First Time Buyer - All the Mistakes

[backdoor]

My first mistake in buying used ski's for my son was finding a hardly used pair of skis with perfect tops and slightly used bases and it wasn't until after buying them that I found out that the only season they were used in was over 10 years ago and the shop won't work on the "Like New" bindings. Ugh.

The nearest Ski shop to me is just under 2 hours away but I have learned since buying those skis that there are season rentals from ski shops not on the mountain. I don't know why but I never realized this until I started looking for a shop to mount the bindings. Better selection of seasonal rental skis for a better price than the mountain... just about worth the drive.

Any other first time buyer mistakes the general skiing populous could share with us newbies?

 

[newboots]

Not replacing my beginner boots (some Dalbello model) for five years until Morton's neuroma is ready to cripple me. New boots being ordered, but the podiatrist's cortisone shot wore off after about 12 days.

 

[Tony S]

Where to begin ...

 

[oldschoolskier]

Beginners mistakes, never, my parents taught me what to look for and by the time I started buying stuff on my own I was already way past beginner.

Now, stupid mistakes when I should know better....

 

[Andy Mink]

Boots. You marry your boots, your date your skis. Don't cheap out, don't order on the internet. Get thy self to a good shop and get fitted.

What you ran into with bindings is called indemnification. Even if bindings are new in the box they may not be indemnified. What sucks is there may be nothing wrong with the binding. It's a CYA for shops, manufacturers, and YOU. @Philpug is working on the most current list of bindings that are still indemnified and it should be up pretty soon.

There are very few bad skis, but there are lots of "wrong" skis. Also, there are very good skis that don't cost an arm and a leg. Come here first. We'll get you into the proper paralysis by analysis mode!

 

[ELDoane]

Until you are making consistent parallel turns:
Money spent on gear < Money spent on lessons

After that:
Money spent on boots > Money spent on skis

 

[Jilly]

How old is your son? Are we talking 5 or 15 years old?

 

[oldschoolskier]

I reply to @Andy Mink advise, I'm going to add there a few members that order boots online and very successfully at that, so it can be done (but they also know the risks and accept them). HOWEVER, if you have to ask questions on the group DON'T, you don't yet understand what you need and can get away with. If you need shop hep for fitting, expect to pay, they need to cover their costs somehow and don't work for free.

Bindings and indemnification, this is a sore point. Some are taken of the list for valid reasons, some are just taken off because they don't want to keep samples anymore (for product verification). Again here older bindings are not indemnified, however many ski them, again the know the risk and know how the check and set them. AGAIN if you need to ask on the group don't, and that goes for setting up in general. Don't fairly expect a shop to risk their insurance to help you out.

Skis, well....there's good stuff, bad stuff, wrong stuff and right stuff, buyer be aware, don't complain about a wrong purchase after the fact. Research what you want before hand or its not a deal. Again want bindings mounted or set up expect to pay.

The short of it is there are deals to be had, but there are risks and hidden costs.

 

[Andy Mink]

I reply to @Andy Mink advise, I'm going to add there a few members that order boots online and very successfully at that, so it can be done

Correct, I should have clarified. If you KNOW what works for you, online can work. But that takes experience. For example, if you know you ski in a 27.5 Head Raptor and it is awesome for you, you could order 27.5 Raptor online and be pretty sure it will work for you. Assuming nothing has changed year to year.

 

[dovski]

So I am not sure I would call this a rookie mistake, but clearly one of those I knew better why did I do that. On one trip to Stevens about 7 years back, I forgot to bring our boots into the cabin we rented in Skykomish. Long story short it was a cold night and in the morning everyone's boots pretty much frozen solid. My son 4 at the time was very upset as he could not even put his boots on and in tears told me I had broken his boots and also said something to the effect of bad daddy Luckily the head of the ski school a the time had a boot dryer/heater in their office and was kind enough to warm his boots up for us and crisis averted.

 

[Decreed_It]

Oh boy, welcome to the club. Even w/ boots you gotta be careful - for me, 3rd time was the charm. Yes, 3rd .

Learn from all the mistakes made and documented here - will save you money! See: https://www.skitalk.com/threads/buh-bye-surefoot-hello-mike.16399/

 

[Ken_R]

Buying boots that were too large. Twice. (the first were too soft as well).

 

[Eric@ict]

Your first purchase should be boots that are fitted to the person by a boot fitter. Its ok to purchase a new "older boot", as long as they fit properly. Rent skis for the first couple of seasons.

