Customizing Solomon S/Max Ski Boots At Home 17Mar21

While I had a great day in the tree and on Black Hawk, for the 1st time this season, my new S/Max ski boots made my feet numb in 8 runs.

I contemplated alternatives and did the dive on how to customize my boots at home. None of the great sites recommend heating these liners and customizing them. It seems this might just wear them down and take out some life. The recommendation is really just to ski them and they'll break is after several outings. Hmmm... but OK. These boots also have a graphite 3D core for a shell and are themselves customizable. The technical manual doesn't advise the home method but when do I listen to rules - they are guidelines. The center of the material must reach 176° F to deform well. So here's what I did... I preheated the oven for 200° and removed the liners from the shells. I then heated the shells in the oven for 10 minutes, during which time I assembled two 2" deep ice baths (to rapidly cool the boots after customization. I left the footbeds in the bottom of the shells while I cooked them - Solomon recommends that.

Get some gloves ready as the buckles are pretty hot right from the oven. When "cooked" remove the shells from the oven and on a stable floor, quickly but carefully, reinsert the liners into the boots. Step into the boots and buckle up & strap up normally. Take a skiing position for 5 minutes - don't move or walk around. Then, step into the ice bath and maintain a skiing position for another 10 minutes to cool the deformed boot down to "set it."

 

After the ice bath get out of the boots and put them in the fridge for another 10 minutes. Keep them upright if you can - but I couldn't. Once removing them from the fridge, they are ready for some runs on the freshies.

 

Field trial in new-fallen... what a difference a day and some customization make. I was more vigorous, more comfortable, more controlled and stoked. The new fit worked as needed without losing any feel or performance. I grabbed a bunch of runs on the 7" of new stuff @ Keystone. Spring conditions as the sun was out and the new snow got thick, but gr8 fun.