These boots are made for skiing

The right footwear makes the difference between painful feet and years of comfortable skiing. Stephen Wood finds a perfect fit in Austria

In a corner of the basement of the five-storey Strolz skiwear and equipment shop at Lech in Austria there is a raised platform. It is set behind a curving, dark-wood partition topped with a brass rail. Facing inward, towards the ski and footwear departments, it looks rather like a pulpit, except that its broad curve provides enough room for half a dozen preachers.

From time to time, people wearing ski boots step up on to the platform as if to address the multitude of browsing shoppers. But instead they silently assume a look of intense concentration – and stand stock still for the following 10 to 15 minutes. If there are signs of strain on their faces that is because they are pulling down as hard as they can on crutch-like devices which protrude from the floor of the platform.

These people are clearly suffering. But they are enduring a few minutes of discomfort in order to enjoy pain-free skiing for the lifetime of the boots they are about to buy.

Before I last purchased ski boots, I made a few phone calls, hoping to find some horny-handed artisan in London who could craft a pair in a shape which would bear some relation to my knobbly feet. But the best advice I got was to go to Snow+Rock. There, one of the company's top fitters bent and battered a pair of production-line Nordicas into a shape which kept me comfortable for more than five years.

Only later did I discover that boots which, if not strictly made to measure, do at least maintain lineal links with cobbling tradition are available from a company based in the Arlberg mountains. With my Nordicas now so old that when I last needed new, rubber heel-tips I had to fashion some myself out of shoe-heels bought from Woolies, I took advantage of a long weekend in Lech to replace them. In the resort my first stop, on a Friday morning, was at Strolz, established as a ski-boot maker in 1921 and – by its own proud admission – now the smallest manufacturer in the world.

Ambros Strolz was a canny fellow. A local cobbler when Lech was a poor farming community, he became involved in skiing not so much in its infancy as when it was new-born. He made his first ski boots before lifts existed, a rugged, hob-nailed, black-leather pair for bindings which left the heel free to move – so that skiers could climb up the slopes. When a former Mercedes-Benz engineer arrived in Lech with a plan to build ski-lifts, Strolz was one of the first to put money into the scheme (as a result, his family remains a part-owner of the resort's lift system). And when the village's mayor, aware of the potential benefit that skiing might bring to the local economy, offered new premises rent-free on condition that they housed a sports shop, Strolz agreed – and began a retail operation which now consists of seven shops in Lech and Oberlech, plus another three in neighbouring Zürs and Stuben.

Today, the retail side is run by three of Strolz's grandsons. The boot-making business was handed over to their uncle, Martin (who became famous for his ski-racing successes in the early 1950s, including a second place in the downhill world championship), and then in turn to their cousin Hannes, now 39 years old. He maintains production at a level of only 12,000 pairs per year, because that is the maximum output of the Strolz-owned factory in Italy which makes the polyurethane boot shells. Commercial realities also demand that only three types of ski-boot shell are made, and that the designs last up to 10 years: amazingly, the cost of producing the moulds for each boot – for men and women, in 14 sizes – is £29,000 per pair. At a fitting, the first issue is the appropriate shell-type: Racing (for aggressive skiers), Sportiv (for the less aggressive) or Favorit (for those with unusually small or large feet). The rigidity of each shell can be tuned by the insertion of "wedges" of different materials above the heel. The separate "cuff" – the upper part of the boot which grips the lower calf – also comes in three styles. My fitter, Martin Kirmair – thankfully a fluent English-speaker – questioned me about my skiing. Then he prescribed a Sportiv shell (like the Ford Model T, it comes in any colour as long as it's black) with an average wedge, and a cuff appropriate for my elegantly slim calves.

Getting the correct fit for my inelegantly knobbly feet was a longer process. This involved standing on a carbon-paper mat to produce footprints – they look as if they might provide vital evidence in a beach crime – from which "lasts" are made. A pair is needed because, Kirmair told me, no two feet are the same: I noticed that the left was more ticklish; he pointed out that the right was larger. The lasts are not carved from wood in the traditional, bespoke way; rather, they are off-the-peg pieces, adjusted by having thin sheets of cork stuck to them. Fitted inside the shell, which is heated to make it pliable, the last gives the outer boot the correct shape; it also ensures a perfect fit for the hand-made, leather inners.

In the penultimate part of the fitting process, rigid insoles called "foot-beds" are created so that the feet are supported correctly inside the boot – this involves standing on a machine whose squidgy material, under a rubber sheet, takes an impression of the soles. Finally, with my boots fully assembled, I put them on and stood in the pulpit as high-pressure foam was injected inside, to create an interior which – once the foam had solidified – would mirror the contours of my feet. Grimacing at the discomfort, I hauled down on the crutches to ensure the foam's pressure did not lift my feet off the foot-beds.

How long did the whole process take? Remarkably, a single day – although I did subsequently return for some adjustment to the boots, once I had skied in them. How much do they cost? £378, including the foot-beds. Are they worth the time and money? Certainly. I have now worn them on two ski trips. They are so comfortable that I often forget to slacken them off at lunch-time, and the fit is so good that skiing has suddenly become easier. Do my feet still feel knobbly? No, they do not.

Strolz: A-6764 Lech am Arlberg, Austria (00 43 5583 2361 52, www.strolz.at). Strolz boots are also available in the UK, from Cairnwell Mountain Sports at Glenshee in Scotland (0870 443 0253)