I got a few requests for snowboard boot fitting tutorials lately, so here’s a quick video on the topic. I do intend to make a far more in-depth boot buying tutorial video at some point too, this is just a quickie on boot fitting:
ps – a lot of this is covered in far more detail inside my snowboard gear guide, so if you don’t have that you can grab the guide here.
The breakdown:
1) Why your snowboard boots are more important than anything else
By far, snowboard boots are your most important piece of equipment. You can skimp on a snowboard, bindings, outerwear etc. etc, but if you skimp on snowboard boots you’re going to have a bad time.
You should be spending your money with the priority on snowboard boots first, then the rest of your gear.
Good fitting boots mean you snowboard without pain. Period.
2) What should I be looking for when trying on boots?
You should be looking for boots that are around the flex you want and around the rough width of your foot. Try on as many boots as you can that are roughly around the width and flex you want.
Every boot company has a different rough width for their snowboard boots and boots can often vary in width between one model to the next, so you need to find out how wide your feet are and start trying on boots inside that rough width range.
You can find out your width by getting a good boot fitter at a local shop to size your foot by using a foot measurement tool to figure out your size and width. They’ll also be able to recommend boots to you which fit the width of your foot.
With flex, it varies depending on preference, but if you want to know more about picking your flex, you can get my full gear guide here.
3) How small should my snowboard boots be?
Your boots should be a snug fit. No painful pressure points, but tight enough that your toes are touching the end of the boot, but not curling or giving you pain.
All boots expand about a half size to a size, so if you buy a size 9, it’ll become a 9 and a half to 10 after it breaks-in, so always buy snug boots or you WILL end up with loose boots that don’t fit after breaking them in.
4) The one thing you should add to your snowboard boots
I highly, highly recommend buying a pair of aftermarket custom footbeds for your snowboard boots. You can find entry level custom insoles for $30-$50. They make a world of different in giving you proper support in your snowboard boots.
Typical footbeds that come with your snowboard boots suck. They squish flat without any real pressure and offer no real support.
I recommend checking out Remind Insoles if you’re after some good entry level footbeds and Superfeet make decent footbeds too (although Remind seem to be the more popular one).
Anyhow, hope that helps you out. I highly recommend picking up my full snowboard gear guide if you want a more in-depth look at buying snowboard boots, because as I said, this is just a mini talk about fitting and sizing.
– Jed