Ultra Performance Ski Boots With Brent Amsbury

This episode is sponsored by Carv, the digital ski coach, and one of the updates I've really enjoyed this season is the addition of separate SkiIQs for moguls and short turns. In the past, Carv scoring was mainly built around carving metrics, which meant everything was viewed through that lens, but Carv have gone deep on that research and completely separated what makes a great short turn or mogul turn different from a carved turn. To give you an idea of how accurate it's become, the person at the top of the Carv leaderboard right now isn't a carving specialist, it's Olympic mogul skier Matt Graham. So the best SkiIQ in the world at the moment is coming from someone who lives and breathes bumps, and to be honest, my own highest SkiIQ is also in the moguls, which makes sense because that's my favorite type of skiing. What's really exciting this year is the addition of turn tempo, so basically your turns per minute. It's such a simple external output that's incredibly fun to play with. So good skiing isn't just about edge similarity or parallel skis, it's about how you interact with the terrain and whether you can change your tempo on demand. So seeing numbers like my quickest tempo of 117 turns per minute in the bumps gives you something concrete to compare, refine, and work toward. I've been working with Carv since 2020, and every year I'm genuinely impressed with how much the product evolves. They keep expanding what you can measure, and they're covering more and more of the turn types that skiers actually use all over the mountain. So if you're interested in tracking not just your carving but every turn you make on the snow, check out Carv. And a big thanks to the team for supporting this episode.

Hey skiers, are you looking for a boot that provides ultimate comfort whilst also being very high performing? I certainly was, and this was one of the first boots that that I got that kind of fit that category. Now, my guest today on the podcast, Brent Armsbury, uh, master boot fitter with tons of experience, he calls these boots ultra performance boots. So it's not quite like a race plug boot, and it's not like an all-mountain 130 flex high-performing boot. It's sort of almost in between there. And he's seeing a resurgence in boots this year in that category, ones that have good angles, that sort of don't stand you too upright, they help you get forward and be in a dynamic position, they're quite snug fitting and close fitting, you need to do some boot work often if you don't have that narrow sort of European type of foot. And so on this podcast I wanted to get Brent's ideas around this, I want to have a discussion with him around this ultra performance type of boot, so if you're that person, you're that kind of really obsessed with technique, you really want to push the game, your level of skiing up, but you know, you don't want a full-on plug boot which takes a lot of work and is heavy, but you don't want sort of one of these sort of almost like gone too towards the comfort end, not giving you enough precision and drive through the ski. Well, this podcast is for you. All right, without further ado, let's get into it with Brent Armsbury today.

Hey Brent, I've got you on today because I really want to help the viewer, a lot of the people that are on YouTube watching ski videos, they're looking a lot of the time for performance boot that still is comfortable. And I know there's a lot of boots coming out you're aware of now that, that fit this bill, and you're seeing maybe a little bit of a trend. And interestingly, this trend we're seeing come back is kind of related to a conversation, the, the rental boot thing.

So I was—

I was— I went to Dubai just for fun, and to— and I didn't take ski boots. I used the rental gear, and I was shocked. Made a video about it, about a lot of the— a lot of the angles were like, just made me feel like I couldn't ski well. Give us your perspective, what, what that made you think about in terms of, um, ski boots and angles and trends.

Yeah. So, you know, you really got me thinking about not the rental boot per se, but like, have we possibly made, you know, have the trend of boots possibly made them too easy? Like too easy to ski? Have we moved almost to the point where it's like we've made them almost a little too easy to be comfortable in them and easy to stand in them, as opposed to the boot challenging us a little bit more to be more on our game. And I'm not saying the boot has to be really brutally hard. I'm not talking about the old days of Lang Bang and people getting bloody and painful. I'm just saying that maybe we've over-commercialized the boot a little bit, just made it a little too creature-comforty. And now we're possibly seeing a resurgence back to boots that kind of say, let's, let's put some more horsepower, more torque, more energy into the ski. And yeah, they might shock you a little bit at first, but you can, you learn how to become better.

Because you, you in the shop had customers coming in saying, I'd bought this boot, recommended it was the bee's knees, kind of all-terrain style boot, and what sort of feedback were you hearing?

Oh yeah, like this, the start of this season, I probably have more customers who've come in and said, well, I bought this boot on a recommendation of a website or like some marketing videos, and I went and skied on it. They said they went and skied on it, it was just like really lackluster, you know, like really didn't make the ski want to really roll over an edge. They would always say it's like maybe a little too soft feeling, right? Like there's just way too much play, you know, going into the front of the boot. You know, they were like, it was comfortable, right? Like they always say it was comfortable, but, right? Like, like as if they had misgivings about buying a car that was like, oh, it was comfortable, but boy, it gave me no joy to drive it. Right, so like we're seeing some people, definitely some customers who are coming in and saying, man, I bought this boot and it was comfortable, but I had no joy skiing it.

Okay, yeah, so this is leading into where we're sort of going with this, because now what are you, what are you seeing? You're, you're privy to like the new boots, the, the new models coming out. What's, uh, What's something, yeah, you're seeing?