 

[Wilhelmson]

Not realizing how leaky my boots were until a very cold snowy day ended with a bit of frostbite on my big toes

 

[backdoor]

How old is your son? Are we talking 5 or 15 years old?

@Jilly He is 14 this year. He went skiing thrice for the first time last year. Had lessons each day and picked it up pretty quick. By day 3 he was working his way down some of the easier blue square trails and figuring things out.

 

[Jilly]

Then his feet have stop growing in leaps and bound. As mentioned get him fitted with good boots that will last him for awhile, or till he can afford to buy his own Dad....Rent skis, he'll out grow those faster..

 

[VickieH]

I reply to @Andy Mink advise, I'm going to add there a few members that order boots online and very successfully at that, so it can be done (but they also know the risks and accept them).

But the subject is "First Time Buyer". I can't imagine a first-time buyer who is so well-versed in ski boots and boots wrt their own body that they would be successful with buying online. And if they are so knowledgeable, they know enough to skip that advice.

 

[jt10000]

Your first purchase should be boots that are fitted to the person by a boot fitter. Its ok to purchase a new "older boot", as long as they fit properly. Rent skis for the first couple of seasons.

This.

I retrospect I think I could have bought my first boots online - I know enough about feet from years in cycling shoes and nordic ski boots and inline skates (yes I know the sports are different than alpine skiing but I have a feel for fit, at least for my feet, from those experiences) AND there is enough info online AND my feet are pretty "easy" without wild shapes or bumps. Plus I'd done a season on a seasonal rental so had a sense of how ski boots should work (which the rentals did not LOL).

So I could have ordered three or four different boots, tried them, and returned the ones that did not work.

But I did not want to take any risks, so went to a good boot fitter. He gave me a comfort fit that worked for two seasons. By my third season I was getting beyond that fit and had to do some easy work to take up space in the boot (non-compressible spacers under liners on top of the boot board). That was OK.

This summer I bought new boots online with a real performance fit - basically the same model a size smaller and different flex. I have confidence they'll work right. Price was very good. (Note - this is not at the level of serious stance analysis, understanding forward lean, etc. Just good fit in the boot that gives decent comfort with the ability to control the ski.)

Doing it yourself is a risk if you don't know what you're doing and don't understand your feet and how ski boots work.

So getting the first pair from a boot fitter is the right move.

 

[Crank]

My first mistake in buying used ski's for my son was finding a hardly used pair of skis with perfect tops and slightly used bases and it wasn't until after buying them that I found out that the only season they were used in was over 10 years ago and the shop won't work on the "Like New" bindings. Ugh.

The nearest Ski shop to me is just under 2 hours away but I have learned since buying those skis that there are season rentals from ski shops not on the mountain. I don't know why but I never realized this until I started looking for a shop to mount the bindings. Better selection of seasonal rental skis for a better price than the mountain... just about worth the drive.

Any other first time buyer mistakes the general skiing populous could share with us newbies?

Well, fairly obvious - do some research. I may be wrong, but, I am thinking it would not be too hard to google those skis and bindings and find out they were a decade old.

Re. buying bots online. I guess if you really know what you want and how it fits you can do that. I thought about it. I actually did an online chat with a retailer about a specific boot. Later read how it fits long and narrow feet really well. My feet are more the short and fat kind. Then I went to a boot fitter instead - well worth paying full retail.

My advice is be skeptical. I start out with the assumption that a sales person is going to sell me either what they can make the most $ on or what they are trying to get rid of. I know that is not always the case. It's just where I start out.

 

[Aquila]

Ah man. I actually did the best I could as a first time buyer many years ago, I needed out of rental boots VERY fast as a true beginner as I had nonstop bad experiences with the rental boots being both huge and painful. I had read somewhere that one should find a reputable bootfitter and get the boots from there. I didn't live in a particularly ski-oriented city at the time but there were still some shops which sold ski gear, so I googled around and went in and asked for a specific fitter.

Still ended up with boots that were way too big. At least they were cheap and they were a marked improvement over the rentals. But I couldn't have done any better as a beginner, because I still didn't know enough about ski boots. I thought I was being smart by buying ski boots before I bought any other gear (I didn't buy skis for a long time), and by going to a Real Bootfitter (lol). I didn't know what new boots should feel like and I DEFINITELY didn't know that the liners would pack out within 5 days and leave me swimming in the boots. And although I know all that now, it actually took quite a long time to really become upskilled in ski boots, and beginners just want to ski without pain and with some semblance of control over their skis, rather than spending all this time becoming gear experts.

The only lesson from this is possibly that it's worth travelling to a better boot fitter, if you don't live in a ski town/ski city?