So my health and orthopedic history have been . . . complex over the last 14 months. I couldn't ski at all last winter and haven't been too sure about this winter, but about three weeks ago my orthopedic surgeon gave me a somewhat-reluctant thumbs-up for "gentle skiing" this winter. I avoided getting into a detailed discussion with him about how to define "gentle." I'll assess and manage my own risks, thank you very much.
To begin that assessment I've gone out and tooled around on the local mole hills a couple of times and have come to two main conclusions: 1) I'm confident I'll be just fine as long as I avoid air, zipper-line bump skiing, and hard falls onto hard surfaces, and 2) I will be a safer and better skier if I ski with a fixed heel this winter. My wife is a physical therapist with an orthopedic specialty. She has identified some slight, but lingering left-sided weakness and diminished proprioception that I had not recently noticed until my experiments skiing over the last couple of weeks. Simply-put, my tele turns to the left hurt and feel less precise and dependable than I am used to. Fortunately, my parallel turns are painless and still feel bomber. A fixed-heel DIN setup will also help to manage risk in a couple of other ways. First, like someone else on this board once said, I don't fall much, but when I do it tends to be spectacular. In my case this is almost always due to a hooked tip after failing to put enough weight on the back ski. If I'm not making tele turns, obviously, I won't have to worry about weighting the back ski and should, in theory, fall less often. Second, it really seems like DIN releasable bindings might be an extra-good idea for me now. So for the first time in exactly 20 years I will be skiing with a fixed heel (although I plan to keep a set of rock skis set up for tele and to use them on the local mole hills.)
Toward that end, I purchased a pair of last-season's Salomon QST Pro 130s for a significant discount, and am mounting a pair of Guardian 13s on my lightweight all-mountain skis (so I can still occasionally tour around the U.P. and elsewhere), and a pair of Warden 13s on my powder boards. The QSTs are the first new boots I have bought in about 12 years. I purchased them online after trying other Salomon models in local shops. They fit reasonably well out of the box, but the foot beds were not to my liking and I needed more room in the toe boxes and insteps. I interviewed a couple of local boot fitters and chose the best listener (pro) with the most-accommodating schedule (perhaps a pro or a con). On the first visit last week, we molded custom foot beds. Today we heat-molded the liners and shells to make additional room in the insteps and in the toe boxes. I haven't skied the boots yet, but they felt so right in the store today, that I'm pretty sure we've nailed it.
To review: I did not buy the boots from the shop where the boot fitting was done. The boot fitter very patiently spent about 15 minutes discussing my skiing history, skiing style and priorities before I decided to work with him. He also offered helpful advice prior to my purchase of the boots. Work on the custom foot beds was pretty standard and took less than 30 minutes although he was very thorough about familiarizing himself with the design and construction of the QST shell, boot boards and liners in the process. Heat molding the shells and liners and adding needed volume to the boot took about an hour today. Also today, he personally intervened with his shop's techs to circumvent the current long wait (about two weeks) for mounting my new bindings (I'm picking them up tomorrow). Further, he spent the time to take my tele binding off of my boards while I was still in the shop today so that there would be no confusion about whether the skis could be mounted again and no confusion about the precise manufacturer's center line. All in all, I took about two hours of his time today. He charged me for the footbeds and standard shop rate for the binding mounting, but did not charge me for the shell or liner heat molding.
So here's my question: like I stated above, I have not purchased new boots in a long time, what's the current etiquette for tipping an attentive and thorough boot fitter? I'm picking up my skis and boots tomorrow and feel like I should offer him some kind of gratuity.
To begin that assessment I've gone out and tooled around on the local mole hills a couple of times and have come to two main conclusions: 1) I'm confident I'll be just fine as long as I avoid air, zipper-line bump skiing, and hard falls onto hard surfaces, and 2) I will be a safer and better skier if I ski with a fixed heel this winter. My wife is a physical therapist with an orthopedic specialty. She has identified some slight, but lingering left-sided weakness and diminished proprioception that I had not recently noticed until my experiments skiing over the last couple of weeks. Simply-put, my tele turns to the left hurt and feel less precise and dependable than I am used to. Fortunately, my parallel turns are painless and still feel bomber. A fixed-heel DIN setup will also help to manage risk in a couple of other ways. First, like someone else on this board once said, I don't fall much, but when I do it tends to be spectacular. In my case this is almost always due to a hooked tip after failing to put enough weight on the back ski. If I'm not making tele turns, obviously, I won't have to worry about weighting the back ski and should, in theory, fall less often. Second, it really seems like DIN releasable bindings might be an extra-good idea for me now. So for the first time in exactly 20 years I will be skiing with a fixed heel (although I plan to keep a set of rock skis set up for tele and to use them on the local mole hills.)
Toward that end, I purchased a pair of last-season's Salomon QST Pro 130s for a significant discount, and am mounting a pair of Guardian 13s on my lightweight all-mountain skis (so I can still occasionally tour around the U.P. and elsewhere), and a pair of Warden 13s on my powder boards. The QSTs are the first new boots I have bought in about 12 years. I purchased them online after trying other Salomon models in local shops. They fit reasonably well out of the box, but the foot beds were not to my liking and I needed more room in the toe boxes and insteps. I interviewed a couple of local boot fitters and chose the best listener (pro) with the most-accommodating schedule (perhaps a pro or a con). On the first visit last week, we molded custom foot beds. Today we heat-molded the liners and shells to make additional room in the insteps and in the toe boxes. I haven't skied the boots yet, but they felt so right in the store today, that I'm pretty sure we've nailed it.
To review: I did not buy the boots from the shop where the boot fitting was done. The boot fitter very patiently spent about 15 minutes discussing my skiing history, skiing style and priorities before I decided to work with him. He also offered helpful advice prior to my purchase of the boots. Work on the custom foot beds was pretty standard and took less than 30 minutes although he was very thorough about familiarizing himself with the design and construction of the QST shell, boot boards and liners in the process. Heat molding the shells and liners and adding needed volume to the boot took about an hour today. Also today, he personally intervened with his shop's techs to circumvent the current long wait (about two weeks) for mounting my new bindings (I'm picking them up tomorrow). Further, he spent the time to take my tele binding off of my boards while I was still in the shop today so that there would be no confusion about whether the skis could be mounted again and no confusion about the precise manufacturer's center line. All in all, I took about two hours of his time today. He charged me for the footbeds and standard shop rate for the binding mounting, but did not charge me for the shell or liner heat molding.
So here's my question: like I stated above, I have not purchased new boots in a long time, what's the current etiquette for tipping an attentive and thorough boot fitter? I'm picking up my skis and boots tomorrow and feel like I should offer him some kind of gratuity.