flip12

I'm going to get them baked at West Side Skate and Stick, but already they feel pretty nice. They remind me a lot of the Vapor 8's, just much more forgiving. That Vapor 8 tongue was crap. I remember cutting a bit off it or something. These things make me want to skate barefoot, which I usually don't do. I'd like to see how these compare in weight to the non-Bauer high end skates today. With a different holder setup, these seem like they could be quite competitive; the "driveshaft" feels massive, pulling the center of gravity to itself noticeably in my hand. I could go for a Supreme skate cut lower, with that suppleness built in...maybe I'll end up with one of Graf's imitative skates (G3 or 75 ultra, 9035 or something). I always look at their skates and wonder how much weight they build into those rather bulky outsoles. It seems they can't or just haven't been able to make the jump to lower profiles there, and no one else is even close to that traditional of a build in that area.

Old's cool: New Old Stock Mission Amp Flyweight S, vintage 2000. I missed the cut of Mission's old boots with the three vertical eyelets--I rolled around in some Proto V's for years until the toe box on one boot split open. These are sweet. I love the look, the materials feel great, the tongue is incredibly plush and they're stiff down low yet very pliable up top. Can't wait to try them out. I'm just a little bummed the pitch3's on my old, unused s400's (size 11 / 46) are 288 and these notoriously bad holders are 280, but the boot fit's better in the Flyweight. Maybe I'll put CXN's on when I can. I know Mission used to say skate size = boot size, but that only works for me if I look at the European size, where I'm usually a 45. This 45 Mission as a 10 comes nowhere near my shoe size, where I can go down to an 11 if I ignore advice about room for the toes, but then that's likely due to all of that manufacturer inconsistency.

Yeah, it was sarcasm. I know it's not always so easy to pick up in writing, especially with so many English as a second language readers on here. It would have been nice to include the link like decoy did.

No one at all. Certainly no one who's posted above in this thread.

Yeah, I loved the clear coat. I just bought my first Easton shaft in years and I'm not to happy with the matte finish. So many sticks are grip now. They just feel like my roommates used them for dinner and washed them as they usually do, leaving that protective film on them. Maybe it's not all mental--if the combined taper zone was longer because of the long hosel, that would make sense that there was more whip. Did they compensate by lengthening the taper zone on the shaft once they went to the shorter hosel blades?

All of those classic Eastons, loved those shafts, good finds.

You can, but you might like the change. For the longest time I struggled to get the hang of the pitch on 705's. When I got around the extra volume in the boot for my 703 foot and got it to wrap, I wouldn't have changed a thing. Even on an 11' radius, I had quick starts and cross-overs. Going back to Tuuks felt ok, but it felt like going back to a mountain bike after riding a road bike with more aggressive geometry and "go" built into it altogether. I didn't have to retool my skating, but eventually my skating felt it had reached a level it never had before. I had good knee bend in Bauer's, on Tuuks, I was skating below the board height in 705's and I'm 6'3". Just saying, as a personal fan of that "aggressive" geometry, maybe give it some more time...again, it all comes back to what works with your body's sense of movement--how well you can predict what your equipment is doing for you. I agree with you Chippa if I can summarize/tautolize "tailoring the skate to your skating style" as "not having to think about your skating." Sometimes there's a deeper level of that thoughtless freedom of movement after the body adjusts to a new geometry.

Does anyone know how ATM's are loaded? Maybe everyone getting 20's was instead issued 50's...I can't imagine the programming being off as much as I can someone loading the machine with the wrong pack of bills in the 20-slot...I wonder what a wholesale error like that would amount to.

Also, I forgot to ask, are you skating in socks? If so, how thick? Slightly changing that might help, because it sounds like a borderline issue.

Hang in there, it sounds like you're almost in a really comfortable ride. About that seam that's digging into your toe, have you taken the laces all the way out, yanked the tongue back and checked if perhaps you could shave it down? It sounds like it could be an injection mold seam that you could smooth out, with surgical care. I know they're your new babies, so cutting a little bit off just at the tip might be too horrifying to do, but it just might help this toe flare up from reaching that annoyingly painful zone.

It sounds like your foot is swelling from supporting your weight without flexion, which is normal, right? Just like flyguy1 says, more knee bend and your foot flexes, so it contracts a bit, length wise. It sounds like they fit you perfectly--your constant skating micromanager: lose that knee bend one bit and it whips you.

