Leif

You can become a good skater. Once you’ve got the basics down, you should find that one on one lessons will help a lot. The coach will correct poor technique, allowing you to be more stable and skate faster for less effort. I’ve been learning for three years, I started at 53, and I’m making good progress. Sure some youngsters learn faster, but many don’t. One thing that is often ignored is the importance of off ice exercises, such as yoga, gym or a martial art. You can do exercises at home, using inexpensive aids such as large elastic bands, a roller, a gym ball and a hockey stick. Without wanting to be rude, at your age you should be doing exercises each day, not only do you become more flexible, but they will cure any longstanding issues, such as back ache and sore knees. These sorts of exercises are also known to slow or reverse the effects of aging, and reduce the risk of dementia in later years. I do 15-20 minutes a day, I started out aiming to do 10 minutes, but they are quite enjoyable and leave my body feeling much better afterwards.

I have the Bauer one, and it drips with condensation on my local rink, which is very humid, it’s not usable. I’ve seen people wearing hybrid visors, so I assume they get more airflow.

Thanks Steve, that clears it up. I also heard from Lisa, your colleague, equally helpful.

The 7/16” box says 40. The 1/2” box, as well as the Spaxx and Monkey Sports web site say 60. Apparently they used to do 40 pairs at four passes per skate per sharpen if you loook back to oage 7 of this thread. So either I have old stock, or new sock in an old box. It is possible all that has changed is the RFID chip ie they decided they could cut more pairs. Alternatively the cutting surfece of the ring might have been improved. I have contacted Sparx.

I bought two grinding rings from Monkey Sports in Europe. The sales page say each will sharpen 60 pairs of skates on average. The 1/2" packet says it will sharpen 60 pairs of skates. The 7/16" says it will sharpen 40 pairs of skates. Have they changed the wheels recently? Do I have an old inferior wheel? Or have they changed how many passes equate to one complete sharpen?

Me too. Not suffering foot pain is worth the money.

I’m 155 lb and 5’11” so fairly light. I changed up from mid range skates to Bauer Custom 2s Pro and love them. I can skate for three hours with no pain. I’ve never had lace bite. And I feel the ice better. I’ve been learning to skate for three years, and skate 6+ hours a week including 3-4 hours hockey. I guess I should try not using the top eyelets and see what happens. My LHS told me that they make less profit on high end skates, and they don’t keep them in stock because they will lose money when the next model is introduced. I thnk that is why they like customs.

Yes, I agree, they should be compared to Bauer/CCM customs. I know four people with Bauer customs, including myself, all are perfect. But I won’t draw conclusions from a small sample. Incidentally I don’t have a dog in the race. I would have bought Trues if the shop wasn’t 250 miles away, compared to 25 miles away for the Bauer dealer who now stocks Trues!

Here in the UK True skates are only slightly cheaper than Bauer customs, £733 compared to £780, so it’s a wash. What’s more, True charge for each customisation, eg £25 for letters/numbers on the tongue. To be honest this thread puts me off True skates. A friend has a pair, they do have globs of glue on them, they are wearing much faster than my Bauer customs, and he says his feet are numb after an hour skating. My Bauers were flawless, and they get more comfortable with skating, I’ve done 3 hours on the go and no problems. You’ve said True are no worse or better than Bauer, maybe, but this thread is one bad advert.

Those look a lot neater than usual, no obvious glue blobs.

I was talking to a rink owner yesterday about his Sparx, which was one of the first in the UK. He travels with it, and on one occasion he dropped the bare machine (not in a case) from waist height down a flight of stairs. It bounced down 7 steps. It has also taken direct hits from a puck, including to the glass, and has some cosmetic damage as evidence. It still works perfectly, which shows how solid the internal mechanism must be. The fact that it is not out of alignment is surprising. Mine copes with the stresses of sitting on a carpeted floor. 🙂

Excellent advice from Vet88 except that I’ve known gel pads to work for several people including myself.

