Vet88

Hey Justin, a question about maintenance of the CA9 boot. I skate between 2 - 3 hours a day, 7 days a week. I am one of these people who sweat a lot and by the time I've finished my boots are soaking wet eg the laces shed water as I pull them thru the eyelets when taking the boot off. So I am wondering about how much damage the salt from my sweat is doing to the boots. I know how bad it is for certain parts of the boot like eyelets and rivets, I've watched my CCM V10, Mission Boss and Rbk 10k eyelets disappear after just a month or so (commendations to the eyelets used in the CA9 as they have held up well so far). The other day I was giving them a quick final dry in the sun and notice some leeching of salt along the side of the boot. Do you recommend soaking them in water (wheels off) every now and then? If so, how often eg once a week, month....?

Hey Justin, I've had my CA9's now for almost a month. I average 2 - 3 hours a day in them, 7 days a week, so they have had a fair amount of time to break in. I'm now finding there is a ridge inside the boot, it's on the inner side of the boot, positioned directly behind the Alkali logo that acts as a scuff guard on the side of the boot (in line with the ball of my foot). I'd say it's where you have overlayed the end of the toe cap with the boot liner but haven't put anything next to the toe cap edge to cancel the ridge out. As the boot has worn in, the boot liner has compressed and now there is this hard vertical edge in the boot. It's got so bad that I'm almost at the point of not been able to skate, when I finish a session I have this vertical line imprinted into the side of my foot. I'm now trying to pad up with cotton wool and other various things to try and stay in the skates, do you have any suggestions? ps - no reply from Labeda, I swapped the white addictions out for red ones and these are holding up ok. The white ones chunked out by the 3 week mark.

Thanks, I dropped him a message and will wait for his reply. The message to Justin was to see if there could be a batch issue somewhere in the production runs which Alakli might have a better handle on than Labeda. At the speed I'm going thru these I'll need new wheels very soon and if it isn't a batch issue then I will have to give some serious thought to a harder rated wheel, something I haven't done before but now necessary because of a change in boot / chassis.

Hey Justin, have you had any issues with the white addictions? I got my CA9's last week, now with a total of 14 hours skating on a plastic tile surface the front and back wheels are splitting and starting to chunk out. Even 74a hyper trinitys lasted longer than these and the red addictions I had on my Rbk 10k's lasted since Xmas (I'm 5' 11" and weigh 165lb's). Either the CA9's have really screwed up my skating style or there is something wrong with the wheels.

You are right, I should have tempered my answer with "orthotics / pronation / ice hockey in the main don't work". Yes, if you have a mild case you may get away with orthotics. For medium to severe cases then you will be looking for a different answer, especially if you play ice hockey. BethG - ask the doc if he can recommend you to someone who knows about fitting feet with problems into ice skates. Do consider the Graf range of skates, they are one of the few models around (outside of a custom boot) that have variations in boot shape so you can purchase a skate to match a foot.

Orthotics in skates don't help, in shoes they work because they are sitting flat on the ground but in a skate there is nothing for the orthotic to lever off to straighten the foot. You have to try and find someone who understands the mechanics of a foot in an ice skate and can either realign the holder for you or shim it correctly. However there is another possible option which has worked for me. I have been previously diagnosed with bad pronation in my right foot, medium in my left. Got new Rbk 11k's in December and over the last 5 months I have been skating with loosely tied skates, and as my skating has got used to this (and improved) I have progressively continued to loosen the laces. My ankles have increased in strength and my pronation has reduced drastically to the point I don't worry about it now. I am skating 2 - 3 hours every day which in itself has really helped but I have been really surprised at how my pronation has all but disappeared, in both roller and ice. Admittedly if I do a lot of inside edge work on both skates at the same time I can feel the feet starting to turn in the boot after about 5 minutes so I just have to manage this during training and game time. If you only skate once or twice a week then I doubt this would help you but if you can put in the serious hours then this may help.

Any skate can be stretched but it's the composition of the boot that determines how well the stretch lasts. Buy a bottom end skate and stretching generally damages the structure of the skate. Buy a top end skate and you can stretch it by up to a cm in width and around 1/2 a cm in length and it will last for years. I always buy a D and stretch my boots out to just short of an EE, this way I can get the perfect width for my feet, as good as a custom boot fit. Your LHS should be able to stretch boots for you but if you are the kind who wants to give these things a go then a pair of c clamps, lengths of wood and with lots of time you can get some amazing results.

I have the same problem. I tried the orthotic route and after spending a bucketful of money I found it only slightly helped the problem. Then I read the article to the link you provided and decided to alter the blade alignment. One of the issues you have with this approach is deciding when the alignment is correct. I found the answer here was to impose myself on the speed guys. They have had adjustable blades for years, beg borrow buy a pair of speed skates, keep adjusting the blade until you feel the skate is right. Have someone look at you as you skate off the ice after having done some fast(ish) laps or stop starts. If you are skating upright and feel comfortable then you can use the alignment from the speed skates as a guide to the alignment you need on your boot. The youtube vid is a good one for shims and shims have the advantage of keeping the resale value of your boot (easy to restore to original). However after having had this discussion with many foot experts, the general consensus I got was that moving the blade is the best solution, shimming next and then orthotics (if they work for you).