The importance of the socks and feet slipping in the boots!

[Hans]

No wonder you have absolutely no hold in your boots. Buy yourself some custommade footbeds.

Where did you read this? I have excellent and perfect hold since 1998 in my Northwave boots with my good old socks. The point here is to understand why my new socks suck!

I have never felt the necessity to change the footbeds in my Northwaves (though I'm open to some tests). However I had to make many changes in my soft boots. Including custom made footbeds like Conformable, etc. But all my soft boots have been painful (6-7 brands tested).

You wrote yourself that you use the original Northwave footbeds in your boots Those footbeds are as flat as water and doesn't give any support. So your muscles in your 'underfoot' must do all the work the get a hold in your boots. When those socks become wet, your feet and feetmuscles have to work even harder to get/stay in a good hold in your boots. When you have well shaped footbeds in your boots, your hold will be much better (not my opinion, just the oipnion of my professional footbedfitter who made several footbeds for professional snowboarders and soccerplayers all over the world, cost me about EUR 150.-- paid by my healthinsurance ).

[Schneewurm]

@Hans
about footbeds: can be important, but don't You walk and run anytime without shoes in summer times?
You know humen are born without integreated shoes and footbeds! Try to do workouts with "Nike Free" shoes for training the muscles of Your feets!

I remember once agian: Keep patience also to a well match of color and style of Your socks for snowboarding to Your boards. That gives You an additional good mojo for carving, see first picture below.

What Rohner model do you use ...

And which are Your bad ones?
Please don't drive me crazy. I tried to find it out, but I don't store all packings from things I buy. The newest are the FREERIDE-II. The oldest and my best one's (more the one pair), are my red socks. I found the wrapping from them: Modell Ski Touring Art. 70.042/3 climate balanced/ 40% Pure new wool / 35% Polyacryl / 14% Polyester / 11% Polyamide. Others can be the precursors of ROYAL POWDER, POWER TECH and Race. As I remeber me, two has been labeled with CARVING.

It is imposible to give direct advices. It depends from Your softboots / hardboots and the socks. I tried once to ride with my X-Socks "Basketball" (full-white). It was not a good expereince, they are very slippy. For a good stop-the-slip, You should find the right socks with the right direction of weaving to hold on the knits of Your liners, without producing a lot of fluff. To that, moisture should be wicked away to the wool.

For to be comfy, I put out every time me boots in a restaurant, even only for drinking a coffee, so socks and liners can dry-out then. If I do touring (much more moisture is produced), I change, depending on temperature/exert, every one-to-three hours my socks and let dry the remaining socks outside on my backpack.

Perhaps the following modell can help: Rohner ULTRA LIGHT Art. 70.082/3, CHF 34,50
Especially designed for foam ski boots/Thermoflex with a high grade of new wool (50%) on outer layer!

A good idea for the Swoard team, can be (instead of offering things like caps/t-shirts/bags labeled with SWOARD) to find the right socks matching to their favourite boots .900 from Nortwave. Asking then Rohner at Balgach, or any other producer, to weave/knit a known good article/sock with the *custom"-colour of SWOARD-Boards.

- - - -

So Wool (mixed with other fabrics) can help to keep us out of pain. We can carve longer and with more intense. Wool is an animal fibres coming most time from sheeps!
Well, as an authentic snowboarder I esteem this comfort and so I forced to be able to show our sport to some sheeps. Just as a tribute to their wool. As frequently readers of this forum knows, there was in summertime a small story from me about carving and sheeps!

[fivat]

Thank you Schneewurm for the detailed info.
I will test the Rohner ULTRA LIGHT that you mention.

It is imposible to give direct advices. It depends from Your softboots / hardboots and the socks.

I'm afraid it's right. The Deeluxe boots for example are painful for some riders, not for others. The hold given by some socks can be bad or good in function of the persons. Same for the flat Northwave feetbeds which are hell for Hans and perfect for me!

I remember to have tested the exactly same setup (soft boots + socks + bindings) as Jacques: it was good for him, but painful with bad hold for me.

But there are brands which are making more happy riders than others. So it may be useful to start from there to experiment other socks.

A good idea for the Swoard team, can be (instead of offering things like caps/t-shirts/bags labeled with SWOARD) to find the right socks matching to their favorite boots .900 from Northwave.

Yeah, that could be a cool idea for goodies!

Patrice Fivat

[tufty]

If you can get your boots on with anything other than thin cotton or silk socks, your liners are packed out to the point of being dead. the thicker your socks, the more your feet rub in the boots, and thus the more painful you will find your boots*.

Thin socks ftw. They are cheap, too.

Simon

* This is part of the reason I've never got on with softboots; they don't tighten the way skiboots or proper snowboarding boots do, there's always one part that's not tight enough while another is too tight, and then you have bindings that don't hold your foot unless you've cut off all the bloiod supply to your toes, all to have a massively sloppy feel to your boots and bindings anyway.

[Schneewurm]

Hui-Hui - thanks for this interesting discussion!
I just verified why my old red socks are the best for carving!
It's definitly the direction and kind of weaving for the hold on the knits of the liners i use for carving with hardboots.
My red socks stick much more (big difference, like they are bondet !!) compared to all others socks on the liners. But on the softboot liner it's not the same thing! There are also some differences from shin-side to calf-side, because of different waves on the socks.
But remind, a very small amount of slip must stay. Slipping shouldn't be between skin and socks, or full in skin -> hurtings!

