Ankle pain w/forward lean

[Guest jeffro]

Hey folks. I have been riding in 'walk' mode for quite some time now, and got used to it because it was comfy and I could bomb down crud and power without a second thought.

So a few days back, I decided to dial in some forward lean on my boots (see my other post) and lock the boots into 'carve' mode. This is embarassing actually, I've been carving for many years and have always just used 'walk' mode w/o realizing how it was killing my heelside carves. But anyway.

On my first run down, I discovered that enabling forward lean brought my rear knee too close to my front knee, and was preventing me from driving the rear knee down toward the snow on heel-side turns... my front leg got in the way. So I made my stance about 1/2 inch wider (to 21.5"), and the problem was solved ... my rear knee could drive down like it always could. AND the forward lean setting allowed me to initiate my heelside turns much earlier when linking carves, which greatly improved my heelside stability. I carved it up like nobody's business that day.

But then when I got into my car, my front foot was not happy. I could barely push the clutch down. Just below my front ankle, there were two painful spots. One spot was on the outside front, and one spot was on the inside back, of the ankle. I could barely walk. I iced the hell out of it (thanks for the Ibuprofin, Randy!) and it's been about a week, and the pain is almost entirely gone.

I'm afraid of having the same issue again though as soon as I hit the slopes tomorrow morning. Any ideas what might be causing it?

My angles are 70 front, 60 rear. I'm thinking of making them a little smaller in hopes of eliminating the pain. I think I can do this w/o introducing any drag. Also, I noticed the affected foot was a little more snug in the boot than it could have been, so maybe I'll ease off the ankle buckle a notch or two.

Just curious if anybody had any experience with simlar ankle pain. I'll post my findings. Thanks!

-Jeff