When you do buy skis/boots for kids vs renting?

[Basil]

Now that the season is winding down, I'm starting to think ahead towards next year.

My DS will be 12 next year. He's confident on most single blacks, but unfortunately we only ski about 20-25 days/year. For the past 4 years we've done a seasonal rental for him (and his younger sister) at a local ski shop. It's very economical and convenient, but I would be willing to purchase something if it would benefit him.

But this year he's in a 24.5 boot and who knows next year? It seems like junior boots top out at a 25.5? He's on 130cm skis, but the feet seem to grow a size every other month these days, and the top of his head gets higher every day.

At what point should you think about purchasing (or ?leasing adult equipment), vs continuing to rent basic kids' gear?

 

[geargrrl]

We bought every year or two at the ski swap. Buy used, sell used. Get there early lol.

 

[Iwannaski]

We were at a point for son where the seasonal rental was an ADULT sized, so it was almost 2x the cost of a kids’ rental.

To me, that meant that 2 years of season rental were worth the depreciation on the skis. Plus, his foot had started to stabilize in size. So, we did 1 year of adult season rental and then bought him gear. At that point, I also bought my daughter gear. She’s super lean, so will probably be on kids skis for 1-2 MORE years. So I figured get her LONG kids skis (she’s a fairly skilled skier now) and her boots for her size 8 feet are the same size as my boots for my size 10 feet. I figure liners will pack out as her feet grow. 2 years made the spend worth it - I’m assuming it can all be resold. So, I say if you can get 2 years use out of it, buy.

 

[mustski]

We purchased our son boots at about the age of 12-13 yrs when his skiing had progressed to the point where he needed a good boot to continuing progressing. We bought a recreational fit so that it would last a couple of seasons. We started him with thicker ski socks and he ended in Knee high stockings. It worked fine. We did have to buy 3 pairs of boots during those growth years so we hit ski swaps and ski shows and bought previous year's boot models. His feet stopped growing when he was 17 yrs old. He's 25 now and still uses those boots. He didn't have much time for skiing while in undergraduate school and even less now that he's in dental school so they don't have more that 150 days on them.

 

[Knitjenious]

I have been weighing this same question. We had been nicely nestled in a kids' ski gear hand-me-down chain and/or managed to buy used skis that we could get 2 years out of each time. But I suspect that the next 2 years will be the period of most rapid growth for my current 12.5-year-old (who at 5'0" has yet to hit her big growth spurt and who, based on my and my husband's heights should probably end up about 5'7" adult height) so might go with season rental next year, depending how much she has grown by next fall.

 

[Basil]

Thanks!

I think the boots issue is the hardest! It seems like he has giant feet for his size and may outgrow junior size boots before his body does? I don't mind buying (particularly if I can hand down) but my DD and my 2 nieces will probably never need a 24.5 boot.

If he's needing a ~140-145 ski next year, would there be a performance advantage to buying a small women's ski, versus a junior one, versus the junior rentals? The rentals are pretty standard Elan foam core cap construction skis. But maybe it wouldn't make that big of a difference to him? I'm pretty sure I could get more use out of 140cm skis with my DD and my nieces, as long as the bindings held up for long enough.

 

[SarahXC]

I found for my children I could buy used womens demo skis in good condition in those shorter sizes (140-150) for good prices at powder7, ski essentials etc. Also with the demo bindings the foot growth/new boot size every year is easily accommodated. The downside was they were a bit heavier. At 24.5 the kids boots will most likely use the adult sizes lugs but if you are not sure you can always ask the shop about the binding compatibility. Also I have found the higher end kids boots often go up to size 27.5.

 

[beane]

Thanks!

I think the boots issue is the hardest! It seems like he has giant feet for his size and may outgrow junior size boots before his body does? I don't mind buying (particularly if I can hand down) but my DD and my 2 nieces will probably never need a 24.5 boot.

If he's needing a ~140-145 ski next year, would there be a performance advantage to buying a small women's ski, versus a junior one, versus the junior rentals? The rentals are pretty standard Elan foam core cap construction skis. But maybe it wouldn't make that big of a difference to him? I'm pretty sure I could get more use out of 140cm skis with my DD and my nieces, as long as the bindings held up for long enough.

Not sure about the boot solution--we have been doing season rentals and have been happy with the quality (lange RS boots). For skis, my 10 y.o. had a season rental but the coach (he does big mountain) said he needs something wider (lots of snow in tahoe this year) so I bought some kids dynastar menace 140s on ebay that have been good. I think there is a performance difference over basic rentals but you can definitely find non-foam core "kids" skis. He has certainly verbalized noticing performance improvement over the narrower skis (which he refers to as his "park" skis, lol) on deeper days. I got them for a reasonable price and plan to resell after my younger one outgrows.

 

[CarverJill]

I also buy used and pass down. Ebay has great deals on boots and we found a used ski gear shop in Mammoth that had awesome boots in tons of sizes in the spring for $40 each. YOU have to get comfortable with sizing and binding adjustments but its all possible to do a lot cheaper.

 

[marzNC]

I started buying boots for my daughter when she was a tween and skiing 15-20 days a season, mostly at our home hill (northern VA) but also during a spring break trip to Alta. Our local ski shop (central NC) had an experienced boot fitter (owner of the shop) and a trade-in program for gear that could be sold used.\

I bought her skis either used at our local ski shop or online. She was a good enough skier by age 8 to start with skis that were a little long (forehead height) so could use a pair of skis for two seasons while she was still growing.