How to properly lace Belleville TR10x boots, for a flat foot like me
In
every respect except one, these wonderful, beautiful boots, fit me like a glove. However, these boots are not really designed for low arches like I have.
Except for my low arches. See here how I have solved this problem, almost completely, without having to sacrifice the nice thin soles:
Basically the trick is this. First, you have to tighten the first thee lace holes as tight as you can. The part directly above the toe is still a little bowed upwards from this, but not so bad it's a big deal.
Next, you need to run the lace from the 4th holes, around the back, and up to the row of 4 lateral loops. Then, lace them all up through, tie a small knot in the very end of the lace, so it doesn't slip again out of these very smooth and open loop-lace-holes, and voila!
Now my heel remains almost perfectly in contact with the bottom of the shoe, at all times, and the top of the front of my feet, is also, in close contact with the top of the toe area. I have still to test this in the field, but wriggling it around, it feels fricking heavenly.
It's not perfect, but it will do until I can borrow @xanox's CNC robot to carve me up 3d scans of my feet, so I can craft 100% leather, with an impregnated conductivity enhancer that still resists water, and the thick cowhide based 'slipper' sole design that I dreamed up when I was in prison. Note that my boot design's lower sole part, resembles this design closely.
As a result of seeing how this works, as a makeshift solution for these otherwise perfect boots, I can see now EXACTLY what I must add to that design, to make it 100% perfect - a lateral strap, like the one you see at the bottom coming up from the heel panel, that is a flap, and allows you to fully trap the heel and instep together, keeping the heel always steady in the back.
I can also see how it would also help, for any wearer, if there also was another strap coming up from the arch, to pull the sole upwards and keep it snug
These boots have been reported by reviewers to often have a problem of excess mobility in the heel, causing friction from the unlined interior (my socks are testament to this, also).
If I could get the ears of Belleville, to suggest how they make version 2 of this boot, I would say that they need to make that nylon webbing on the bottom attached to the heel, a flap, and stitch it over into a loop to run the laces through, instead of the 4th lacehole. And the arch-strap I suggested. I don't even think that top webbing strap does anything, though I could be wrong about that.
Why are people with flat foot not allowed to join the military?
Standard issue boots make flatfeet unable to do long marches.
The autumn before last, I literally marched, in a pair of quite good Finnish made barefoot boots, all the way from Nettuno, south-west of Rome, through Rome, and then onwards all the way through Avezzano, and got lost in the giant ring road that circles it, via Celano, then onwards to eventually striking it lucky and meeting some awesome pig hunters who gave me 25 euros and dropped me at the next trainstation, in Popoli.
I believe that is probably at least 400km, maybe 500, and there is no way I could have done it without barefoot boots.
I'm not joining the military though. I will, however, refine my skills as a hunter. Soldiers are just hunters for the Government. I am a hunter, and Stalker, for God.
edit: also, the way you said 'people with flat foot' made it sound like a disease, and that is exactly how it is sneered at by many people, I'm not saying you meant to say that, but merely that it made me think of how naturally very outside of the normal body features is considered to be a disease. A disease is an evolutionary advantage, in the wrong situation.
My bad, didn't wanna come off as a jerk or something. Just curious. Cool.
No, I don't mean it that way at all, it wasn't intended that way, in fact, I didn't notice it until after I wrote my first draft of the reply. But you know what I mean about how 'flatfoot' especially in army language, is an insult as though you are a deformed, mutant lowlife throwback.
Well, I might be a throwback, but some things were better before.
Never knew they use it in derogatory fashion. Just curious as to their rejection of it.
socialist conformism.