rhaskins

I've seen two of these stacked on a liner for a set of ski boots to prevent heel lift. My bootfitter also will shave/grind down the edges so that there is no abrupt transition. They are made of rubber, so they grip the shell better than the liner. Rick

Similar problem with my Track 325's. Solved it by going back to my boot fitter and getting some of these fitted: Rick

I had some big issues with shin bang with my stock Flo liners with my UPZ boots. After a lot of adjusting and trying this and that, I got a set of Dalbello Gold liners from The Startinggate in Vermont based on a lot of recommendations here. The folks at The Startinggate were very knowledgeable, and my order shipped out pretty fast. These liners are made by Intuition for Dalbello. I took them to my boot guy and had an additional set of foot beds made for them, and had the liners molded. I took them to the hill the next day and they just killed my feet. My left (lead) foot was in a lot of heel pain. Took them back to the boot guy and he found an issue with the foot bed and made another one, and re-molded the liner around it. Took it back to the hill, and had the same issue. I developed severe lower leg cramps. Back to the boot fitter and we found the problem: the residual heat from the molding process given off by the liners made the foot beds soften and curl in the liner after my foot was removed. It was pretty obvious – the bed had a kink in the heel part. These beds are made of a fairly hard plastic so the only way they could kink was from heat. He solved that issue by re-molding both the foot beds to my feet, and staking the foot beds by adding a lot of material to the bottom of the bed to prevent them from distorting. We put the foot beds back in and they felt fine. The foot beds were Instaprints which my boot guy had used for years, but it was his first time using Dalbello liners so he learned something. Back to the hill – worked fine. There is no slop with these liners at all; your foot is firmly in the boot. I don’t have to clamp down on the buckles, just make them slightly tight. You can, and I have, crushed my foot by tightening the buckles too much. No heel lift. If you are going to get these, a few observations: - These are high volume liners; they will take up a lot of space. They will mold correctly even if there is not a lot of room in your boot, but I gather Dalbello has a lesser volume liner, the Silver. The Gold’s puff up quite a bit in the molding-heating process before cooling. We struggled getting them into the UPZ shells. - Wear an extra sock to give a little extra volume to the fit. I did this for the re-mold and it provided a better fit than just using one sock. Toe space was fine with one sock tho. - Crank down on the buckles to get as much space as you can when cooling. I did this and still only have to leave the buckles slightly tight to get a solid fit. - The foam is high density, so it has little give and will/should not pack out much if at all. This is vastly different feeling material than the Thermoflex liners. After I started to use the liners, they seem to adjust to my foot or my foot adjusted to them in the first few hours of use. - These will stiffen your boots. Getting into my UPZ’s with the stock liner was a bitch, these don’t help the situation. - These liners eliminated my shin bang problems. They feel a little weird/stiff when I first get in them, but they settle out in a little while. My feet had some residual pain after riding the liners the first couple of times because of the heel problems. I was cramping my lower leg trying to keep pressure off my heels. I’m pretty happy with the end result tho. I can get on edge just by flicking my lower leg as the boot and board are much more attached to me than before. I get a lot more feedback from the ride. I spent almost 5 hours in the boots on Wednesday at MES, and they were comfy. My feet were a pile of sweat in them, the outside temp ranged from about 15 to 25 F. The boots did adjust to my feet a little during that time, I had to cinch in the buckles a little on the calf after a couple of hours. I used them both yesterday and today until my toes froze, and the liners feel great. I started to hard boot last Feb, and this is the first time I have had boots on that I could wear longer than 2 hours without pain. I like these liners. This change alone ended my “scallop” problem with my heel side turns. Rick

