Telemark Talk / Telemark Tips Forum

Hello everyone,
just suscribed to this forum because I don't found a lot of french talks for telemark ; sorry for my English !

I am an experienced alpine skier and I started telemark 3 years ago. I took some personnal courses and online courses, and I trained a lot. 2 years ago I bought my own telemark gear : New Meidjo 3 binding on some old dps 100mm i recover, I'm really happy of this gear that fit properly my use : mainly backcountry, rarely ski resort and occasionaly ski touring (not really concerned by the weight because i usualy did less than 1000d+ and don't ski with extreme athlete...)
My concern is with the boots : I found some used crispi evo WC (the stiffer ones), in 28.5 (maybe a bit larger because i usualy wear 28 in alpine boots).
I experienced severe toe crushing since this year, and it has begun to be unusable because of the pain since 2 - 3 telemark sessions.

I tend to telemark quiete low, agressive, and fast, that's why i love also the control provided by the stiffness of the meidjo + the evo WC (I used to be in an alpine competition team when I was teenager)

I am not able to say if this toe crushing is coming from a distortion of the boots that are too old (I bought them used !) ; some mistakes in my telemark flexions that impact the bending point of the boots ;
Or maybe I just improve my telemark skills and I don't use to ski as low before, so that I've never experienced to bend my shoes that much.

Here is a little footage of the flexion of my shoe, and as you can see the plastic at each side of the shoe bellow is not aligned. The plastic part of the shoe above the metatarsus seems to dive against my big toe ....

I tried to remove the inner sole of the boots : less pain but less sustain of my foot that move too much for my while skiing, inside the boot.

I tried to rent for 2 days some new crispi EVOs (the normal ones, anthracite, the only available next to me for renting) in 28.0 and I do not experienced any toe crushing.

Any help would be appreciated ! some DIY to fix anything in the boots (best if i'm not sentenced to buy new ones), some telemark skills to improve, any advice in buying a new pair of boots compatible with the meidjo and with a sufficient stiffness ...
Should I give up definitily with this boots model, or could the plastic just being tired ?

Thanks in advance for all your advices !!

Older Crispi boots are notorious for causing toe crunch, the bellows on the first generation were way too soft. They changed the bellows on later models and it seems like it fixed the issue for most people. Maybe someone has some bootfitting tips to help alleviate the toe crunch but you probably need some new boots unfortunately.

I've heard that some of the first gen ntn boots caused toe pinch. I can't remember if it was scarpa, crispi or both. Dostie from the freeheel life youtube channel. talks about it in one of the videos.

Ok, thanks for your answers ; so actuamly it don’t seem to be repairable … If any other had any advice you re welcome!
Thanks

I bought the same boot new in March this year, and had the same problem. My boots flex in the same way as in your videos.

I concluded my boots were too big in 29.5 and have now bought new ones in 28.5. My theory is that when the boots are too big the hard orange plastic behind the bellows reaches further and hits your toes. When flexing the boot, your foot is pushed to the back of the boot, and if the boot is too big it flexes at the wrong place for your foot.

I have tried flexing my new smaller boot in the binding and don't notice any toe crunch. But haven't skied in them yet.