Footbed experiment gone bad!

[Gary Cassara]

Hey guys, first Happy and Prosperous New Years to all!

As a member of Real Skiers and a huge follower and believer of Harold Harb, I've been watching with great interest the controversy regarding footbeds that allow the ankle to tip more freely inside the boot.

A friend and local boot technician is fitting skiers with Conformable footbeds and offered to do a set for me. His philosophy of 3 points of contact and an arch that allows more tipping motion of the ankle seem interesting. I have been very happy with my current footbeds, but always currious about new technology.

Harold made my Superfeet for me 3 years ago and it is more rigid than the Conformable. I pronate with both feet, more with my left. My left knee is out 1.5 degrees, bowlegged corrected with cantable sole from my Lange Comp 120.
When comparing both footbeds on the ground as I stood in them, I did notice the Conformable allowed more tipping motion of my foot than the posted, more rigid Superfeet. So, me says to meself " let's give it a go"! I headed for the snow and spent 4 hours cruising around.

What I found was that my inside ankle of the left leg rubbed up against the boot on each turn made. When I took out the footbed to compare both products, I looked more closely to see what was happening when using the Conformable. I noticed when standing on the Conformable when tipping my left ankle to the inside, the softer arch area did indeed flex, but what also happened was I noticed that the pronation that was stabilized by the more rigid Superfeet, was out of control with the Conformable.

Is there a proper footbed that would allow more tipping in the ankle and still keep it in stable and in a neutral position?

Appreciate your thoughts here,

Gary

[Harald Harb]

Hi Gary,

I checked on the evaluation form we did for you in Feb of 02. Rich made your footbed, but it is not a Super Feet, we don?t make them, it is one of our designs. Your heel angles are 5 and 7 degrees everted, which means valgus (tipped in). Your forefeet have three and seven degrees varus and you have a low arch. Have you changed boots since the footbeds were installed?

A Comformable with inadequate posting will cause you to become hyper mobile. We make and believe in the arch moving down giving the ankle movement toward the side of the boot. In your case, Rich probably determined that a stronger arch material was needed to support your foot.

If it is over supported it can be easily modified or shaved to give more ankle and foot movement, as that is what we prefer. This can be done with a few miner passes on the grinder. As long as the arch is not intrusive or rigid you should be fine with your set up. If you determine more ankle movement would be helpful we can change the characteristics of the footbed in a few minutes. The footbed you have is made to provide support, yet still allow movement.

[Guest]

Harold, thanks for getting back to me...
I stand corrected, the footbed was Footworx, or at least that's what it says on the surface.

I put that footbed back in for skiing this weekend and all is well....They stay in the boot.

I did get new boots this year, Lange Comp 120. This boot , of all the boots I tried off the shelf, really fit the shape of my foot without modification. Interestingly, I found that with this boot the 1/2 degree bowlegged right knee went to neutral and the 2 degree bowlegged left knee went to 11/2 degree out. With the Railflex bindings there was no putting a cant strip under that binding, it meant boot grinding to properly cant. The Lange Cantable Sole, 11/2 dgree brought my left knee into alignment. The dislikes: Due to an agressive ramp angle set up by the Zeppa Board, I found my first time on the skis with sore calves and holding myself up in lift lines. I removed the Zeppa and placed 4 pieces of duct tape under the bottom in the toe area, effectively bringing up the toe 1 degree, and "oh wow" this became a much more solid, neutral boot. For me, it has become a great all moutain boot. Totally amazed how well this worked.

If I can, I'll check in with you when we arrive for the Big Sky Clinic end of February, and have the current footbed checked out.

Looking forward to re-connecting! Say hello to Rich, Diana, and the gang from Alice and I.

Thanks,
Gary