So for seeking of good socks, You can take Your liner and Your old socks to the sporting good shop and test them sliping by hands all the socks You want to buy. Close Your hand to a fist and try to slip the socks to the open liner as strong as You can. Most sporting good shops offers some test-socks for fitting boots, You can try them also with Your full boot!

O.k. now end of writing for me. I should go out now for a short test of a pair of skis!

[Schneewurm]

... short test of a pair of skis! ...
And that test failed then! Why? I have used me oldest skiboots and they broke/chip in a lot of pieces, because of old plastics (will be reported on a Nortwave point thread).

Back to the socks:
Every Year autumn is a good time, not only because of the warm naice weather. That season can be very well used for to take time, to sit on bicycle, ride some kilometers to the next special store for socks and buy some affordable socks. Most time people buys at that time all the expensive things, like shiny boards and so on. They had then totaly forgotten the hurts on their feets during last wintertime. I'm thinking different, because I like much more to enjoy hearthfull winterdays, then stressfull, or painfull winterdays. Buying socks on December can be a too much stressfull thing, because of all peoples want to buy some christmass stuff/gifts. Many people wait also for this cheap copy-socks, offering during a short time from simple stores like Aldi, Lidl, Tschibo and so on. They think one modell of socks with cheap knits will fit all type of feets and all type of demands of snowboarding.

As an authentic snowboarder, I like much more well designed socks out of a store which can offer not only 1, or 3-6 different snowboarding-socks like on most sporting good stores. Stores where salesman sometimes are trained to sell every thing of sports on a loud way. I myself prefer a store where salesman/-woman have knowledge on feets and socks. So I prefered to go to a sock-store offering 30-40 meters of shelf with well assorted socks for any purpose! See picture below!

All socks for wintersports are market above with "SKI". I could find there:
- backcountry specific socks
- very light socks for hiking up high mountains
- extra warm socks
- carving specific socks
- powdersnow specific socks
- socks for riding park'n'pipe
- socks for doing all
- socks for people they have strong sweat
- socks they are women specific
- funky socks for teens
- socks for children
- nice-budget socks
- and for the wooly-type-persons socks out of pure merino-wool

Most time each pair of socks comes on differnt colourway and weave. All sizes are redy to buy. These socks can be weaved in very specific way out from up to 8 different knits. Sometimes with knits they are still very rare (new hightech knit) and most expensive.

Everyone is free to buy 6-7 time cheaper socks on Lidl, Aldi, Tschibo and so on.
Well, I'm free to enjoy hurtless, but powerfull snowboaring days!

So seek for a good store for socks around you and choose the right socks for your demand. Don't forget also to match colorway to the boards for to give you an additional great mojo for carving. So the harmonic of the turns with your board will reach the perfect flow up from your head, down to the point of toes.

[xyxx]

Must be a personal thing indeed - Rohner Downhill Jet II socks were a bloody disaster for me, it took a few days to realize though that shin bang and other nice things show up on my legs/feet only when I wear them, and not my favorite Thorlo eXtreme Snowboarding Thin Cushion socks. Sad sad sad I can't find these in Switzerland, and it will probably be the last season for the last pair I have.

[Solex]

I'm wearing the same 2 pairs of X-Socks for many years already. Models im using - "Ski Touring Silver" and "Ski Carving Silver".
Recently was tempted to try "Snowboarding" model, but found it too soft for me.
I'm riding UPZ RTR boots with FLO liners and custom (plastic) footbeds.

[Schneewurm]

Just remembering, autumn is comming soon! (*)
For to be ready for winter 2010/11, I tooke a good ride at Monday on my bicycle for a round to my next sock suppliers. I just bought some pair of Rhoner skiing hurricane. They offer degressive compression for stimulatation of blood circulation (supl. with Polyamid-silver-ions). Compression-socks are now the leading edge for all sportsmen/sportswomen, which like to go more powerfull then ever before.

For sure, there are also many other brands offering snowboard specific socks. At my local good alpine-sporting-good stores can be find following brands with snowboard specific socks on stock:
Mico socks (CA 0137, CA 0138)
Smartwool (PhD Snowboard Medium)
Falke
X-Socks
and for sure Rohner socks

As xyxx wrote, Thorlo seems to be not active in Switzerland, but can be found on Lowe Germany/Austria

others like reported on this thread:
Icebreaker
Doré-Doré

Well, not any brand is producing itself all the socks. Many socks are imported from abroad. Beside that, many snowboard-companys and outdoor-gear-companys like Burton and so on, have their own line of socks.

(* and Winter-time too! I just checked today stock of salt ready for melting snow on roads for winter 2010/11. About 16 tons of 4 different type of salt, packed on 25 kg-/ 50 kg- and 1 ton-bags have been ready under my feets this afternoon. Well, to have a 50 kg-bag salt at home, will always help for to build and hold on shape one to some good kickers for snowboarding next of Your home. But it help now instantly for to do some workout with such a bag. Training legs and torso for to get not tired during all the turns can be evidential for a good ride.