pgeorgan

lol no I "popped" it out to examine it. Skated on them last night since discovering the bend and I was fine. Will play it by ear.

I popped it out of the holder and it looks the same. I haven't taken any hard shots to the skates, that I can recall. There's certainly no structural damage to the area that would indicate such. But to your point, yes, since they are still under the CCM guarantee, I'm not going to make a big stink just yet. If my foot starts to wobble or something, then maybe I'll do something about it. I don't recall seeing them bent when they were new, but I suppose I didn't really look. My outgoing pair of Step is still straight and those took quite a beating in my Bauers.

Ugh. Right runner (Step Black) is already slightly bent. I'll let it ride for now, I guess, since the skates are still under the 90-day period. I doubt Step warranties steel against bends.

What's to stop me from just holding the skate horizontally by the blade?

So, I was having some issues with the left skate. In particular, I was developing an aggravated nerve over the ankle bone. I was previously using Bauer Speed Plate 2.0's in these. Turns out, the boot fitment did not respond well to that. I put the Ortholites back in, and also switched to wax laces. I was actually having to tie them too tight with the stock laces... This combination solved both the fitment issue as well as my complaints of forward pitch. There still is a very slight forward pitch, so I agree with you on that, but not enough to where I need to mess with the profile. TL;DR don't stick Bauer Speed plates in these things, and ditch the stock laces.

Mail-order pro stock hockey sticks are the new beer league sublimated jersey side hustle.

Definitely going to explode when hit with a puck.

Hmm. I've got about 10+ hours in them already. I don't see the pitch moving to neutral, and can always revert the profile back. I was more curious if anyone else has had a similar experience. A lot of folks say modern Bauer and CCM holders are about the same in pitch, so perhaps its the boot. It's only slight, but it's enough I want to adjust it a millimeter or more. Let's just assume I have 20+ hours in them. Question still stands.

I've got a similar question for @PBH, or anyone else that might be able to answer. If you recall, I mentioned I switched to 100k Pros recently, coming from Hyperlites. On both I had/have a Quad. I'm feeling a little more pitched forward on the CCM's vs the Bauers. Am I imagining that? I'd like to get the balance point moved forward a bit on the default Quad profile relative to the CCM boot/XS holder, as I think this would better mimic the muscle memory I developed all these years skating in Vapor boots on a Tuuk holder. It feels a little more natural to me, and I want to stay in the Ribcor boot... Do you have any recommendations? Based on my research, I think my profile has -17mm of forward pitch. And looking at the ProSharp template, I'm thinking I should start at -16mm. Would that be enough, or not enough? I don't know who made that video, but it's highly informative. Thanks.

Tried skating with laces undone at Sticks and Pucks. Only did it for a few minutes. Interesting results. It was useful for activating skating muscle memory, ie as a good warmup tool. I felt that my natural skating level was a good predictor of my ability to skate (or not skate in some cases) with laces undone. With that being said, it didn't feel like it was a panacea of any kind, but for sure another good tool in the toolbox for training. It's probably more useful now than in the past, given the stiffness of skates. Personally, I did not learn the game with very stiff skates. In fact, I think my favorite pair of skates were 2 sizes two big, and actually they were rollerblades... I find this discussion to be analogous of the modern goalie: I wouldn't begrudge one for not learning to play in the pre-butterfly era. They did what they could with the equipment they had, from Sawchuk to Vasilevskiy. And wouldn't you know it, back then, goalies wore their pads very tight. Now, they are very loose!

How do you like the Ellipse, as compared to the Quad? I tried one and I think I had similar experiences to other users here, in that I felt like a much smaller recommended size was in order.

No worries! Ya, compared to the Jetspeeds, I thought the Ribcor had a little more width right at the balls of my feet. Just the right amount for me. The Jetspeeds were really pinching my forefoot, in a strange way - not painful - but strange. Additionally, due to having the least flex of their three lines, they were more forgiving. The Jetspeeds were just a little off for me, and that was amplified by what I felt to be a very stiff boot. On my feet, The Ribcor Tapered have less negative space than Hyperlite Fit 1. The Jetspeeds did as well, just the fit wasn't as good. Ultimately, that's what I was going for. The baking process was straightforward, too. Did it one time and followed the instructions in the box. I felt this to be a good indication of proper fit. For the Jetspeeds, I had to bake them 3 times, use a hairdryer, etc... It was a mess.

Sometimes acquisitions are more about quashing innovation and competition, than anything else. I sincerely hope that all this wasn't so that they could put a few Quads onto their Supreme line and charge more than it would've cost for me to get the profile myself. Time will tell...

Just playing Devil's advocate here, but from what you describe, it sounds like Bauer are doing their homework and trying to improve the process. Is that not the case? That explains why my LHS, who have all kinds of ProSharp equipment, rarely send me home with even edges. I know the guy knows what their doing, too. Just out of curiosity, did they move this link to their machines?

I have never personally witnessed this. I did like the injected eyelets on the last three Vapor lines. They do a good job working independently. This is probably an instance of confirmation bias. I've had Step Steel have a chunk taken out from gameplay, and they were brand new. Let's just say there was no warranty replacement. It's just part of the game.