I got a set of Track 325's last year and tried them out before I molded them. I used them for about 2 hours and hurt my heel due to heel lift, and that hurt stayed with me for the rest of the winter, it would get agitated every time I used the boots. Your feet may have the "memory" of the pain after they are put in the molded liners. I took the boots to a bootfitter and got custom insoles and had him mold the liners, and it was about 1000 percent better than not having them molded. I still had a hurt heel tho that did not get fixed until after the season ended and it could heal up without any further agitation. You could have the wrong sized liner or boot. without the liner in, how many fingers do you have behind your heel with your toes just touching the front of the boot? I guess the rule of thumb is 1 to 1.5 fingers - assuming all fingers are the same size:D. Actually 1 to 2 centimeters. More than that, and your shells are too big, less than 1 centimeter, and they are probably too small. With your foot centered in the shell you should have some space on each side of your foot: 1 to 2 millimeters. If you foot touches anywhere when centred, your shell is gonna have problems with your foot (or vice versa), and will need to be shaved, ground, punched out. The last of the shell may not fit your foot shape. If the side of your foot touches the shell when you stand centered in them without the liner, you may just have to move on and get a different shaped shell. If your shells fit propely, then your footbeds could be giving you problems because they take up too much volume. Some generic or ready purchase footbeds are thicker than customs, and that can make a problem when fitting and molding. Finally, your liner could be the wrong size. When at a bootfitter and getting liners molded, they ALWAYS have me in both boots and liners, and have the buckles firmly tightened on the boot or boots being molded, and have me stand on a 1" dowel or wood block with my toes to "set" the heels in the liner. Standing in only one boot will not give that boot the same static environment as standing in both boots. I always go to a bootfitter with boots for snow. Disclaimer: I do not work with boots, but I have purchased boots and have gone thru a lot of "expert" advice before I went to a real boot fitter and got things sorted out. I just got my UPZ's some different liners that worked out well with a lot of help at my bootfitter, and just purchased a set of Dalbello Krypton Pros which were fit also. I am a frequent flyer at my bootfitter. In my mind, it is money well spent. Rick

St. Pauli Girl. Piss water. The girl herself is another matter. http://www.stpauligirl.com/girl.php Rick

Heh. In the last year, I have seen 5 people terminated for activities on the inet. I've always wondered how that plays at home if they actually fess up. THAT would make good internet content. Rick

You would be surprised to see what professional and hourly people surf to at work. I know of gambling, dating, porn, more porn, a lot more porn, additional porn, social networking, YouTube, streaming music, and other crap like that during non-break time and when people are pulling in overtime pay to boot. Management and HR have little appetite for that kind of behavior. OTOH, surf news all day and you are fine. Just don't be an hourly worker. It's fine if you work in Marketing doing "research". You have to assume that there is a proxy server logging all your internet activities at work - so deleting the browsing history and cookies do you no good at all. The proxy and/or firewall logs everything and it can be traced back to you. For the people that think that if they erase the history and deny it, it all traces back to your computer name, ip address and your logon ID. If it is your assigned computer, you are gonna take the heat even if it was someone else that jumped on to your machine to do the browsing. Ctrl-Alt-Del, lock this computer. Just like the crap I am doing right now, being on bomber. Except I am at home at lunch on my home PC. When some of these idiot's get fired for surfing porn, just what do they tell the wife and kids? Rick

Happy MLK day back at ya! Big stuff tomorrow too! Whoooooooooooooo Hoooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Rick

I was at Buck at opening and there was no other hardbooter there. Snow was in great shape, flat light, left about noon. Could not figure out why there was no one else there. Got my boot liner issues all sorted out - I think. Rick

D-sub - your a lawyer! You infinately deconstruct! Good on you. I can't much admire a guy that threw away his chances in life and killed himself. BTW, have you ever been to a real wake? Not everyone remembers just the good stuff, but everyone has a good time remembering the "host". Throw in a keg of beer and some whiskey and it is all good. Rick

D-Sub, sorry I said something wrong about your hero. My hero is Aqualung, a guy I could look up to. Stomp on him all you want. Call him a tramp, a bum, whatever, see if I care. You know what they say about getting upset/fighting on the internet. . . Rick