So what we're seeing, or I'm seeing at least personally, is that, like, to start a season, we're putting more people into this new 96mm lasted resurgence boot, right? And there's some manufacturers who have really kind of jumped out. Like, the Head Raptor WCR has always been 96. But we have more people moving to that boot because they tried like the recreational versions of other boots and went, I need more boot. And I'm like, here's more boot. And they're like, great. You know, Dalbello DRS, like, oh, they made this 98mm last, the DRS, but now they made the 140 in a 97. So closer to the 96, like, wait a minute, we're making that boot even, even more edgy, right? And then Atomic. So you got Atomic who had the Redster CS, which was a 96mm lasted boot, but kind of lived in the shadow of the World Cup boot because it was a Redster. And now they made this whole new line of 96mm lasted boots like the TX and the Remedy. So you gave it a new name, a new shape. It's a 96mm boot that everybody just kind of kicked to the side. And now everybody wants a 96mm boot. Because they put some GripWalk soles and some little bit more creature comfort into it, amped up the liner, and now all of a sudden it's the star of the show and people want it. Like, it was neglect— it was an orphan. Now it's the star. And it— and it's, you know, these are great boots. You know, the Tecnica Firebird and the Kessley KX series. These boots have been around, but all of a sudden we're seeing this shift back to these more strong, powerful, torque-driven boots. Because I think people have tried the more hyped freeride, easy-to-ski boots and just went, meh, this isn't doing it. Like, I really want a ski boot that pushes the edge.

Because I, with experience, like now into my 10th, 11th boot or something, I know now that I— even though I have a wide foot, like over 107mm wide and a 26, I still go for really narrow. So I want to bring up this conversation that— because now it's really obvious, boots, that, that last is stated on there. I think more people are aware that it moves up and down with the sizes. Um, but I guess, can you help give some insight there that just because you might have a little bit wider of a foot or something, that you don't need to shy away, but you do need to consider boot work? You know where I'm going with this. So help us, help us out with— yeah, you know, not scaring people, but making people aware of of this fit and maybe the benefits?

Yeah, I think, you know, when you look at the marketing and they say the last, they say it's narrow and it's like, oh, I need to have narrow feet. But no, you don't. You don't need narrow feet. What you need is quality boot fitting to take a boot that really should be called ultra performance in its last, which is that really is close and hugs the anatomical features. And what you need is quality boot fitting to nudge and massage, you know, this performance last around your anatomical uniqueness, right? So if you're wider, I mean, you're, you're not likely to be wide everywhere. Yes. I'm not wide everywhere on my foot. You know, like I have a wide forefoot, but my ankle and my heel are actually pretty tapered back. So I'm gonna be pretty happy putting my foot in a 96 boot, knowing what I'm gonna get out of it once I start pushing, nudging, massaging, grinding, punching, shaping. And it takes time. There's a, a bit of a relationship aspect to this, but what I'm gonna get is a boot that actually makes my skis feel like they're sharper, like the edges are sharper, that I can really trust the rail.

So I liked how you reframed maybe the last being about the foot width, which, which is probably a good way to view it if you're maybe a skier that's not doing as many days and you just don't want to spend a bunch of time in the shop. You just want the boot to fit and, you know, you're not serious about improving.

That's the thing.

But if you're beyond that, this, this 96mm last, I liked how you said it's like ultra performance. So you're actually choosing— the last is kind of guiding you into the kind of performance you're going to get out of a boot. Um, so these people that they're looking at it now, uh, maybe— well, let's go next. Can you describe the boots you know and the different brands in this kind of 96mm and maybe help, help, uh, like the 3 categories? Like the person that isn't a narrow foot, which of the, of the ultra performance ones go well there? The person that's kind of in the middle And then I'm going to say like the wide lower arch. Like I have a few like Asian friends and they have like a wider foot and it's lower, kind of low but wide volume-ish. Like, yeah, yeah. So maybe guide us or talk us through what you feel is in the range currently between the brands in this category.

Well, like, like specifically to, to like brands and models You know, if we start with Atomic, we've got the Atomic TX and the Remedy. The Dalbello DRS, even though it's 98, you know, it's, it's closer to that ultra performance in the 140. They make the 97. If we go to Tecnica, we've got the Firebird, right? The Firebird R. You can get the World Cup version, but like what you see on the website, the Firebird is the 96 last, you know, Lang. You know, they tuned their new Lang RS, which they brought out last year. It's a '98, '97, but really, you know, it again steers more towards that '96 style of boot with a thicker shell wall. We have, you know, the Kessley KX series that's always been really narrow and really tapered, almost to a fault, 'cause you need a good boot fitter to make a Kessley fit, right? Like to really not want to bite you really hard. Okay. You know, Fischer, they built a '95 last, '96 last boot a while back, the Podium GT. It went away again, kind of lived in the shadow of its World Cup brethren. And so they don't have a boot in that category right now, but I would imagine they will eventually soon. Because of its kind of coming back. If you've got the Doberman, the Doberman 5, which is a, you know, '95, '96 last, like, that's a really powerful boot. And I've recommended like that boot to a lot of instructors because there's a lot of room to work with it. And you shouldn't be afraid of that boot. You know, K2, you know, they built this, a new boot with double boa, right? And it's a nice— it's a low volume last, but they put more aggressive angles on it. It really— it's like a comfort but aggressively, you know, stance boot. I don't think it really falls directly into the 96 last, but, you know, they're saying with the boa, it kind of pulls the last in. That's a little bit of controversial, but that, you know, we, we see this trend like there's this separation, right? So these manufacturers are saying, look, these LV boots that we made, these 98mm lasted LV boots, the comments have been, oh, you know, these boots need to be comfortable. So they kind of just kept pushing them out and like making more commercialized. Well, now they look more like the mid-volume boots and they're like, really, they stand up taller. They're really easy to ski. And so you, you kind of like these— some of these manufacturers even drop those boots. Dalbello, like, no, we don't even make the, the Krypton Cabrio in a 98 or 97mm last anymore. So they got this big gap. So we're seeing manufacturers go, well, we've had this 96mm category all along and now we're kind of killing off some of these LV boots. So 96 is like the new LV. And yet on steroids, right? It's got more power, more performance. And we're seeing people gravitate like, I want more performance. So what's out there? And so by just adding a little bit of creature comfort, it's kind of become alive. It's like it's resurging, you know, Dalbello even makes GripWalk soles for the DRS. Like you can just, oh, what sole do you want? You know, do you want an easy-to-walk sole that's got better grip, or do you want the racing, slick racing soles? But you can take one boot and turn it into a little more SUV-ish, and you take the same boot and make it, you know, more of a club racer just by the sole you put on it.

