Skate Fitting Issue - Need Suggestions

[ABodie 1]

I'm the manager of a shop in the DC area and am working with a customer trying to fit him into a new pair of skates. The only problem is his foot shape doesn't fit into any standard boot. He has a pretty normal forefoot, medium to high arch, standard heel width, but an EXTREMELY high instep. The circumference of his instep is 12 inches on both feel. His heel-to-instep circumference is 15.25 inches. He wants Bauer skates with Curv composite, but the MX3's and the APX2's are not even close to being deep enough. I had him try on the Nexus 1000's and even those weren't deep enough, those depth-wise, they were much better. Only problem is, a D with is way too wide for him. Also, he doesn't want to go to a boot length that is too big for him. Like I mentioned above, he would fit into both a Supreme or Vapor boot very well if it wasn't for his instep.

He is currently in 20K's and says he gets pain and lace bit across his instep because the boot's not deep enough, and says it is also too wide. He tried doing custom skates a few years ago, but the Flex Lites that Bauer made for him still didn't fit his feet and he said he had a bad experience trying to rectify the situation.

Here are my thoughts: I am thinking he needs a custom pair of Nexus 8000's in a C width, but the side walls of the skates (particularly at the instep) need to be heightend a few centimeters. Like I said, the depth of the Nexus boot was almost good, but he still needed a little more depth. I've been in contact with my Bauer rep, and he is cautious about raising the height of the side walls because he says the skate won't be able to effectively tighten and the walls will wind up collapsing on themselves when my customer goes to tighten his skates. I think that would be true if he had a standard instep height. But since he has an extremely high instep, that would take up the extra space and volume created and that wouldn't be an issue - unless I'm overlooking something here. My rep said he would have to ask some of Bauer's pro guys for their thoughts, but I still haven't heard back.

Wanted to know your guys' thoughts or see if you had any suggestions or a different view. If you guys need anymore information, I'll be glad to supply it. My apologies for the lengthy post.

[oldtrainerguy28 478]

Simply try on the pair of nexus skates that fit the arch. Then just tell Bauer to use that size and cut the excess of the toe. It maybe an eyelet less but it should work I have done it before when this situation came up. You actually maybe able to do it in the Supreme but far more difficult with that material.

[Chadd 916]

I would talk to someone like VH about doing a fully formable custom pair of skates.

[ABodie 1]

I am not as familiar with VH as with the other companies. How is that boot going to fit/feel compared to Supreme/Vapor/Nexus?

[SirJW 207]

Check the VH custom thread.

[moreoutdoor 6]

WOW crazy high instep.

I'm close, but not even that far up (11.25 circum, 13.75 around heel, US 11 shoe) and c- width, only normal thing is my heel width.

Most new D width are way too wide for me without mods, and are sloppy out of the box.

lace bit is a real issue for us with tall insteps, need a tall boot to spread the load...

if he doesn't want to go custom, the options are to find or mod a stock skate that can be made narrow enough, and the heel fit is just right ... then he won;t have to lace down as hard over the instep.

I found the slightly older' CCMs - vector series, PRO in particular, are narrow enough not to require any mods after baking, and the volume over the instep is high enough not to bear down - heel fit is perfect - I lUV my Vector Pros...

Tried all the newer skates and they are all too wide at the forefoot - D width and way too wide at the heel. Vapors have a real funky heel shape (V-shaped down to the footbed...) and my heel don;t likie that much...

Grafs are way too low for a high instep, even though a 'narrow' is easier to come by... I skated in them for over a year and tried everything to mitigate the lacebit, but was/is always there...

I did find an older NOS pr of vapors which was workable... Here's what I did.

They have a slighter narrow toebox that the newer version, which allows my 'strap' method.

I baked the skate. Then immediately after putting on and tying boot, I added a lighter weight ratcheting 'tie-down' strap with 4 wraps around the forefoot, just behind the toebox, around the Ball-O-foot area. Ratcheted down the boot width with the tiedown strap until snug - then waited 20-30 minutes for the boot to cool. Did same for both boots. Voila, D boot became a C width - skates fine without having to really bear down on lacing tightness...

Not sure if you can pull this off in a 'retail' environment, but it works if you can do it. (did the same to a pr of Easton S15s, seems to work on them also).

I still prefer my Vector Pros...

then there's custom...

[oldtrainerguy28 478]

I would talk to someone like VH about doing a fully formable custom pair of skates.

Good call forgot about them!