True. I guess keeping it under the same name, VH, gives me the impression that "this time, it's different." It's all pure conjecture. I'm afraid I'm pulling things off topic though, feels like suddenly we're digging around in the rough for perspectives on branding rather than the skates.

It's just different in my mind that MLX wasn't an existing brand, it was rather like a petri dish. This just seems like a boot maker spotting opportunity to grow. I can't imagine wanting to sell VH, speed skate and cycle boot manufacturing and all.

Is it though? It seems like a branch to grow off their original business, speed skate boots. That it's a branch under the VH umbrella makes it different in my mind. Nightmare.

I like the looks of VH boots so far, slick logo.

I haven't put them on, but from holding the skate in my hand, I know what you mean--they feel more bottom heavy than Supremes or Vapors. If you're comparing the balance of the Mako to the APX or NXG, the fusion runners might make some difference too. When I picked up the Mako the first time Graf's old slogan "Top Light" came to mind. As has come up previously in discussion of this skate, they are not the lightest, but they're also not trying to be.

But is there any literature on the effect of good versus bad fit? I had a terrible time finding running shoes that fit. It could be fair to say that 100 extra grams requires more energy expenditure, what about the energy expenditure of shoes that weigh the same but don't fit as well. Again in running you're not performing an activity with more than a kilogram of extra equipment on, and as Wrangler reiterates, that point is considered in SVH's original research. I'm envious of your being able to experience this evolution. I've been giddy about the speed skating influence on hockey skates since before I found out about MLX. I haven't had the chance to own either a pair of MLX's or Makos and it feels like I've missed out a bit.

I couldn't agree more. It seems like more and more elite skaters are skipping one eyelet (even two in the case of Jason Zucker) at the top or next to top of their skates. If skate weight is such an obsession, why is all of this mass being lugged around unnecessarily and with sub-optimal energy transfer.

Margarine! $1200 for a custom speed boot! I was prepared for much worse sticker shock. I don't find the Me2 ripple effect implausible, looking at minimal running shoes, and even composite sticks. I remember Busch being around for a few years and then Easton brought "one-piece" composites to the distribution level that allowed/forced the everyone-in-the-pool inflection point. Maybe that whole segment won't develop. I could also see some sort of hybrid dominating: a Supreme/Mako synthesis.

How thick are your usual skating socks? I've never liked anything but the thinnest I can get. It seems like the formability of the skate should be able to accomodate added thickness--unless there's something about the fit/feeling/materials of the skate that makes you think it wouldn't suit a sock...did you bake them when you tried them on barefoot?

But a lot of hockey players do skate badly and I think overly stiff boots are a contributor. (somefan--maybe I'm just duped by this hype? More on that below.) Compare starts in speed skating and in hockey. Hockey players are skating better than they did in the past, if I'm not mistaken from all of the 80's and 90's hockey I've recently watched on YouTube, but improvements like skates that increase range of motion go to make skating better. From my experience in skates that do and skates that don't fit well, it's much easier to skate better technically with a skate that isn't overly stiff. But you also need plantar flexion, you don't get very far with half strides. If your proposition were true, then the clap-skate, which allowed previously unattainable toe-flick, would have had little effect on speed-skating results when it came into use in the late 90's. Instead, it was attributed with essentially rewriting times from the world-records on through the whole field. About the "anatomical" last, it doesn't fit with what I've read in the marketing or heard from people who have these. What I'm getting from all of that is that it is quite customizable (though not completely, as JR pointed out), to relatively different anatomies--foot shapes of different types etc., and it is that better fit that is giving people much better feel, which in a lot of cases is directly correlative to greater efficiency.

I also wonder if the great fit doesn't impress pros as much since they essentially have custom skates in every way possible, even with lasts made around their feet. I agree with Krev on the short season affecting it too. Even though a lot of pros skate with skates stiffer than they're fully harnessing (with loosely laced upper eyelets, eyelets fully skipped, etc.), it's probably far too drastic a skating difference to give it a try. Every game I watch the commentators note how there's "literally no time to practice."

And Martinek.

I may have been careless to throw bandy in there without saying why. It looks like hockey skates/skating are headed in that (bandy) direction: lower cut, greater range of motion. If this contributed to derailing the focus, I apologize.

Byfuglien's been in the new CCM RBZ's for the past few games, with classic 90's tongues on them. But Radek Martinek and Andrew MacDonald are wearing Makos.