the X-ray was just like, you know, like all broken. And then you see the new X-ray with it all after He's put it back together and it's been cast and it looks super normal. Everything's normal. The problem was when she could walk on it, but to put that foot, to push it downward and to kind of twist it past that, you know, that, that entrance into the boot. Yeah, yeah, through that, she was super scared, right? And we took her old boot that's pretty worn out and And she tried to put it on and she couldn't even get close. Like, I was peeling it open and she couldn't get into it. And she started to cry, right? Like, just, she was getting sad. So like, okay. And so we tried on some new— we didn't try them on, we were trying to get her foot in some new concepts and new boots. And, um, eventually we found a boot that I opened it up far enough And like, I peeled the tongue open and she just barely got in with some tears coming out of her eyes. And we got it on her and she's like, oh, I'm in. Oh geez, okay. Um, and so the light went off in her head like, oh, maybe I can put the boot on. So I went out and marked out some significant instep modifications. We tore the liner apart. We restitched it back together with the ability to stretch it further open. We cut out sections of the tongue. She had this big lump on the top from, from the healing part after the surgery. We just made the whole boot way easier to put on. And so when we got it done, we went through a process of teaching her how to warm up the boot a little bit, how to push the tongue to a side, and it just it opened it up like 30, 40% more room. And she put her foot in, a little trepidation, and then it just kind of slipped in and dropped. And she was like, oh my gosh, I'm gonna ski. This is the greatest thing ever. Woo-hoo! You know, she puts up her buckles, she kind of dances around the room a little bit. And she's like almost crying with joy. And so we, you know, we took somebody who was basically faced with like, it's over, right? I'm never gonna put, a regular ski boot on and got her to be able to put a ski boot on. And so she's back, right? She's back. She doesn't have high expectations. She's not going to go rip around the mountain hardcore. Uh, she's not going to look like you, Tom, okay? But she's definitely going to get back up and she's going to get skiing and she's going to do it on her terms and no longer feel like she's impaired and she's disabled. Right? She's a normal human again. And I think that's what's kind of— that's exciting to see, and it's, it's really enriching, right? Yes. It's powerful. And so she gets engaged in the sport again. And, and we didn't put her in a rear entry boot, right? We didn't just go, oh, here's this rear entry sloppy thing. We're like, we just kept her in a two-piece standard boot that she likes the performance because she still wants to feel like she's a skier. And we got there. That's cool. Yeah.

When, when you talk about like, uh, unstitching the tongue, because you're talking about another guy who had some circulation sort of issues, really high instep, just couldn't, couldn't get a boot to fit with a couple of different boot fitters, you had to go into that, into some tongue surgery.

Yeah.

Yeah. How does that work? If you—

how's your sewing skills? The hand sewing skills are getting more and more practice, but we essentially take and disassemble the liner around the tongue area. I've actually got a boot here. And so, what, if you look close enough, there's this elastic area and there's this cover, there's this cover plate right here and elastic, and usually they're very tightly stitched. And that's done for a reason. And when you bring those overlaps of the liner together in a tight way, it holds the instep down and keeps the heel from rising. So it's designed to keep your foot down and keep the heel back and keep the performance of the boot. But if you have this really tall arch, this really high instep, this material can't stretch far enough and it keeps the liner completely bound over the top of your foot. And so what we'll do is we'll actually cut all the stitches away from that cover panel and remove the elastic. And when you do that, the liner goes from like this to this. It just opens it up. So when that high arch goes in there, the liner just parts, the C parts parts and the liner moves away from each other and allows that instep to fit much taller in the boot. And then we harvest the elastic, so we go back in, make it shorter, and restitch in the elastic so the tongue doesn't come flying out when you try to put the boot on. It keeps just enough tension in the tongue that it doesn't come out of the boot and It— but it allows the fit to expand over the top of the foot. Then we do some other tongue modifications as well to take it away from critical nerve lines, critical arterial lines that can make the foot numb. So it's not just that, but there's some other things that we do. But when we put it all back together and the customer puts it back on, it's a revelation, right? What was feeling like a bone crusher over the top of the foot feels like this very spacious, you know, arch-contoured, you know, boot. And so you can keep them in a two-buckle— and not two-buckle, a two-piece boot that generally doesn't provide that type of space, and you can get them in it and you, you can get them comfortable.

So very cool. And then like another, another surgery I know in liners— and I mentioned liners because Perhaps someone's gone with their wide foot and they've stretched this shell out, but then it still feels tight on that sixth toe and across the forefoot, and often can be the liner. And, and so you've talked about the, the instep part. Do you also go in and ever change like the base part of the liner?