Okay.

And that wasn't available before. Yeah.

Would you dare to kind of categorize, like, bunch a few of these boots for those three stereotypes, or the, the kind of groups of foot type. So they, you know, if they, if they are in that, that's kind of my foot, I need— I want to go search out a shop that at least has one of those in that range. Would you, would you be able to help kind of, yeah, dare to do that, like kind of group them in what you feel would, would suit them better, or no?

In those type, in the 96mm last, I'm very comfortable with putting a wide variety of feet in them. Because they do hug the foot so well. So if you're wider and lower, you know, these boots are already lower in the instep, so I can just make width. If you're tall and narrow, I've got these really good boot boards. I can lower your foot all the way down in the boot to give you more roof height.

That's a really good point.

Yeah.

Do you want to just explain that? Because I think some, like, explain the pain point that person might have been experiencing and then gone to a high-volume boot but lost—

yeah, just explain that one because that boot board adjustment thing, I think that's important.

Yeah, so like a lot of the, the high-performance 96mm elastic boots have racing-style boot boards. Some have a little softer, but you can grind them, right? You can— they're thick and you can grind them down so you can make vertical room in the boot. And not only that, because you got a thicker shell, I can grind and localize that high foot. Like there's a point where that high foot, that tall narrow foot hits the top of the boot. I don't need a high volume boot to deal with that. I just need to isolate that area and recontour it. And I can assure you, you're not gonna have that pain point anymore, but you get the narrowness and the, you know, the performance of the, of the anatomical fit, um, but just using the boot board and recontouring, you get it comfortable with all the power.

Brilliant. Okay, good. So now I sort of interrupted you there. So we're saying you fit— you're happy fitting a lot of kind of shapes of feet, uh, into these types of boots because of that. Any other reasons maybe expand on, like, with the boot fitter working with the types of plastics that these are made out of, does that make a difference? Do these boots often give you more modification-friendly materials to work with?

They do. Like, they, they flat out do. They're thicker shell wall. They use high-level PU, uh, polyurethane, polyether constructions. And because you have more material to work with, you can make more contours. And there was this drive towards these thin shell wall boots and thin shell wall boots make, you know, they, they're lighter. So there's like this attraction like, oh, they're not as heavy. They're, they're easy to contour, but you got this, this thin shell wall, but a thin shell wall has limitations. As soon as you start monkeying with these thin shell walls, they start to distort. They start to get funky on you. And so you end up with a boot that has kind of run away from you in terms of, like, the contour plus performance. They've just kind of— if you work them too hard, they give up, right? Where the thicker shell wall, like, in these 96mm lasts, it's like, man, it's— these are box-framed race car type boots. And you, you have so much more to work with. And so like high-quality boot fitters for sure, even within my colleagues, if I asked them, hey, what do you like to work on? I mean, what would you like to work on every day? They're going to talk about these boots. They're not— I mean, they rarely go, oh, I like a really thin shell wall boot that's just kind of just like doesn't challenge me what I'm doing. They're like, no, give me thick PU plastic. Right.

Mm-hmm. Oh, I remember being scared when I was doing some work in a boot shop when you had like the boots and the plastic partway along would change. So you'd have like where the two plastics had to join, and if you had to punch or whatever there, that was scary. This is like, that's where it's going to break. So you heat and mechanically push at it, right?

Like bi-injected boots. Yeah, like the two different types of plastic joined by a by a physical bond, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, they were kind of scary.

Yeah, exactly. So then expectations-wise for these people going, okay, this sounds like what I want, I want more edge grip, I want more performance, do they need to expect like a longer time process, uh, revisits, um, felt differences that, that maybe before they've gone, no, that's not comfortable, next boot please?

Yeah, I mean, your expectation has to be that you're going to spend more time to get these set up. And if you expect these boots to be 100% comfortable going out the door, um, no, you should— when you put them on, there's going to be some clear spots that are making your brain go, get me out of here, right? But with a good boot fitter, they start nudging. It's called the— we call it— I call it the low-hanging fruit, right? So it really hurts, let's say, on the navicular, and it really hurts on your ankle bone. It really hurts on the sixth toe. Like, these are like searing. And then you do these 3 punches, and like the picture starts to clear, right? It clears. Like, oh, there's relief there. And then all of a sudden there's like these little niggly little things like, boy, this ankle pocket, like the Achilles feels a little aggressive. And boy, my big toe could use maybe a little more room, but when I flex on it, it seems to be better. Like that's the stuff where you go, tell you what, go ski it, right? Go ski it, let the liner break in. And some of those will remain and some of them will go away. So maybe there's 6 little tiny things that you go, hmm, will these go, will these, you know, go away or not? But like 3 of them will go away when you ski. So when you come back, you just have these, this little short list of 3 things and maybe on each boot where you, where the, where a boot fitter can just take it and grind it a little bit, just knock this down, knock a little here, knock a little there off, and then boom, those are gone. Right? So one session to kind of get the low-hanging fruit out of the way. Second session to deal with the little niggly stuff, the little details. And now you've got a boot that's, you know, 95, 96% there. Right? Like, little things could show up after you ski it a while, but for a third visit, but it's not a deal breaker.

Back to our, back to our trend of like, maybe when almost too comfortable, Uh, with, you know, the whole range of boots, it's almost like a red flag in this category if it's like, this, I could ski this right out of the box, is almost a little bit—

it's almost a red flag, right? Like, it's like, no, if you have ultra narrow feet, it might be a slam dunker.

