Local ski boot technician goes high-tech

As the house boot-fitter at Great

Northern Cycles in Whitefish, Duie Millette knows more about feet

than the average non-podiatrist should. He can rattle off

scientific names of the dozens of muscles and bones in a foot as if

he’s reading off an anatomy chart — but that’s precisely what makes

him one of the best in the business.

“He’s probably just a step down from

being a doctor,” local ski instructor Lori Rust joked.

Rust recently had Millette customize

the fit of her ski boots, and she says there’s “no doubt” it’s made

a difference in her abilities and comfort on the slopes.

“I’m up on the hill all the time, so I

was looking for better performance,” Rust said. “Duie helps make

the foot and boot one entity. If they’re not connected, it’s

evident in your skiing. If you’re serious and want to advance, it’s

almost a fundamental necessity.”

Millette has been working in ski and

cycling shops most of his life. After moving from Fargo, N.D., and

studying architecture, he came to Whitefish in the mid-1970s to

work at Martin Hale’s Big Mountain ski shop. There, he first

learned how to mold custom foot beds.

Over the years, Millette intermittently

shifted between working as an architect and a gear shop guru,

depending on the economy, but he constantly kept himself educated

in the anatomy of feet and the latest procedures in

boot-fitting.

In the 1990s, he took an apprenticeship

with Jim Lindsay, in Aspen Highlands, Colo. Lindsay is the founder

of BOOTech, a certified pedorthist and widely recognized as one of

the top boot-fitters in the country. Under Lindsay, Millette honed

his skills and learned what he calls a “craft.”

“Jim brought me up to the next level,”

Millette said.

From there, the fairly rudimentary

process he learned in the 1970s at Hale’s ski shop blossomed into a

high-tech procedure today that involves vacuum molds and

specialized scanning software.

LOCAL SKIER Larry LaRocque is on the

mountain about 70 days a season. For the past three years, he

endured the pain and nuisance of losing multiple toenails because

his boots were improperly fit. Last year, he finally called upon

Millette’s services.

After an initial assessment of how

LaRocque positions his weight in an aggressive ski stance, Millette

took a series of measurements to determine how he should go about

adjusting his boots. He used rulers, protractors and T-squares to

get an idea of how LaRocque’s foot aligns with his knee.

Like most people, LaRocque’s feet

pronate, meaning they roll away from center. A scanning device

connected to a computer maps out pressure points on LaRocque’s feet

and confirms his pronation.

“The scanner helps me see what the

floor sees,” Millette said.

Millette then uses a vacuum mold to

build a foot bed that will ease LaRocque’s feet into a “neutral”

position and better align his ski stance.

LaRocque swears by the process and says

it’s made a significant difference in his skiing.

“I don’t have to have my boots as

tight, so they’re more comfortable,” he said. “Now, I’m not

thinking about my feet, and I can concentrate on skiing and enjoy

myself.”

Millette says in the busy season he

will perform three to four fittings a day, and that word of mouth

has been his best marketing.

“I’m making the boot fit the skier

instead of having the skier smash their foot down to fit the boot,”

he said. “No, I’m not a podiatrist or a physical therapist — I just

want to help people ski better.”