The Dude

Quick question for you all. I bought some custom Hyperlites recently -- ended up not liking them. Too much negative space. I then bought some FT6 Pro's. They felt ok, but not great. In desperation, I bought some Hzrdus 9x's. Shockingly, I really like them. They fit like a glove, no dead space, and I just leave the top lace open and flared the ankle cuffs to get some ankle flexibility. The question is this. For 28 years, I used to 295 holders. The Hyperlites and Ft6 pro's are 288. I didn't mind the smaller holder at all. The Hzrdus holder is 280. I actually don't really mind it either, but I do want some more toe steel. I've played with radius changes in the past -- that won't fix what I'm wanting. For those of you that have experimented with this stuff, have any of you changed holders on your True's to another brand and liked it better? I wasn't a huge fan of the XS. The PowerFly seems fine to me. And surprisingly, the shift max does as well. Either way, I'm going to go up a holder size. Thanks all!

Hey guys. There's a lot of smart gear people on here of whom I want to ask a question of. I'm middle-aged and played hockey to a decent level in my formative years (college). I took a 12 year break due to my job and where I was living, but have been playin once again for the past few years. I'm a strong skater. That being said, I'm so comfortable in my current skates --same ones I used in the 90's -- that I've been ridiculously stubborn to get a new pair. They fit like a glove; albeit, one that's pretty thrashed now. I finally caved and ordered a pair of custom Vapors. Here's my question. My old skates were 10.5 -- they do fit properly -- and use 295 holders. As I've been skating on 295's for 30 years, I wanted to remain on that size. The custom Vapor I ordered is a 9.5, fit 3. The fit 3 as is comes with an up-sized 288 holder (the fit 1 & 2 comes with a 280). With a custom order, you can upsize one holder size, but I am unable to do that apparently because a fit 3 already comes with an upsized 288. The manager of the shop who fit me for the custom, who has been doing skate fittings for 20 years, told me that even if I could upsize the holder to a 295, it wouldn't be optimum. He also said that the Bauer custom ordering program wouldn't even allow for the 295 to be put on the 9.5. I have been doing a ton of research on here regarding people who have changed holder sizes. Am I correct in understanding that as I am going down a holder size, if I go up from a radius of say 9 to 11, it'll effectively feel the same between steel sizes as I'll have more ice contact? For those of you that have downsized or upsized a holder, how wildly different did it feel? And did you change the radius to compensate? Potentially throwing off my feel for skating & the feel of the ice makes me nervous.... But is necessary as my current skates are cooked, and it's about time I took advantage of the new technologies. There's a lot knowledgeable people on here, so I would very much appreciate your input. Thank you!

Is Bladetech better?

I use a pink visor I got from Oakley. I only use it because it comes down lower on my face than any other visor on the market — fully covers my nose. I don’t really notice any benefit in terms of the actual tint itself.