Intro to the 2010 Boot Reviews

How to Use Our Boot Test Results

First let us say that, on behalf of our boot test team (most of whom are professional bootfitters and accomplished skiers and have each been testing boots for over ten years) ski boots continue to get better — both in comfort and performance. Period. There's no denying it. Boots of today are better than those we tested five years ago, and vastly superior to those 10 years past. So what? Well, this means the pressure is off the consumer to a certain degree — you don't need to fret that you’re going to accidentally buy a particular boot model that flat ruins your skiing ability. That was a legitimate concern a decade ago! So the consumer’s boot search has become more refined — a search for a match made in heaven, rather than just an acceptable fit. This is good news — there are heaps of boots that will work great for every skier.

So what’s the point of a boot test then? Well, we think it’s to provide some real specifics about how these boots fit and ski — and we’re not talking about regurgitated marketing fluff designed to sell ad space in 100 words or less. We at Masterfit University and America’s Best Bootfitters feel like an honest appraisal of a boot’s strengths and weaknesses along with some useful fit and stance impressions will help skiers seek out the boots that will make them better athletes who more fully enjoy the sport. As bootfitters we know that skiing in boots that hurt is probably the thing that limits the growth of skiing more than any other factor! That and we just don’t like all the sniveling.

So we’re out to change the boot review world. Thanks for checking this out. If you find it helpful, tell your friends. If you don’t, keep it to yourself!

One note of explanation and pre-emptive apology here: as our inaugural test as an independent source of boot review information, the '09 ABB Boot Test at Vail tested high-performance unisex boots in four categories: narrow, medium, wide, and wild card. While we did have a few ripping women on our test team, we did not perform a women’s-specific test this year, much to our collective disappointment. Hopefully women’s boots will be strongly represented in our 2010 boot test. We appreciate your patience.

Mark Elling and Greg Hoffmann, Vail Boot Test '09 co-directors

Understanding Last Width Categories & Fit Tension Measurements

Narrow, Medium, Wide. Pretty simple huh? This year we tested boots the way a bootfitter thinks. For example, in the shop we look at a skier’s foot shape and volume, discuss performance related issues with him or her, and we come up with some ideas for what boots to try. Why not test boots the same way, and provide that sort of information to skiers? Yeah, we thought it was a good idea too.

Turns out manufacturers are on the same page — identifying their boot models by width. Gone are the days when a certain brand ran wide and another ran narrow. Sure there are fit and performance characteristics that run true to a brand’s heritage, but now virtually every manufacturer makes narrow, medium, and wide performance-oriented boots.

So what about this 98mm, 100-102mm, 103mm and up stuff? Well, these are width measurements that boot companies use to describe a boot in a particular width category, like narrow, medium, and wide. It's an industry-wide attempt to provide a numeric rating for width — sort of the way a flex index number tells you how stiff the boot is. And similar to flex index, the metric last width measurement (so-called due to the "last" or boot mold) can be a little variable, but all in all it’s a good thing for consumers and bootfitters alike. So long as you’re savvy to a couple important points!

Most importantly, this number refers only to the measurement taken at the widest part of the boot shell’s forefoot, internally, and only in the reference size 26 (that's a U.S. men’s 8, women’s 9).

Taking out a digital caliper tool and measuring your forefoot would be a waste of time for the most part — even if you were a size 26 — because the last width measurement doesn’t take into consideration the liner fit, so it's just tough to use the last width measurement number as anything other than a name for the width neighborhood a skier tends to hang out in, so to speak. But that’s reason enough to keep this number system. It works on a couple different levels, not just for width but also for what we call fit tension.

Proceed to boot width types