vp1304

Last 1,5 years I've been skating on Ellipse XS which was a great imrovement (even for an amateur player) over a single profile radius that I've been skating on my whole life. I could skate on it immediately with practially no time needed to adopt and it felt very natural. The most importantly, it immediately solved my ballance issues going from 263 mm to 246 mm blades. I was more than happy. However, recently I've tried Quad XS and must say I like ti very much for it's agility. Changing directions, quick turns, quick starts is much easirer than with the Ellipse. Maybe going straight line to reach and maintain top speed is better with the Ellipse but I think my favourite profile now is Quad XS on 246 steel. To balance out the top speed and gliding, I may consider dropping down ROH from 3/4" to 7/8". Let's see how it goes after couple more games.

Baked the skates yesterday. I checked it after 3 mins and it was barely warm so i flipped the skate on the baking tray and waited another 3 mins. It turned out nicely warm but not hot. Let's see how the skates gonna feel on the ice.

Right, the instructions should be there for a reason. Will start from there and let's see how it goes ...

I want to heat mold my Bauer skates (Supreme M5 Pro) The instruction says 3 mins at 79°C but that seems to me like unsufficient time to heat up all the materials properly. I always thought the process takes like 6-8 minutes at least. How did you bake your Bauer skates ? Don't wanna mess'em up but also wanna see some effect of the heat molding. Thanks

where do you find ROH recommendation linked with profile ? thanks

Finally, I got the other pair of blades profiled to Quad XS and had a chance to try it out during public skating last night. Compared to the Ellipse, it feels more agile, a bit less stable (heel section) and surprisingly feels less sharp, quite noticeably ! I did not expect that. Both profiles are sharpened to 3/4" in one place (same machine, same guy). I have Quad XS on the original LS Pulse blades and the Ellipse on STEP Blacksteel but I thought the black coating mainly contributes to better edge retention, not the sharpness itself. I think the main reason would be more blade contact with the ice for the Ellipse, that's why it feels sharper correct ? For the moment, I prefer the Ellipse that fits better to my skating style = more gliding and energy savings over the quick turns/ starts / stops. But for sure, I am gonna test the Quad XS more in some hockey games as I skated on it for about 40 mins only. In terms of ROH I've already switched from 5/8" to 3/4" which still feels too sharp (especially with the Ellipse). So next sharpening I am gonna try 7/8" with the Ellipse XS (STEP Black) and keep the Quad XS (LS Pulse) as it is for further testing in some hockey games.

I would not trust any German hockey shop, advertising the M5 Pro and having the picture of the Mach skates instead 🙂

UPDATE: my first impression of the Ellipse XS As planned I purchased a new pair of 246 mm STEP BLACK and got them profiled to the Ellipse XS. I was off the ice for the last two weeks (I was sick) but could not wait any longer and tried them out last night in a fun game. I only had like 7 minutes of warm-up so I was a bit worried about that I am going it experience some bad things, but actually I was very surprised how easy it was to adopt. Coming from 10" radius, I could skate pretty much instantly without any bad or strange feelings. I felt that I have more steel down there, gliding seemed to be easier. The agility I could not really tell if it was better or worse. Also, I think I could go shallower ROH, it felt like plenty of grip (could it be that BLACK steel feels sharper ?). I have the same ROH like on the stock profile (5/8"). I think I will go one step shallower next sharpening. On the weekend, I'm gonna go with my kids to the public skate so I am planning to test the profiles further to see the differences in more details.

I've never heard that new M5 Pro's are supplied with something else than 10" single radius. I am pretty sure it's a single radius (10" acc the spec). I could be wrong but there would have to be "Power profile" written on the steel like it was in previous generation (3S Pro) ?

I guess I am adjusting to 246 mm steel and new skates. Last night, it's the first time I felt great on the ice, I didn't notice any stability problems and purely enjoyed the game mainly due to mobility and quick starts that helped me to beat the opponets. So I will definitely not return to 263 mm. Now I understand it was a way too much steel for my rather skinny legs. Well, what I did differently in the last game was that for the first time in my life I dropped the last eylet. Man, that gave me a ton of forward flex yet with enough ankle support ! Could that be the reason everything felt great in that game ? Before that I was experimenting dropping the second last eylet but did not like it that much, flex improved, but felt I have to retighten the skates every second shift. My old method was to keep the top eylets a bit more loose. Probably next week I am going to get an extra pair of steel so I think I am going to start with Ellipse XS with 11/16 ROH (I am on 5/8 now). Is there a more detailed Pro Sharp chart showing steel length options for different profiles along with recommended ROH ?

In my area I can use ProSharp only

Thanks a lot for sharing your experience. What was the profile you skated on before ? Stock profile also ? Actually, I was thinking of to give a try to both, ellipse and quad (don't know the size yet) as I am planning to purchase an extra pair of steel anyways and first profiling + sharpening is free of charge. I am prepared to test out 3-4 different profiles max to see the difference for myself and pick the one which I am the most comfortable with. I think makes no sense to go more into the detail for the level I play. It's funny that not a long time ago I had no clue about what radius of hollow is, using skates in the same size as sneakers and now I am considering profiling 🙂 So I am really excited to see what's gonna be the outcome and how it'll affect my skating.

Hi guys, I am skating all my life, but started ice hockey like 7 years ago to have fun with friends at the local rink and play some beer league matches. I am 5' 10" 150 lbs 42 years. At the beginning I did not pay attention to my equipment at all but over the time I realized it matters and makes a quite significant difference on the ice, especially when it comes to skates. This season, I finally got myself a proper skates size, I got Supreme M5 Pro in 5.5 size FIT 2. My last skates were Vapor X600 6.5 EE. That means I went down from 263 mm to 246 mm steel. First skating was a disaster, I felt completely unbalanced, missed some steel under my toes with falling over tendency. Now it's been like 5 games and I was able to adjust but still I would like to get more stability and also I miss the top speed and glide I used to have with 263 mm steel. On the other hand mobility and acceleration with 246 mm is great which i like a lot. So I was wondering if the skate profiling could be a solution for me. Improving stability and glide (top speed) while keeping agility and acceleration of 246 mm steel. I red all threads about profiling but still not 100% sure where to start with. I learned the most popular ProSharp profiles are probably Quad profiles. Recommended quad profile for my skate size is XS but I understood some guys go for Quad 0 or even 1 to get more stability due to the aggressive toe radius. With the Ellipse profile it the opposite, going lower than recommended to get a similar feeling to Quad. I also understood I should drop ROH, currenlty I am on 5/8 so I would go to 11/16 and eventually try 3/4 later. Many thanks in advance for your opinion.