Sorry. Truely didn't mean to diminish his accomplishments in any way. The article tho clearly describes a depressed, fairly anti-socal individual. Having a few miles on my sorry butt, I have met a lot of very sociable and anti-social individuals with terrible self-destructive tendencies and Tanner seems to fit the mold. I have seen alcohol destroy many a person. One does not just stop drinking and be over the addiction or the reason for the addiction. Tanner could politely be described as "complex". I can admire his early fighting career, some of his single mindedness, but not much else. And my post is just as unnecessary as yours. It is, after all, the Internet. Rick

Tanner was an exceptional fighter, I watched him on UFC. The article was written very well, rather neutral. Not to start a flame war, but the article also describes a guy who was fairly self-indulgent. While he may have been nice to everyone, he was fairly mis-guided and ill fitted to be able to make his way. Boat sunk - that incident shows a complete lack of judgement. The article states (and I derived this) that he can read up and know everything about something. That is like saying he could read everything at Bomber and Carver's Alamanac and go out and not only snowboard but carve the first time. Not too realistic. The desert thing was proof of his death. People die in the desert all the time from doing the same thing he did, and his research should have showed him that. It's like showing up at the mountain in a tee-shirt, cut-offs and tennis shoes to go skiing or boarding. And the alcohol? The man was depressed and needed treatment. Props to Tanner for his acheivements, but his lack of judgement was fairly glaring, his depression was obvious. Just my humble opinion. Rick

errr, no dear. Not at all.

I was just at Hoigaard's and they received a call stating that racing is cancelled tomorrow nite due to the temp. Just think, open slopes! Rick

Captain: your log is off by a year! Scotty

I had the same setup - OS2, Deeluxe 325 - and developed the same problem like this. I got my boots and went to my fitter on a Thrus nite, and he was gone. So, I went to the slopes. It was my first time out on hard boots, and crashed repeatedly. I brused my rear heal due to an impact and heel lift rubbing. I got custom footbeds, moulded liners and fitted by my boot guy 2 days later, but we had to have about 3 attempts to prevent all the heel lift. For the rest of the season, about 45 days, my heel hurt no matter what. It was the initial brusing that kept getting inflamed every time I rode. I bought UPZ's over the summer, the heel healed up, and the problem never re-occurred. Now I have shin bang. For whatever reason, the UPZ's do not have any heel lift, but the liners suck. Rick

Bob, actually I don't get chatter at all. On the contrary, my carves are getting better all the time. It is just that the boot liner presses directly againt my left foot, left side of the shin when I push into a heel side carve (which is getting better all the time thanks to you, Bobble and Karl). This started to happen with these boots, new this year. I think my new liners will make the problem evaporate. Rick

So, if you are a Ski Patroler and are called out to help this guy, er, how do you approach your rescue? I'd just slice thu his knee and let him drop. I think he would want it that way. Rick

Thanks, I did not see that. I was searching on intec, failure, galling and etc., but never got that in any search. Another reason: I been out using these puppies. Thanks again, I'll have to get a couple of sets of receivers when they are available. Rick

I got my Fin-Tec's on xmas eve, first runs on Dec 26. Everything fine. Dec 27, had some connection issues. Some times it felt that I just could not let a connection, had to make several attempts. It was all ice on the slopes, so I put the problems off on that. On Tuesday the 30th, snow was good, but I had to stomp repeatedly to get connected. After about 2.5 hours the hard stomping was getting more severe, and I was thinking that the retracting pins were being jammed. But the fact that they retracted when I pulled on the cable did not indicate jamming. Dec 31, very cold. In about 30 minutes the connection problem was so severe that I could not step in at all no matter how hard I stomped. I had to manually retract the pins with the cable in order to clip in. I was very concerned so I switched to a different board with new Catek OS-2's. No problem clipping in. There is a noticable difference in the pin bevel on the Fin-Tec's and the F1 Intec's. The angle on the F2 Intec's is flatter than the Fin-Tecs. You can see that in the attached pics. I can't see how that would cause this issue. The receivers on the Catek's is aluminum. I have seen some pictures posted on bomber of receivers heavily eroded, where people discussed about not clipping in or being unsure if they clipped in. This issue is different - I can't get clipped in as my pins won't retract. The aluminum shows what appears to be some light spalling, but nothing else. The receivers seem to have discolored and worn a lot in the 3 days I was using the Fin-tec's. Sudden Onset Receiver Clip-In Syndrome? Its a real pisser. I am going to try to lube the Catek receiver. Just so happens I ordered some bomber butter about a few weeks ago. I still don't have my head around why one set has the issue and the other doesn't. Same temp. Could be: difference in coating on the receivers; could be defective surface hardening on the first set's receivers; could be the problem does not manifest until there is significant wear in the first place; could be that the Fin-Tec's have sharper edges than the F2 Intec's; could be some sort of cold weather stiction; could be combinations of all the above; could be serendipity. Anyone else have any of these issues? Rick