Yes.

But then when I do have ultra narrow feet in these class of boots, then I go right to like a zip fit liner. It's like, okay, they come with a little bit of a thin dense liner, and if it's got enough grip, it's like, okay, sorry, we gotta upgrade you right to a zip fit that engages that ankle even more in this frame. And it, boom, it's like, wow, okay, narrow feet, very happy now.

Mm-hmm. Would you say, I think you kind of mentioned before with the types of boots you'd like to work on, But a boot that has the ability to be ground, not just only punched, gives you so— like, well, one, it's quicker, right? You don't have to heat it, stretch it, wait. You can go in there, mark it. You can be very precise, can't you? So a lot of the time, these boots, if you can get that in the type of boot you're looking for, you, you then allow your boot fitter far more opportunity to be really precise with like snugging in and fitting these little bony patches and—

Yeah, I mean, it's quicker to an extent, but the nice thing about a grindable boot is you can go in and just take a little bit at a time. So, okay, I made a punch, but that punch, yeah, I could punch it, but like each shape is a, you know, the shape is like, that's the shape. Yeah. And so you can overshoot, right? Like when you punch, you just, you just like, oh, I tried to nudge it, but it overshot a little bit. And now you gotta figure out how to get back. And with grinding, it's just easier just to be like, take, like shaving, you know, the zone. You need to expand it or make it deeper. You can do it a little bit at a time and the boot goes on, the boot goes off, but you can just get it to right where the, the point where you're really satisfied with it.

Yeah.

Carving, you know, scalping, right? As opposed to like, huh, you know, one spot, put, and then you might have overshot. Like, it was, it was, it was just about good enough, and then now it's kind of like too open. Like, there's almost too much room.

It's just so hard. I mean, you, you with your all your experience, that's helpful. But to stretch a boot and know the, the how much it's going to come back, and every plastic, even probably every year, you, if, if they make a new boot and the plastic has changed the color you're, you're not 100% sure that it's going to come back the same as the old Atomic did, or if it's gonna go right. That's, that's the tricky thing with the stretching. But the grinding, as you said, you can see if you're taking half, 1, 2 mil away, it's more— the measurableness of it makes it really, uh, workable.

Yeah. And the grinding boots, you just get the shape that you want. Like, if it's really oblique and really weird Like, you can, you can make that shape exactly what it looks like as a reflection of the body, as opposed to just a general area.

Yeah. So if someone's moving up into this, they've, you know, been a wide foot, they've always bought a high-volume wide boot, uh, that, that foot, that kind of boot, and they're going, no, I'm going to step up, and they try a pair of boots on, what would, uh, what would you expect their reaction or feelings to be?

If you've been in like a, like a higher volume boot, yeah, well, of course you're, you're, you get a shock of how snug they are, right? And especially the ankle and the heel pocket in, in the midfoot. Like, boy, this thing is really— it's a cramped cockpit. Yeah, right. But And, but you, you gotta give it a chance. You, you've gotta trust your boot fitter that they, they have the skills and the knowledge to work that boot and massage it. Because trust me, just because you think you're kind of freaking out in there, like I look at people when they come in and they, they get in these boots and I go, look, I, I can make this thing pretty wide. Like I could really open this thing up. It's like, like I've seen people with triple E width feet and we get them into these ultra performance lasts. It's, it's doable. It may take 4, 4 sessions, but it's doable. And then these boots tend to last longer. They have—

that's a really good point.

Hardware.

Yeah. That's a very good point.

Yeah. Like all the people who I set up in these boots, I may see a boot that's come back after 7 seasons of skiing. And it's still intact. We put new soles on it, replace some buckles. If it hasn't cracked yet, like, these boots keep going. I've seen Langs, like, that have cracked and we've repaired the cracks and they just keep going. Like, the crack just kind of dies away and, like, they just keep going. You think these boots would split in half and they go another 3 seasons with a little crack in them and they just keep going.

Yeah, I'm in that camp. I'm— I don't— I've got my podium boots dialed and I'm— I just don't want to go— like, it's taken a while, but they're— because they're so solid. Yeah, I broke a buckle this season, just replaced it, that was fine. Yeah, I've got a zip fit in it so that, you know, if that eventually dies, you know, I, I just get another one of those. But yeah, I think the longevity part of it, this investment early on, more time to get it right. You do kind of get that back a little bit later on versus the, the other way around.

Yeah, like these boots are like the story of the, the person who drives a Porsche for like half a million miles. Yeah, they replaced a bunch of parts and they— but it went half a million miles because they love the way it drives, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, like other cars that are more creature comforty and electronic-y, you drive them 200,000 miles and just junk them. Like, you're just like, it's not even worth repairing them, right? So that's kind of like the, like the recreational performance category is like, yeah, we can go about 150,000, 200,000 miles and then you just junk it, right? Or like the '96 class boots and in the World Cup boots. These are the half-million milers, right? Like, they can keep going. You can keep the nut— as your foot changes, you just grind a little more. Yeah, right. Yeah, you know.

