Jump to content
Slate Blackcurrant Watermelon Strawberry Orange Banana Apple Emerald Chocolate Marble
Slate Blackcurrant Watermelon Strawberry Orange Banana Apple Emerald Chocolate Marble

DRR

Members+
  • Content Count

    180
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    4
  • Feedback

    0%

Everything posted by DRR

  1. Yeah, until one shows up at your front door from sideline swap.
  2. HM has those SMU skates in most sizes. They're $150, which isn't bad considering the holders alone would run you $70-80. You get crappy steel and boots for free! Just curious, what size holders do you need?
  3. I'm starting to hoard replacement visors also. Thankfully Bauer still makes the HDO Deluxe Visor, which takes the same replacement lenses.
  4. Mine is a standard and there's no "S". I have a couple because I hoard them. Best hybrid mask ever. Let me know if you want it measured or anything.
  5. The Vapor line has changed, it's a little wider and a little bit roomier in the toe box compared to the Canstar days. I was a Bauer Vapor 8D when it was Canstar (Vapor 8, 10 circa 98-2000), I dropped a full half size in the modern (2015) Vapors. For what it's worth...my guess is Bauer changed their boot lasts when they introduced Nexus but someone else may know better.
  6. Also I'll just say that I'd be very careful about offering retail equipment. You can't touch the online guys in options, selections, colors, or brands offered. Really, your only advantage is convenience. These days if a kid wants new elbow pads and he orders them and they don't fit right, he'll just order another pair and return the old ones. Or, put a lightly used pair on sideline swap or whatever, until he has exactly what he wants. You can't compete with that. If you were to stock equipment, I'd focus on one brand, stock a few sizes in good mid-level stuff, and keep your inventory as low as is manageable. That probably also means not selling skates, because there's just too many sizes and skate lines to realistically carry stock for.
  7. Good advice in this thread, I'd say one way to look at it comprehensively, is that you have to view your business as a number of separate, distinct businesses. That is, you're not running a pro shop, you're running a number of different businesses with separate costs and income streams. You're now the CEO of a company that has a skate sharpen and repair division, a team sales division, a consumables/accessories (wax, tape, laces, etc) division, an apparel division. Maybe down the road you add a retail equipment division, or a embroidery division or a figure skating division. But for now in order to have a successful business you need to focus on what you can accomplish well. If you need to expand one "division" because it's doing great, then wonderful - but also, if you need to shut down a "division" because it doesn't generate enough revenue, then the decision should be easier if you start out with this mindset that they are all separate. Often, people start businesses and they offer X, Y, and Z, and conflate them all, and when Y does poorly it drags down X and Z until the whole business goes under. Whereas the right decision would be to chop off Y and give X and Z room to grow. Good luck!
  8. I agree, but just because it's niche doesn't mean it can't be successful. You could say the same about third-party steel, 99% of the skates out there have stock steel, but that doesn't mean Step, BlackEdge, Tydan, etc. can't carve out a market for themselves. A company that specializes in one thing and can get even a small portion of a large market, will do very well for themselves. I don't know how well it'll work but I wish them the best.
  9. Those are incredible. Thanks for sharing.
  10. Wait, you not only still use Lange skates, but you're hoarding them as well? For the good of the community you must share pictures of your setup.
  11. I don't see how it can be optimized for more speed AND maneuverability (smaller turning radius). If you have more blade on the ice, your stride is optimized for glide at the expense of tighter turns. If you have a smaller radius and less contact surface with the ice, you optimize for tighter turns at the expense of speed. I am fully open to the possibility but doesn't this fly in the face of conventional wisdom, that you can be faster AND have tighter turns?
  12. Clearly you haven't been here long. This is exactly the kind of subject that these gear nerds eat up.
  13. Any protective foam will degrade over time, even in ideal conditions. If the conditions are less than ideal (too hot, too cold, too humid, too dry etc) then they'll break down faster. Another thing to inspect closely is any adhesives used - for example, glue used to attach the foam to the inside of the mask. If it passes visual inspection and you put it on and it feels fine, then you're probably good to go. But newer foam will perform better because it's fresher, and technology has gotten better.
  14. Do you subconsciously curl your toes inside the skate when you skate? I ask because what you describe sounds more to me like a muscle/tendon issue than a volume issue. Not sure what the fix for that may be, possibly powerfoot inserts? I think you have a few options to try to diagnose the problem before you resort to punching.
  15. I never disagreed the VT study is flawed. I'm saying they should have sent a simple email to respond to a customer.
  16. Well you're demonstrably wrong, here's their response to the VT study. Why couldn't they just have emailed this to Rick? The answer may not have satisfied him but at a response would have. https://www.bauer.com/helmets As for Ford, they often respond not only with words to third party test results that are unfavorable (ever hear of IIHS?) they often implement changes to address it. Why? Because they understand that consumer perception about safety IMMEDIATELY impacts their bottom line.
  17. Did it recommend a Vapor 10D or a Vapor 10 EE?
  18. Great line in this review: "getting the helmet structure dialled in is essential. No matter how many foams you add, if the helmet has pressure points or negative space, you’ll either be in pain or unprotected. " This is why everyone preaches fit first, and considering brand, price point, marketing, etc as secondary factors. If the helmet does not fit reasonably well, all the other stuff is largely irrelevant.
  19. That's ridiculous. It's a valid and relevant question unlike "gas mileage", and the absolute minimum would have been to reply with a canned response, instead of saying "we'll get back to you" and then ignoring subsequent inquiries. As far as lost time and money answering the question - it takes 30 seconds to email a canned response, and because they couldn't do that it appears they lost @RickDC as a customer, so I guess your point actually proved mine.
  20. I honestly don't know if any pair of shoulder pads would have offered any more protection against an injury like that. Just like a pair of shinpads won't protect you from blowing out a knee, shoulder pads can only do so much. They're primarily engineered to protect lateral hits to the shoulder, and to a lesser degree, frontal impacts to the chest (sternum). The back is usually an afterthought, as are the arm pads and stomach pad, if there even is one. Having said that, you want protective shoulder pad recs - Last time I went shopping I was impressed with the Bauer Nexus line, looked a lot more protective than the Supreme and Vapor lines, especially in the shoulders. All the major brands are going to offer protective stuff up and down their lineup, if you go for the most expensive stuff you'll get the benefit of high tech fabrics for heat and moisture management, and a much better level of foam.
  21. If you have a neighbor with a router table and a jigsaw, buy them a 6 pack and have them make a template from your modeling stick, and use the router with a straight cutting bit and you'll get a much cleaner result. Plus you'll have the template so you can get it spot on exact for every subsequent stick you need re-cut.
  22. I think your best bet is going to be converting these and buying new Nexus skates, or, finding an older set of used Nexus skates, and having those converted. Otherwise you're basically staring over with skate fitting.
  23. I'm guessing he means overall volume. IIRC I think the length was good for me but a little roomier everywhere else compared to the bauer mx3 shell I'm currently using (also a L) which is probably an inch shorter than i'd like.
  24. For reference, I'm 6'0" 160, 32" waist.
  25. I wear a M 9k and the large PP90 fits fine.
×
×
  • Create New...