Yeah, I saw that. The left side of my shin is brused by it the toung, so there really is no good place to move it to. If the liner did not have a plastic edge, it would probably be ok. I am opting for the wrap type liner. I got them on order and they should be here by Wed. I have had a set of footbeds made yesterday at Hoigaards, and an appointment to have the liners fitted on Thrus. I'm gonna take my shins out to Buck on Thurs for a test session. Rick

I should be up next Saturday after getting some new liners moulded. I had shin bang so bad on Friday. Rick

Here is what I think the issues are. First, I use the board on a Donek Axxiss, regular foot, 55, 52.5. With this board, there was a little pain in my left-leg, left side of the shin. I started to use these boots this year with step-ins. I switched from this board to my Donek FC1 171 last Wednesday for a day. The binding angles on this board are 65, 62.5. Both board have Catek OS2 step-in bindings. I used the FC 171 for 1 day, about 3 hours, and then tried to use it the next day. I had extreme pain in my left-leg, left shin. The pain runs along the edge of the liner where the plastic is. I switched to softboots after that, but my shin was still sore until the 4 advil kicked in. On Friday, the next day, I had shin pain in softboots where they touched my shin. 4 more advil fixed that. Below are a series of pictures. The first picture is the UPZ Flo liner next to a Salomon ski boot liner. You will notice that the UPZ liner and the Salomon liner look similar. The next picture show the same two liners. Both are very similar. The third picture is of the tounge on the UPZ Flo liner, showing the edge of the plastic. Upon examining the Flo liner, it is more like a ski boot liner than anything else. If you look at Conformables, Thermoflex, Intuition or Dalbello Gold liners, they don't have that seam running up the sides of the leg with plastic. With a ski boot, you are always pressuring the liner and boot forward, not sideways, at least I don't, I initiate turns by either lifting weight off one ski or stepping down on a ski, not side pressure. On a snowboard, I initiate turns with my shins and ankles and toes to the heel side and to toe side. This is where the pain from the liner comes in. Upon reflection, I did have pain in my shin at a low level by the liners on my Axxess. I could only go about 2 hours before I had to get out of the boots. If I kept pushing to 3 hours, my left leg shin was sore, but not debilitating. BTW, my right shin/leg had no pain. I also have never had shin pain with my Deeluxe 325's with the Thermoflex liners. These are a wrap liner instead of a tounge liner like the Flo. My result with the Flo liner may not be the same for all people, but I have read enough posts on Bomber to realize that many people do have a problem with these liners. It may be that the shape/size of a shin will be a bad fit, specific to certain individuals. I have the Dalbello Gold liner on order which are wrap liners also. I don't think there is anything to fix with the Flo liner with me. Also, the Flo liner has very little material in the toe are, where my toes freeze. I will be happier with a liner that has some insulation there. Rick

Yeah, ya got me, I put it on both sides for the bling. I weigh about 155 to 160, so you have a few pounds on me. The springs put me in a good position without a lot of flex. For you it would be too flexy. As far as I am concerned, you can change out the spings all you want, if I start using these boots again, I will re-do my setup. Rick