Leaderboard

Correct, the blade itself is a spring. Visualize a diving board. Supported and anchored at the back, and free float at the front. Any deflection or "flex" results in built up potential energy that is released when the force is removed (either the diver jumping and releasing contact, or the skaters foot pushing off, and releasing contact), allowing the item to spring back to its original position and output energy. In the case of blades, the flex is extremely stiff and minuscule to the diving board, but the same concept. Thats on the "performance or power" front. Now for the "health and injury prevention" side. Running on a grass is better on your knees than concrete, jumping on a trampoline is better on your knees than solid ground, skating on Bladetech is better on your knees than a static rigid blade. The dynamic motion adds some benefit to the user by reducing and/or elongating the impact shockwaves. Similar to many sports equipment, springs are everywhere, people just dont notice them unless they look like a coil.... think golf balls, club heads, golf shafts, hockey sticks, tennis rackets... all can build up potential energy and release it, similar to a spring. Hope that helps.

Thanks for the input. I know it there is enough 'meat' around the end where the Sprung plate will go, my concern is that the very inner edge of the boot baseplate is almost hollow. Drilling through it doesn't seem like it will be stable at all. As far as general mounting goes, I just purchased the ModSquad mounting option and will be shipping them out to JR.

Just wanted to update everybody on these Labeda Slime wheels. After about 8-10 skates, the wheels have fall off the hubs on the front wheel, or any wheel I move to the front. (3 total). If you flex the wheel in your hand, you can feel each one have a little wiggle off the hub, but the fronts have completely come off during skates. The wheels end up horizontal over the front of your chassis, creating quite a struggle getting the wheel and axle off. I have photos if anybody really would like to see them. I contacted Labeda vendors but they don't get back to me. I'll be making the switch to Pure X now.

That’s one reason I had JR do my conversion. Knowing new holes were likely going to need to be drilled, I wanted to know for sure it was going to be done right.

Correct, stay in the elastic regime, avoid the plastic regime. 🙂

Your flex choice is between you and your priest. (Stick height and your height and shooting style and how much you cut the stick are all variables we can’t account for.) You’ll find relatively light people who use a stiffer flex, and relatively heavier people who use a softer flex. The trend for the past 10 years or so has been to use softer flexes and “let the stick do the work.” Good examples are Kessel and Ovechkin, who are two relatively big dudes, using 70 and 80 flex sticks, respectively. The most common advice on here is usually to try the lower flex and see if you like it.

Your wheels are too soft! I put 78a wheels on my sprungs initially. I weigh close to 200 lbs and I felt the same thing. Then I put on 82a for outdoor and it was better. Now I'm using 89a wheels for outdoor. With my weight and being a fairly advanced skater I could probably use 82-84a wheels on sport court even. You're missing out. On 89a's I'm flying. They are way faster than standard chassis. Ok, back to the topic

He lives in Florida if you want a general estimate, but you can contact him directly for more details. The shipping is definitely an added charge, but the quality is worth it, and also, I use the site so I wanted to support the services that they offer, even though it could cost me a bit more. I can support my local shop through other stuff. Also, not sure prices by you, but I actually think it was cheaper for me even with shipping. My local shop charges 55 +tax for a full conversion. I got 3 pairs done by JR for 90 bucks, and shipping both ways totaled about 60 bucks. So 3 pairs of skates cost me 150. Local, I would have paid 165+ tax, and it would have been an hour drive each way, so 4 hours of driving total. Obviously depends on your local prices, but in my case the MSH prices ended up being better. I didn't realize it then, but now that I'm making the calculation, I obviously won out. I would have sent them either way, but it's nice to know I saved a few bucks and a few hours of driving. Also, I was having sprungs mounted, and I didn't want to take any chances in them being mounted incorrectly or poorly. I know JR has done many, so I felt much more comfortable sending then to him.

Sprungs do feel like skating in mud if you use them with wheels that are too soft. I have experienced this myself. The suspension provides more grip; so you have to use harder wheels than you would with a flat chassis. Also, full profile wheels rub with Sprungs; so make sure the wheels have an elliptical profile. I don't think Bladetech would add more grip, but if it did it would be easy enough to switch to a shallower hollow.

So metals have stress points, I'm sure you've experienced this in some parts. When you take a metal clothes hanger for example, you can give it a small bend with a very light force and it will spring back to its original shape (you can do this all day and it will come back to its original shape). But if you bend it with more force you can bend it permanently. This is what stress points and yield points are all about (fracture is when it bends so much that it breaks). Different metals have different points of no return where it bends so much that it deforms (it gets a bit more complicated in reality but you get the idea), you've probably have seen or experienced this with tin boxes or aluminum. So basically this blade, the way it bends upward, doesn't reach the yield point where it would permanently deform so it recovers back to its original shape (they call this aptly the elastic region). And that force that it springs back with is strong enough to propel you (this is the sell).

The steel is the spring so it will return/spring back to its original shape, no external prompting needed.

He alluded to leaf spring suspension, which is something that old cars used to use due to its longevity and simplicity, if you look up Leaf Springs you will see some examples of how it looks like just a bunch of flat sheets stacked on top of one another. Basically the simple material science of how a metal that's not bent to a strain point reverts back to its original shape.

Most likely the pro is the 65 flex full height. Usually 65 is intermediate. The blade is pretty close to the e4 though

Thanks for clarifying Jeff. What exactly gives that spring action? In the video it shows that there's a spring inside the holder, but it seems that you're not doing that anymore. What has taken it's place? Is it just a cutout that allows the runner to move? What is forcing it to "unload" following the push off? Trying to understand how this works, as it reminds me very much if the sprungs roller chassis, which I love and can definitely attest to the suspension taking some of the wear and tear off of the knees. My concern is more about, in a suspension system, that energy is absorbed in the springs and then released. In sprung roller chassis, there is a spring that stores and releases the energy. In the BT steel, if there is no spring, where is the energy stored before it is released? In a standard holder it's stored in your knees and your body in general. Trying to understand how it works. Thanks again and best of luck Edit: I see now that you said the blade itself and as a stiff leaf spring.

Thanks for the feedback Westside, always appreciate the leanings to help improve. I can definitely re-look into the website and touching it up to add more information there. One comment I can make is that.... no pro players uses something they dont like... and we have a good number on our product for several years - but certainly we can try and publish their actual reviews they've provided or give you more info - duly noted. Also - which forum, perhaps I can be more present there to shed some light on inquiries. Cheers!

Yup, they are the same wheel, very unique dual pour outdoor wheel. I can imagine this on the old vforms for some beach hockey

I haven't seen it in person or tried anything on, but one thing I noticed was the bottom of the shin guards no longer have the free flex portion. To me that seems like a downgrade and the cynic in me thinks it was removed to shave costs. The top strap looks nice, but the lower strap looks like plain elastic. At the top price point it would be nice to have neoprene type straps all around. The elbows look to be a three piece construction, which is good, but the 2X pros are listed at $179 CDN. So over $200 after tax for elbow pads. They look like they would be mobile and the top and middle steps look comfortable, but that's steep. They moved from a three piece flex thumb to a two piece flex thumb on the 2X Pros. Without trying them on I don't know if that drastically changes the thumb mobility.