I've had problems with ill-fitting skates, and I decided to bite the bullet and get REAL skates. So I'm getting skates from SP-Teri. They'll be ready in 2 weeks and I am so excited!

I wanted to ask for some expert advice. I've never had skates that fit me right. What should they feel like? The heel shouldn't slip, snug across the toe box, but should your toes have any wiggle room?

I've had a problem in that my heel is narrow, the ball of my foot is relatively wide, and my toes cut over very sharply from the ball area so that I have always had a lot of room there - meaning, I had a skate wide enough for my foot, but it also had a lot of room around my toes. I was constantly stuffing things in the toes to make up for it.

I'm worried that I will come out of the final fitting so excited about having new skates that I won't pay attention to the right warning signals to tell the fitter so that he can fix it before I skate on them. So, any advice on what to feel for?

Congratulations! Hopefully, they ordered mixed width boots for you (B width ball, A width heel?) The boot should fit like a glove on your foot, i.e., no extra room at all, but also not pressing in on your foot anywhere.

Toes: It's OK if your big toe barely touches the end of the boot as long as it doesn't bother you, but hopefully, once you push your heel all the way back and lace your skates, the toe won't touch anymore. You should have some wiggle room for your toes, and you should not feel the boot pressing against your pinkie toe. If you do, get it punched out.

Ball: If you feel the boot pressing against the side of your foot at the widest point, it is not wide enough in the ball of the foot. Either go one width wider, or, if it's just a little narrow, see if you can get the boot stretched. Heat-molding will definitely make the boots more comfortable, but when the boots get cold again, they can get stiff and start pressing in on your foot again.

Heel: The heel should be snug enough to really lock your heel in place. Remember, once the padding starts wearing down, the heel will get a little looser, so make sure it's very snug to begin with.

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"You don't have to put an age limit on your dreams." - Dara Torres, 41, after her 2nd medal at the 2008 Olympics

Thank you, that's what I was looking for. I'm especially worried about the ball of my foot area. He measured me at an A width heel with a C width ball, possibly D. But he ended up going with a C but they are going to cut me a little segment of extra leather in one part because it jogs out so strangely.

These are customs yet I'm still nervous they won't fit right because I've managed to flub this up twice with boot fitters.

Also, is it standard to go back to them if after a week or two of skating you realize there are some pain points? Is that common and considered standard, or a new problem that you'd have to pay for?

This is not at all unusual, and you should not have to pay. I've gone back to Klingbeil with my customs for 4 years and never paid an additional penny for the many and significant adjustments.

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Oh boy, I need help again.

Today was my fitting. We put on the boots, and they were great - stiff, but snug in the heel like I wanted, wide in the ball where I need it, etc. All that part went great. He punched out a couple of places.

But then, the blades. I had warned him that I have had a hard time with blade mountings. I don't know exactly what it's from - I have some pronation, I've had plantar fasciitis in the past - but my last pair had the blades mounted waaay to the inside for me to be able to get an outside edge.

He mounted them to the inside, even put in a custom insole to try to make my foot in a more neutral position, but on the rubber it was pretty clear they were just falling to the inside. I tried them out on the ice this afternoon and I could only get back outside edges after a FO 3-turn (say) but when I pushed off into a BO edge it was edge, flat, then all the way to a BI edge before I'd gone a 1/4 of a circle.

The fitter said he didn't have much more room to move the blade and that he might have to rebuild the boot.

Does anyone know - would I be financially responsible for that? I was so hoping it would work out that I just couldn't face the question. Because pretty much I'd be stuck with these skates; I can't afford a duplicate pair!

And are my feet that freakish? Does anyone have any advice?

First the good news: SP Teri will work with you until you are satisfied. That's the main reason I use them, because they almost always have some little thing wrong with them when I get them.

The bad news: Once the blades are mounted you can't return the boots.