Do you want to discuss that? Yeah, you can do that, right? So— the base of the boot. There was just recently a buddy of mine from the UK, and he displayed his work where he actually goes in and he cuts the bottom. He slices it, you know, vertically, lengthwise. And so he expands it open, then he can backfill it with a wedge, right, to keep it open, and it allows the liner to become significantly wider. Than it was. This, this outsole on the bottom of the boot is very firm material. It doesn't stretch. And so it holds it narrow. You can make the plastic really wide, but the liner still— this, like, it's like a tourniquet, you know? It's like it's still binding your foot. And so until you release the tension and allow that liner to open up, um, you you won't get the benefits of all the plastic work you did. And so once you release the tension and open it up, and he did a really nice job, beautiful back filling with some material. And so it just made the boot just way wider. Like, if that's a D width, it's a triple E now, and the foot just could spread across the bottom of the boot. And so we can do that, uh, really, you know, he's a great boot fitter in the UK, um, really super nice guy. Um, his name is Colin, by the way. And he did this beautiful work and just got it nice and wide for this athlete who needed it right away. So those are some of these miracle things we can do with the liners to really fit difficult wide feet, difficult high arches and things like that. So the liner can be our playland, right? We can do a lot of things with the liner. Liner, um, uh, to, to improve the fit. We've got— there's another great fitter out in Pennsylvania. His name's Billy, Billy Kaplan, and he does amazing liner work. He has, um, a half a dozen industrial sewing machines, and he can actually completely disassemble a liner and put it back together. Wow. Get around the shape of your foot. So there's some cool things that boot fitters are doing out there that I think a lot of people don't know about, that there's there's some really cool craftsmanship, um, that's possible with, you know, top-level career boot fitters, uh, that we, that we can do to, to get you fit in a boot, um, even if you think it's— if it's that it's not possible and all is lost. Yes.

Yeah, it's nice to hear. I, I, I can remember someone doing that for a pair of boots of mine as well, and I was like, what? You you're cutting the bottom of it, and then they, and then they spread it out and then kind of duct taped it to keep it— yeah, yeah, in that width. And it was, yeah, remarkable difference in, in how my foot felt just by changing that sole piece of the liner, right?

It released the tension, like you just went to this nice natural feel in the boot.

Yeah, yeah. So Brent, to, to kind of wrap up Anything, um, anything more you're excited about? You seem like you've got some, some new staff in the shop this season, and you've got your new— the, the new tools. I think there's going to be some people probably with their narrow race boots running to, to come see you now. Um, yeah, anything else you're excited about to, to test?

Oh, maybe that's what you said, you've got a new pair of boots. Yeah, um, I've got some new Head Core boots. Coming. Um, I'm on the quest for that magical, uh, crossover boot. Um, I'm gonna go ski in Japan in January, so— oh really? Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna take 2 weeks off and go look for some Japow. I hope it's still there when I get there. Uh, but I'm looking for kind of a— that alpine crossover boot because we're gonna do some touring while we're there. Um, so we're gonna go to Furano um, we use the lift access to get into the backcountry. Then we're going to whip out the skins and, you know, do some laps in the, in the, in the pow. So I'm, you know, I got some new Head Cores coming that is based off the new Formula shape. I tried it on last year when they had some demos out. I really like the feel of the boot. It's just, um, in the 120, a little wider, a little softer, um, just kind of felt like a good compromise between a performance alpine boot and a boot that was just lightweight enough to be able to do a little touring in. Not looking to do some major ascents, but something that if I got to ski back inbounds, it's going to perform inbounds. Excuse me. But it's also going to perform really well backcountry as well. So I'm looking forward to see if that boot delivers.

So yeah, excellent. Oh, cool. Is this the first trip to Japan?

Yes, it is.

Oh, awesome.

Never been awesome.

Okay, well, I look forward to hearing your report back on it. Yeah, that's fun. Good food. Yeah. Well, thanks, thanks very much again for this sort of, uh, catch-up. It's always good to hear from you, and sure, I loved hearing some of these. Good to see you too. Yeah, yeah, thanks a lot. Hubert especially, that was, that, that was cool. Maybe off air you can give me a few more little secret insights. Thanks a lot, Brent. Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Big Picture Skiing podcast. Hope you found that interesting and tune into the next episode. Just remember, if you haven't seen it yet, check out bigpictureskiing.com. And remember, there is a new app version for iOS and Android coming very soon, which will make access and learning and improving your skiing even more easy. Thanks for tuning in.

Until next time, bye.