This episode is brought to you by Carv, the digital ski coach. Now, one of the features I've had the most fun with all time is simply the fact that Carv tracks every single turn you make. I treat it a bit like Strava, so at the end of the day, it tells me exactly how many turns I've done and those numbers keep adding up across the season. So last season in Australia, I had a few days where I was doing nearly 2,500 turns, and my legs were tired, but it was really cool to try and have that number there motivating me. And I'm quietly working my way towards my 1 millionth turn with Carv. So the other metrics I've been diving into lately, and these are new for this season, are very unique, and these are turn corridor and turn radius. And I don't see many skiers using them, but they tell you a lot about the shape and flow of your skiing. So the turn corridor shows you how far you're traveling across the hill, or the time almost between apex to apex, and how long you're taking to transition. While the turn radius measures the actual arc you create once you start the turn. So these can be different. You can have like a very wide corridor, say 18 meters, but a lower turn radius, or the other way around. So when you compare the two, it opens up a whole world of experimentation, and it would be a bit like a race coach will set different types of race courses to influence a racer or skier to change the timing and mix it up. So I encourage you to look into this if you've got Carv and play with it and see if you can manipulate it, because it's only going to improve your versatility. So I keep my Carv on my boots every single day because you never know quite know when like a change in technique or a new ski resort or skis will show up in the numbers, and it's great at the end of the day being able to check that or even after the fact. And I'm really looking forward to the day I open the app and I see turn number 1 million. So if you want to explore your skiing in a completely different way, check out Carv, the digital ski coach. And thank you, team, for sponsoring this episode.

Make changes as you go.

I should say too, a lot of the things in this boot, you can't feel in the shop how much of a change an effect it has on the actual snow experience, which is tricky, do you know what I mean? Like, yeah, and if you've not experienced that, it can be hard to like get the buy-in to spend the time, spend the money with the boot fitter getting it right. But holy cow, yeah, when you, when you get the snow experience with and you realize that we're not just talking crap here, like it edges better. You can go faster and you don't feel like as unstable. You just charge through chop like nothing else. Um, I was talking to Ski Joe Dunn, Ski Dad, and he's— he said, you know what, I prefer my race boots in the powder to the, um, the Full Tilt boots, which you'd think would be the other way around. But it's because it just holds him so solid that even if he gets a bit back and wheelies, like, the boot just brings him back to this athletic position. He's back, back on it again, which is kind of like counter, counterintuitive.

True. It, it almost feels as if we, we went a little— like manufacturers just went a little too far with the more uprighty stance, right? Like there was like, oh, we gotta ski really upright, really relaxed, because we're just skiing a bunch of double rocker stuff. And now we're like, oh, maybe did we just make it a little too easy, you know, a little too uprighty. And, you know, like, I like this Japanese YouTube site. Like, they have this image of your stance, and if you're, if your knee, right, the flexion of the knee point is not over your big toe, they're like, no. Like, if you're too upright in the boot, you can't ski. You gotta have, you gotta challenge your forward lean a little bit. And I know some people are gonna just freak out when I say this, like, oh, wait a minute, like, I don't have great range of motion in my ankle, so I need a boot that's more upright. It's like, yeah, but we can get a little more forward. Like, we can actually find a little bit more threshold. A lot of manufacturers, I feel like, like, boots used to challenge me much harder with my low range of motion ankles. And now it's like every boot I can try on the freeride category, it's like it doesn't even matter, right? Like these all stand upright the way they shaped them. And then I get into a 96 last boot, it's like, boom, more forward lean. But it's not that bad. It's like, yeah, I can work with this, you know? Like, yeah, I, you know, I may have to do a little tweaking, just find the really happy point. But by playing with like ramp angles on the skis, like the delta angles, I can take a, you know, a high forward lean boot this way and just flatten out my ski. Mm-hmm. And I get the best of both worlds. More forward lean, close down the ankle a little bit, get faster reaction, but I can still feel like I'm not out of balance. Right?

Yeah.

So, yes. Yeah.

And I feel like that point of your knee just sitting a bit over your toe, I think you'd have to be like really very, very bad ankle flex to not be able to like be like there, like that, you know, beyond that shore. But, um, I think even with the what, you know, like a 16-degree forward lean, I think there would be a fair amount of people still in the like I've got limited range. Like even my wife, she's crap range of ankle, um, motion. But yeah, she's in, in a boot that she, she noticed when it went upright, she's like, I can't get forward.

So we had to—

yeah, she's like, I can't ski as well as I can. We're in Japan and it's like, oh no.

Yeah, it's almost like the industry kind of snuck it, like they keep sneaking towards these, these shapes that got us more and more upright, and it almost feels like we just went a little too far. And now these '96 Clarks boots, you can clearly see them, they're coming back. They're like, we need get more flexion.

So I'm going to re-emphasize the point of down this road, you, you're going to need to invest a little bit more money and a little bit more time to get the good, the good outcome. And you're going to need to develop a good relationship with your boot fitter because there is a bit more work done.

You—

unless you're the really— there are people that are lucky, bam, into the Doveman. Yep, this is good. Little, little grind here and then I'm happy. But that's probably— in your experience, would you say that's definitely on the less end?

Yeah, that's a smaller percentile.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you got to be prepared for that. I just want to mention that now. So expectations, I think, uh, you know, I think it's brilliant if we can help people realize what it is and then, and then they know the time that's going to be spent doing it to get that kind of fit. So anything more on that, you being on the boot fitter end, you know, me being someone that's coming in and saying, make this work for me. Any more advice or words for the listener looking for the boot, coming to their boot fitter? Like maybe even are they going to be— because, you know, REI, I don't want to You know, like, they're not— those kind of places are probably not going to be able to fit this type of boot. They probably won't even carry the range. But any, like, little hints that a shop— because, you know, a lot of your shop is awesome, people know of it, people will recommend it. But what if you don't know? Are there, like, signs? Like, oh, they'll have race boots on the wall, or you'll see the workshop out the back and there'll be, like, someone grinding a boot, or Yeah, I mean, those level boots do take the better—

