EKB54

By balance point I mean the general weight shift that you do for turns and whatnot. But you might be picking up on the stopping issue that I felt for a while and that is easily overcome. On your second and third points it is both the same and different. Look at this image - you get more relief angle and you are actually working with a smaller (sharper) edge. I think both of these factor into that good bite feeling. I would say I have not changed my dynamics in any noticeable way. By no means is getting onto the edge a struggle, as these are very small changes but there is a feeling of difference.

I have had these for about 7 hours of activity since last week. I got them for $170 from a shop. Take that price with a grain of salt as they are for SB4.0 holders and may have been clearance priced as compared to newer ones. Another thing is that their hollow match is a bit different (you'll see it on the case if you get an older model). I read through this whole thread and both of the journal articles that Flare base their performance claims on. I do not notice any real difference in terms of a normal forward stride, or getting any more glide (20% as they claim). This is probably because this research was really proof of concept stuff where they put it on a static sled setup. I also might have some confusion about the effect of fresh, tall, steel. I was down to about 1cm on my last set but my memory says I am about as fast/balanced/efficient as I was when the old steel was new. Someone mentioned a difficulty/adjustment to stopping and I found this to be true. I need to get over that little bit more to get a good shave of the ice and think I have it sorted by now. Even so, this only affects my mid-low speed stops where I am not in the habit of shifting much. Also I cannot sense that the Flares are any wider. These are a revelation for any sort of maneuver that carves an arc (tight turn, pivot, etc). This includes any kind of c-cut. Basically, you can think of it as getting more work out of how you'd typically make a cut, or taking less work for you to make a typical cut. This is borne out in the second research too. They did live trials with the Calgary Dinos and it was pretty random results for straightaway (1.3% avg) and max speed (1%) improvements in my opinion. The glide turn test had 10 out of 12 players improve, so I take that to be a more meaningful 1.3% improvement than the straightaway. Summary: it's just a feeling of greater stability and bite when you get over onto that balance point of an edge that's carving and it's a nice kind of confidence.