Leaderboard

I'm a step-in girdle guy and have used many. The RBK 9K was the gold standard, and I wore one for a while. But man is it heavy. I recently switched to the Super Tacks and i love it. It's just as protective in most places as the pro level 9K, and even moreso in some, and is about half the weight (or feels like it). I wish it was a little more full step in like the 9K, but it's defintely better than a wrap style. if you want a step in girdle, it's a great option. You can find one on eBay or SLS.

I just recently went down the rabbit hole called skate profiling and started off with a 9.5/10.5 profile. My LHS felt it would be a good starting point and they were correct. Only adjustment I needed was I had to go back and drop my radius of hollow from my normal 5/8 that I used for years to 11/16. Now they are perfect, I'll never go back to non-profiled steel.

I don't even order anything over 85 for retail. If someone wants anything higher than that I do custom orders.

For beginner skaters, profiling is one of the best things to invest money into. The stability a new skater can get going from a standard 10' -> 12' and optimizing the balance point can allow them to focus on their edge work instead of worrying about balance.

Since you're not to far along in your skating, it's probably better to try and see if you can figure it out without profiling first before you start dropping money on profiles. 8 months is not that long to be skating. For what it's worth, I have issues with getting up on my toes too much. For me, it's a combination of bad habits and small feet. I'm a size 4.5 and I'm a full grown adult. It took me like 2 years of gradual tweaks to find my way to my current profile, a 13/26 with a -1 pitch. Very few people use negative pitches. During practise I generally don't have issues. I can use a standard profile and be fine doing things, but during the course of a game, at game speed and when I get tired, the 40+ years of bad habits rear their ugly head, and I can end up on my toes too much. The negative pitch helps settle me down, so I can get a full proper stride instead of choppy ones. Again, in this instance, it's probably better to work on yourself a bit more before you jump into the deep end. And IMHO, it's probably better to do a bunch of incremental changes rather than jump head long into something like a quad profile. The quad changes a bunch of variables at once, and if it doesn't work, it's tougher to figure out what your next move is, but if you only change one thing, it's easier to diagnose if its a positive change or not. Yes it can end up being expensive, but it's a sure and steady path narrowing in on what's right for you rather than one where you're taking a bunch random shots in the dark hopping to hit a bullseye.