they'd require the better boot fitter in the store, right? I mean, if you're going to buy into this and invest in this, you definitely want to go, hey, who's the most experienced boot fitter in the store that handles these boots? They may say, yeah, that person's pretty booked out. There's one person who just kind of really specializes in these. It's worth the wait, right? It's worth being patient and having that person with the most amount of experience set those boots up for you. And then realizing it's not a rush-in, rush-out situation. Like, you're better off like, this is my day. So when I'm gonna book in, it might be just a 2-hour appointment. But you, but like, if you come into me and you say, okay, it's a 2-hour appointment. And I, and I know that you're coming and we got to get that boot done that day, I'm not going to just kick you out at 2 hours. It's like, okay, we just burned up the 2 hours, we got it, but go have lunch. I'm going to keep working. You know, you went, you went, had lunch at, you know, 1:30, and then you come back at 3 and I got a bunch more work done. You know, I'll, I'll, you know, good fitters will stick with it to the end of the day. You just hang around, you know, hand them the boot, say a little bit more. They might be working with another customer, but it's easy for us to just go back and go, okay, a little more here, a little more a little of this. We just kind of keep slipping all that in. You get it done in a day. You may live in that shop for the whole day, but you'll walk out with a pair of boots that are, you know, the low-hanging fruit is gone. They're ready to ski. You know, they're— the alignment is, you know, tracked and ready, and you've got a plan of action, right? So it's not going to be— don't go in there like Oh, in 90 minutes I'm going to have a pair of these boots dialed. No, no, no, no, no. Just expect to live there for a day.

Yep.

Right. I think I was going in and out. Yeah.

Yeah. Some advice probably for maybe the instructors out there, uh, me coming from that background, who were often maybe, you know, because you're in the industry expecting maybe a bit of a discount or, or that sort of thing. I would just say now, being older and experienced, I realize the costs of running a business, the costs of staff these days, the margins in equipment and everything. I think the best thing you can do is just suck it up and realize that it's not like you're going to have to get this done every single day or every week once it's right. But I think be ready to pay for the work that goes into molding this type of boot into a boot that will help you ski better. So I just, I just want to mention that because I, I just don't— I feel, you know, there's even changed with the times. It used to be you buy a boot and like all the boot fitting was free, and I don't know really many shops that do that.

Yeah, because that's not—

yeah, you can't make it, you can't make a living out of it. You cannot do that.

No, you can't. It's— the industry's gotten much more expensive. In terms of the overhead costs, the rents, the taxes, everything, your staff, right?

Yep.

You know, just, just the other peripheral staff there. They're not working at minimum wage anymore. Right. So, and they're supporting the boot, you know, they're, they're part of the support for the lead boot fitter.

Right.

Because they're taking care of all the tourists and people who just want nice comfy fits. But you know, you have to pay 'em a livable wage, you know, these days. And they have to make a decent living. And especially when most of these fitters are now congregating in ski areas, which have some of the highest cost of living in, you know, in the nation, right? Yeah. So the days of like, when I started working in the industry, minimum wage was, I was more than happy to take minimum wage. 'cause it was like a lifestyle job. And yet, and the life around me wasn't that expensive. So now it, you can't, you just, that's, that doesn't exist anymore. It's no longer people working for low, low, like lower wages because they're in the industry for the fun. They actually have to make enough. So.

Exactly.

Okay. So just to answer your question a little more direct. So you're an instructor, you buy a boot like this on, on ProForm, uh, no, you're not going to be able to go in and pay a deducted labor rate because you're an instructor. No, you're going to pay the brain surgeon rate, right? The best brain surgeon out there is not going to be an inexpensive doctor. So it's the same thing. The best boot fitters don't work for low rates.

Yep, yep. And I just think that's really important I think that's really important to mention because I mean, you and I both wish it could be really a lot cheaper, but it's just not the way. And I think if you just have that understanding, you know, just the world is more expensive now and it's not the way maybe it used to be in the past. Just accept it. And, and I'm sure you'll, you'll be able to get around it and it's, it's you know, it's not an ongoing weekly, monthly cost you're paying for someone's expertise to also be in the industry that the ski instructor is in, loving it for the same reasons, you know what I mean? Like, right.

So just like a quick comparison, I found out my mechanic for my car, that shop is $210 an hour. That's the labor rate. Wow. Okay. Yeah, so yeah, like, yeah, yeah, and my, my hourly rate is, is below that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you've got— so in this, in different skill, like, area, Boots Mechanical, like, same amount of experience and level there going on. But yeah, so anyway, I think that was an important thing to, to bring up again with the expectations thing.

Sure, but it's worth it, right? These boots, these, these are the, these are the, the Porsche slash Ferrari Lamborghini-ish Mercedes S-Class boots out there, right? So these boots are really quite hot shit, powerful boots.

They will make your skiing better. Yeah, so you will be able to ski faster, better in them. Like, they're Yeah, if that's what you're after, it's worth it. You'll get it out.

It's worth it. Yeah, you're going to get your money back, trust me, with big smiles and ski performance and hooking up the edge and railing the ski, um, that you, you may have never experienced before.

That's right.

And there's like, there's a reason. Yeah, you see all these top skiers are in that kind of a boot doing what they're doing. Part of it is what that equipment allows them to do, you know, and yeah, get their skill level up. I mean, sure, they can go back down, but to get up to that point, you need something that supports you up to that point to, to feel the skills, the power, the speed, the, the time and the reaction forces. You kind of can't really get up there in a mushy thing. You just don't. You just— your brain won't let you do it. It's too kind of risky. It senses, nah, this is no good. The ski doesn't react in a certain way. Um, so even if they are in like slightly dialed down, I guarantee they've probably been beforehand, you know, racing to a high level in a very stiff boot, learning to feel these things, to, to then be able to like back it off. Would you agree with that?