If they have to rebuild the boot they probably would charge you for it, but maybe not. Ask them. Before doing something that drastic I'd try mounting the blades normally and working from there, rather starting with an exteme position. You might be suprised to find you don't need such a drastic position on the mount.

Also don't forget that new blades might be a big part of your problem. Even under ideal circumstances it's really hard to skate on freshly sharpened blades, and you're trying to do it in new boots. You might skate in them awhile to get used to them and let the blades dull up a bit. There usually is no statute of limitations on service for an SP Teri boot (as long as it isn't something like having them run over by car).

Finally, the sharpening on your blades might be off. If they don't do it right your edges feel totally weird. Did you have them sharpened or skate on them straight out of the box? The factory grinds usually aren't very good.

Kevin

I hate to keep repeating myself but, based mostly on my own experience:

You are probably falling to the inside because of a mismatch between the overall slant of the bottom of your boot and the bottom of your foot and/or you might not have equal pressure contact between the bottom part of your foot and the two sides of the boot. Or you might have unequal pressure on the sides of your feet on the top of the boot - especially if the fitter didn't punch out the ankle bone areas enough. These are the only physically possible causes of falling to one side, unless you haven't been skating long enough to know how to balance your weight over one foot. You should have pretty much equal pressure over all parts of your foot beneath your ankle (I personally believe over the part of your foot above the ankle too, but opionions differ), except you want a little space to the sides and to the front of your toes, and it is bad for your toes to be bent long-term in any direction.

You were misfit, or the boots built wrong, if the fitter let you go into excess pronation or supination when impressions or casts were taken, or if there is space for them to collapse assymetrically. Since most skate insoles are pretty much incompressible, and your boot should snugly fit your whole foot, your arches physically cannot collapse past the foot shape you were fit to. (None of what I just said applies to normal shoes, which are fit looser, and use cushioned insoles.) (There is room for disagreement - some people prefer that boots not snugly fit the top part of your ankle, and motion in part of the ankle joint is partly responsible for pronation and supination.)

If you make an appointment to see SP Teri himself, at the factory, he, as the master bootmaker, is most likely to be able to help you.

If the fitter or SP Teri will not help you, place strips of tape under the inside of your foot underneath the insole, until the pressure is equal under both sides of your feet. 1/4" wide first aid tape works well. If you have unqual pressure on some part of the sides of your foot bottoms, cut yourself a new insole out of leather, making it a little wide where you need pressure, and use tape under it to lift it so it touches the sides of your foot.

You can stick the tape on the underside of the insole itself, or on the boot itself under the insole. If you need more space, use a thinner insole, or eliminate it altogether. I have so far had bad luck sticking tape onto the sides of the boot where there were no insoles to cover it - first aid tape eventually wears off, and I haven't found anything better yet that I would dare to use. (Anyone know something skin safe that sticks better than first aid tape?).

This may eliminate the need to offset your blade altogether. If you offset significantly off-center from where the foot bone contacts your (inside) leg bone, it will hurt your foot, because of side-to-side unequal weighting, and you will support your weight through the wrong part of your foot and leg bones, which could lead to fractures, or to pain and overuse injuries in muscles and ligaments.

They were sharpened, and I know what you're saying about when they're new they're a little harder to skate on anyway with freshly sharpened blades. We were both hoping that the balance was partly because it was on the rug and that on ice it would be a little better, but the kicker was just not being able to hold a BO edge.

I called them this morning (I have been working with Mr. Spiteri on this, I'm lucky enough to live in the area) and besides making another appointment, they told me that if it's his opinion the boot needs to be rebuilt I wouldn't pay anything more.

I had to wait 6 weeks to get these though and I would really just like to make them work.

Hmmm, you may be on to something here, and this may be why he mentioned rebuilding the boot. I didn't understand what about the boot could be wrong. Without the blades they felt just right, but I wasn't paying attention to the amount of pressure on all sides of the foot.

I'm trying not to be depressed about this simply because it might mean being off the ice for another couple of months.