What’s The Most Important Piece of Ski Gear?

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ski boots?
Duct tape ski boots?  3 toes?

Q:  What’s the most important piece of ski gear?

A:  Ski boots are the most important piece of ski gear.  Hands down.   No question.

Ski boots are the only piece of ski gear that actually touch your body.

The interaction between your ski boots and your feet is the most important interaction in skiing.  

If your feet are moving and your ski boots are not, then your skis are not doing what you want them to do and that’s bad.

If your ski boots hurt your feet, you’re going to ski less and experience frighteningly lower amounts of good times on the hill.  (Oh, and make sure to pull your jeans out of your boots)

Painful feet are not happy feet. Customize your boots and ski longer and harder.
Painful feet are not happy feet. Customize your boots and ski longer and harder.

A huge amount of skiers out there have ill fitting boots.  

Stock liners and footbeds can leave large gaps between the foot and boot and these voids lead to a loose boot fit and a greatly decreased energy transfer from foot to boot resulting in your skis reacting much slower than you’d like them to.

Stock ski boot liners suck.

The solution is simple:  get yourself custom ski boot liners and custom footbeds.

Getting a good pair of ski boots along with custom boot liners and footbeds changes your Ford Mustang into a Lamborghini Diablo.

If you’re a die hard skier or if you simply enjoy comfortable ski boots, you’ve gotta have custom boot liners and footbeds.  

They’ll change your life.

Boot fitters will make you happy. Glen Plake is happy
Boot fitters will make you happy. Glen Plake is happy

Any ski shop in the USA or internationally will have custom boot liners for sale.  

Custom liners completely support your foot, ankle, and lower shin so that anytime your foot/ankle/shin move, that energy is transferred directly to your boot and therefore into your ski improving your skiing.

Heat moldable liners, such as Intuition Liners, are a great way to go if they work for your feet and your local boot fitter will know if they do.

Heat moldable liner are less expensive and warmer.  Foam injectable liners are another way to go.  Foam that quickly hardens is injected into the liner creating a liner that is customized to your foot.  Custom liners are more expensive and less warm.

Intuitions Liners. Head moldable custom liners.
Intuitions Liners. Heat moldable custom liners.

Nearly any ski shop in the USA or internationally will have the ability to make you custom footbeds.  

Custom footbeds completely support your feet from underneath so that anytime your foot moves, that energy is transferred directly to the ski boot and therefore into the ski.  

Custom footbeds.
Custom footbeds.  Custom nail polish.

In conclusion, we can’t recommend customizing your ski boots enough.  Customizing ski boots via custom boot liners and custom footbeds will improve the performance and comfort of any ski boot.  When your ski boots are comfy and performing well, you’ll ski more, ski longer, ski harder, and ski better.


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9 thoughts on “What’s The Most Important Piece of Ski Gear?

    1. It’s a combination of mead and heat – basically hot mead. Tasty, yet un-refreshing. Thanks for the heads up on the typo, just fixed ’em. Thanks.

  1. I think Technica just changed the equation with the first non-throw-away liner in the marketplace in their Mach 1 series. footbeds are still the thing.

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