Yes, I agree with that. And I think an important point I'd like to make is that we're not talking about plug boots. Okay, that we're not talking about the 92mm lasted thin leatherish liner boot. We're talking about the 96, which shares a lot of the, a lot of the performance of the plug boot, but the liners are plusher. They're built for all day. They can, they can take the 8-hour session, not the 2-hour session. And the angles are similar, but they're just not quite as— they're demanding, but they're just not quite as Formula 1, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

So more of a—

you don't really want to be feeling every single bump, which those boots will give you. It's not, you know, because you're not looking for split seconds.

And I had a client today who came in with his full World Cup Dobermans, and he's like, yeah, I like the way they ski. But man, I want a boot— like, he wanted a boot that could just go a little bit more off-piste, right? Like, a little more bang it up, but yet still carve it hard. And that's where we fell into a 96 class boot, because he could feel that it still had that energy, but it just wasn't going to be brutal like a World Cup boot, right? Like, he just needed something more just a touch toned down, yet still all the performance when you want to push it hard. Just so that— I think just a thin wafer, not quite so harsh, right?

Yeah, that's right.

So I think that's good.

We've kind of now placed this in a spectrum. There is something— the Plug Boot, if you're first hearing about this, is like what the World Cup, the high-end ski races, that's what they're in. We're talking about coming down there a little bit, but not the all-mountain type boot.

I think—

I, I hope it catches on. I think it's a good term, the ultra performance boot, like this category, instead of it being a last thing. Yeah, yeah. I just don't think that gives the right idea. It's what are you trying to do with the boot, not what is your foot like, that should dictate like where your choice goes.

Yeah, yeah, it shouldn't. It's like, you know, just because you run around in Hokas and Altras, like these wider toe box shoes, a lot more room, doesn't mean that, oh my gosh, I can't be in a narrow profile boot. It's just, it's a misnomer. It's, yeah, no, it's a, it's an ultra performance creature, not just strictly narrow.

Hey, I wanted to finish this conversation up. I think this has been really good. I've enjoyed it. But actually, with a safety thing, slightly related, rip walk soles, non-grip walk bindings, I feel that there hasn't been enough information out there for the general public because we're in this kind of transition period where you like GripWalk soles and bindings that have GripWalk and non-GripWalk compatibility are available. And I got— I didn't, I didn't know that that was a problem. And I've seen people injured really badly in a GripWalk boot and a regular binding and it didn't release properly. And so I want to take this chance now for you to— well, maybe can you explain, yeah, explain the two and, yeah, and that you, you have to get this combination right or, or you're at risk.

Yeah, a lot of me— you know, we, we're 6 years into this transition from GripWalk, um, away from the standard DIN, we call the DIN 5355 sole, which is still the sole on lug race boots. And many of these 96 boots still use that sole. But with now sort of these GripWalk 96 boots, you have to have a GripWalk compatible binding. And a lot of these bindings are more recent. Like, the question I always ask is, how old are your skis? And if you hesitate and you go, oh, they're like 5 or 6 years old, I'm like, you know, they're not going to be GripWalk compatible. They're likely or not.

Yeah.

And like the Look Pivot, you know, they didn't even become GripWalk compatible until about 2 or 3 seasons ago. Marker was the first, like, like 6-year-old Markers will be GripWalk compatible. And then everybody kind of slowly moved in the GripWalk direction. Tyrolia was the next. And, you know, Salomon was a bit of a holdout and you know, Look was definitely a holdout. But like, you got to have a GripWalk compatible binding if you have a GripWalk boot sole. Sole.

Yeah.

Sole.

So yeah, yeah.

Some of the boots you can retrofit, like some of them you can go back to the standard sole, but you need to be asking these questions like, one, how are my bindings GripWalk compatible? Um, if they're not, am I going to be buying a GripWalk level type boot? And you got to make sure that they interface. Yeah, you got to make sure.

Yeah, because I had some real trouble. Archie had a GripWalk sole boot, which has been great, awesome, because he doesn't— it's safer walking around the car park and, and at the end of the day, and easier to walk in. But then he's now ski racing a little higher level, and I'm on Marketplace. I'm like, I just want to get a secondhand pair of skis. I don't want to pay $1,000. Find some, none of them GripWalk compatible. So, so I'm stuffed. So I actually ended up having to get another pair of little junior boots, right, that had a DIN Norm sole. I mean, actually, a fisher eventually sent replacement normal sole for his, um, for his GripWalk ones, which— but it was too late. So I actually had to, before this state competition, go and buy a whole new pair of boots so I could use these secondhand race skis because it was cheaper to do that combo. Yeah, then get a— because the race skis don't really come with a GripWalk compatible binding most of the time because they're expecting you to be in a, in a flat sole.

Yeah. Right. And but manufacturers are now making race style GripWalk compatible bindings.

Yes.

But you got to, you got to ask, you got to like, yeah, if I have, let's say, the Atomic Remedy boot that comes with the GripWalk sole, is this DIN 5 to 16 binding GripWalk compatible? Right. So I can use this high level binding that has the switch that can go from DIN, you know, standard DIN to the new DIN, but they are making them now. Right.

Okay.

But you can't take it for granted. I just— you have to ask and look at the tech specs and ask the store person, especially the binding mounter who knows more about the bindings than anybody else, and be like, yep, that's compatible. It's going to work great.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm glad I had a Oh, you, you know him, Chris, who moved to, uh, to see, uh, Washington State. Yeah, um, he came and got some boots from you anyway. He had a pair of the Fischer Curve, old Curve ones, and that was getting— he was getting tuned, and the shop guy said, hey, like, what boots are you going to be using with these? And so he messaged me, he said, I've been told, do I need new bindings for these? Now he's in the Lang Shadow and which has got a GripWalk sole, and I'm like, don't ski in those, in that binding with that boot. And actually, that's what I wanted to ask you. What, like, do you know how, like, is it more likely that that's not going to release, or is it going to pre-release, or are you not sure?