There’s huge amounts of useful information about lace bite on this forum and elsewhere. I used to get it with Bauer S160 skates. I had the Bauer scan and it put me in Vapors which have even less depth, so they should be even worse. Mmmmm. Anyway, I now have Bauer S2 Pro skates, I skate more often now, and I’ve never had lace bite with the new skates. Higher end skates tend to be more comfortable. When I used the S160 skates, and lace bite appeared, I’d wear a bandage with a gel pad made by Silipos, similar to Bunga pads, u til the lace bite went away. Don’t just skate through lace bite as it will get worse. As said above, wide non waxed laces are good, I liked Howies, I have had issues with QC on the last two pairs of A&R laces, one pair being unfit for purpose ie impossible to put on a skate. Anyway, let’s hope this was a one off for you.

Unfortunately Massive is not sold in the UK. 🙁 Thanks Nicholas, any idea how many passes the Sparx would need on new runners? I know one local shop charges £10 for the first sharpen compared to £6 usually, but it’s free if the runners are bought from them.

Does anyone sharpen Step black steel on a Sparx with a normal ring eg 7/16”? Do you have any issues? I’ve used mine on Bauer LS5 and standard Step steel, and they sharpen nicely. However, I prefer the Step blade profile, so I’d like to move over to Step black. Does it work okay on other brands of black steel? And a side question, how consistently flat are Bauer LS5 and Step black? My ordinary Step steel blades were not plane parallel, and gave different BAT readings on each face.

It looks like a Jewish skull cap on his head. The guy is big.

I could never get the same reading on both sides of my old blades for that reason. Which steels are not punched? I now have Bauer LS5 runners and they have parallel sides. My previous Step steel runners didn’t. Just a sample of one set of each though, so you can’t draw firm conclusions.

If it makes you feel any better, the UK price is £1200, or over $1,500. That includes 20% sales tax. I’d be curious to know how well they sell in Europe.

Nicholas G. said "Our store is considering doing a loaner/lease program to the hockey association for the 16U and 18U AAA teams " If you're going to do that, you need to know if the machines can stand up to the sort of abuse customers will give them. I am also interested in the robustness of these machines, in case I do transport mine. I'm going to take care, but accidents do happen, and it'd be nice to know the sort of abuse they can take. A two foot drop onto a floor is unlikely, but a 6" drop could easily happen. Colins posted a nice video which shows the Pelican case is very tough. But I honestly don't think I can trust myself to carry a $1500 machine around.

You missed the key point, which is that I (maybe not you) find the Sparx hard to carry as it is big and heavy, and it has no carrying handles, and I’d quite likely drop it. With two people it’d be fine. I doubt there are any laptops that weigh even half the Sparx weight. Most people don’t walk round with TVs.

Yes, I know the Sparx is made with a solid steel frame and the case is tough. My concern isn’t damage while in the case, it’s concern at what happens if it drops on the floor while putting it into or taking it out of the case. I find my Sparx hard to lift as it is so heavy, hence easily dropped if I slip. That’s why I’d opt for the ProSharp if portability was a key requirement. Regarding the glass, I know someone with Sparx machines that have taken a hard puck shot to the glass, it’s tough. The exterior metal case is tough too, although the cosmetic plastic ends might break more easily.

I guess there’s two issues. How many grinds can it do before failure, and how robust is it when knocked about. It looks like it can do oodles of grinds, but can it survive regularly being carried, and potentially dropped albeit in the carry case, or even accidentally dropped 6” onto a bench? These things are heavy.

I doubt Sparx said shops suck, but I find most are poor, and the good ones are 25 miles away. Anyway, if a shop buys a Sparx, it requires far less attention and concentration, so they can serve customers more quickly at peak times. My LHS has one of two top staff members sharpening at the weekend. I’d rather they were serving customers because they kniw what they are talking about. Curiously they have a ProSharp SkatePal, looks like an aluminium camera case, but it sits unused. The wheel clogged up with steel and customers apparently preferred the hand sharpening. That said, my Sparx is incredible.

Presumably because a metal dust tray is more durable. Mine came with one too. The plastic one did look a bit flimsy. The locking screw is in addition to the locking guard. Nice to see improvements after launch.

Of course it is completely down to personal taste. Many reckon ~15 hours between sharpens: https://medium.com/@number9hockey/when-to-sharpen-skates-fc95f12de7f6 Our ice is quite hard, and after ~8 hours I do feel my edges sliding during crossovers. This might be poor technique of course. I happen to like the feel of fresh edges, a luxury that costs very little (~25 cents per pass) once a Sparx is available. I don’t sharpen my car tyres, but then again us Brits are often behind the times. 🙂