It's gonna, it's not gonna release at the level that it's set at.

Okay.

It's gonna likely jam up.

Yeah, okay, that's what I thought. That's what happened with this little— this, this kid that I was skiing with. I saw it from behind, 2 meters away, following them down, a little twisting fall, and I just watched the, the ski and the knee go together and then finally release, but it was too late. Yeah, and you know, by the binding, the binding was like 1.25 Right, right. The super low DIN, just DIN release.

So the GripWalk, the GripWalk AFD has to be compatible with GripWalk because the AFDs don't line up on a standard sole and a GripWalk sole. They don't line up exactly. So that, that, that AFD pad has to line up with the angle of the GripWalk so that it releases clean.

Yep. Yeah. Awesome. Anyway, I've been meaning to like somehow get that out, and hopefully more the confidence, because once it starts spreading, and even friends going, hey, what are you doing with that binding and those boots? You got these brand new cool boots with GripWalk, but you're riding the 8-year-old ski. That's dangerous. Don't do that. And because the trick is you're like, great, I've got this new ski. Oh, suddenly a powder day, like a 1-in-a-month powder day, because I'm out east, I'll take my old Mantras out. You're in your new boot and the old binding.

No.

Bad, bad, bad things can happen.

Yeah, it's a bad deal. And if you have an old vintage style ski, you're going to have to replace the binding on it. If you want to keep that old 10-year-old pair that you're still in love with.

Yeah.

I hate to break it to you. You're going to have to update the binding on it to a GripWalk compatible with your new GripWalk sole boot.

Yeah, yeah. Or just be aware of it and maybe, yeah, swap out the soles. I mean, that's going to be a bit of a pain, and what if you forget? Um, great. Hey Brent, thanks so much for your time again.

No problem, thank you. I mean, it's always fun to, to chat.

It is, yeah. I think we get, we get across some, some good conversations, and, and I think you help me think about things more, and, and I like that you're, you're getting stimulated with some of the topics I'm bringing up. So yeah, just, it's great, especially this early season point where people are just waiting for the snow, thinking about new gear. I hope some people have, uh, yeah, got some good advice here, and yeah, we can help them out and everyone can ski better at the end of the day.

Yeah, me too. And I'm still answering emails, um, you know, if, if you— with my contact info It takes me a little longer now, right? We're starting to ramp up pretty heavy. I don't always can get to the email like in first couple days. It might take 72 hours or more. But yeah, I'm still happy to answer people questions. And you're in the same shop? Yeah.

So is it— so Brent's in Park City for those who don't know.

Yeah, it's Park City Ski Boots.

Yeah, Park City Ski Boot in Park City, Utah. I've had friends, clients fly from Europe even to come and see Brent, all over, uh, America as well. So yeah, if you, if you're liking what you're hearing, now's probably the time because yeah, once winter hits, it's, uh, it gets, uh, it gets a little crazy. And that was the only other thing I was going to say, like, great time. We've mentioned before in podcasts get your boots fit, like, even in the summertime, like, in the offseason.

Yeah, absolutely. Like, I fire up with the gear, like, really ready to rock and roll, like, August 15th. There we go, right? And by September, I'm rocking and rolling. Like, the racers, the hardcores, instructors, you know, they know. Um, and right now, like, right up until Thanksgiving, there's still like this latitude to gear up, but we have an opening date right around Thanksgiving, just like before Thanksgiving. And soon as there's a white ribbon of death, it's like the floodgates just pour wide open and I get pretty busy, like just flat out.

Excellent. Well, good. I'm glad to hear it. Brent, thanks so much for your time. We'll, uh, we'll see you next time.

Thank you, Tom.

So there you go, another episode of the Big Picture Skiing Podcast done, and another one on boots with Brent. So thanks, Brent, for your expertise and wealth of knowledge. Hey, just a PS from me: if you haven't checked out Big Picture Skiing and this season you really want to improve, I highly recommend you go and check it out. My goal is to make the best learning platform out there, an ultimate go-to resource for learning anything, so you know, not for beginners, but if you're beyond that, intermediate and aspiring, you know, even high-level instructors I have on there saying they're getting great results. So my promise to you is you'll get some great value, you'll learn some things, and you'll keep improving. So yeah, go over there and please check it out. Alright, until next time, see you later.

This episode is sponsored by Carv, the digital ski coach. and one of the updates I've really enjoyed this season is the addition of separate SkiIQs for moguls and short turns. In the past, Carv scoring was mainly built around carving metrics, which meant everything was viewed through that lens, but Carv have gone deep on that research and completely separated what makes a great short turn or mogul turn different from a carved turn. To give you an idea of how accurate it's become, the person at the top of the Carv leaderboard right now isn't a carving specialist, it's Olympic mogul skier Matt Graham. So the best SkiIQ in the world at the moment is coming from someone who lives and breathes bumps, and to be honest, my own highest SkiIQ is also in the moguls, which makes sense because that's my favorite type of skiing. What's really exciting this year is the addition of turn tempo, so basically your turns per minute. It's such a simple external output that's incredibly fun to play with. So good skiing isn't just about edge similarity or parallel skis, it's about how you interact with the terrain and whether you can change your tempo on demand. So seeing numbers like my quickest tempo of 117 turns per minute in the bumps gives you something concrete to compare, refine, and work toward. I've been working with Carv since 2020, and every year I'm genuinely impressed with how much the product evolves. They keep expanding what you can measure, and they're covering more and more of the turn types that skiers actually use or all over the mountain. So if you're interested in tracking not just your carving but every turn you make on the snow, check out Carv. And a big thanks to the team for supporting this episode.