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flip12

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Posts posted by flip12


  1. We all skate differently. What works for me might be horrible for someone else.

    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.

    To the trained eye the marketing videos and the actual product are laughable in suggesting a break through in engineering performance. The Mako skate may be built around an anatomical last which creates a great custom fitting skate that provides better individual comfort, reduction of friction which could cause blisters, etc....so kudos to Easton for that. And maybe they added some extra heel lift in the last to put you more on your toes then other companines, who knows?.....But when you get down to the brass tax, the Mako skate is still a stiff hockey boot like a majoriy of the skates on the market. A flexible tendon guard, which is really the only unique feature of the Mako skate, does nothing if you stop to think about it.

    Your skating stride is powered by dorsiflexing your ankle and bending your knees and hips in unison. A flexible tendon guard will only be engaged by rolling your socks over the tendon guard or taping your lower shin guard around the tendon guard.

    At the end of the day they built a skate around an anatomical last which gives you better comfort and fit. Tying to tie that into a break through performance adavantage is where they fall short.

    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.

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  2. 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."


  3. There are a few wearing them. Derek Roy on the Stars for instance, has been in them all season. Gonchar, who came from MLX. Dustin Byfuglien as well.

    No one is going to eclipse Bauer's dominance on the market with 1 skate release.

    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.


  4. Did Gretzky do the lace ankle wrap thing in his playing days? I feel like he didn't, but I could be wrong.

    He usually did a slim ring of tape around the tendon guard. Lemieux did too, then Sakic. A lot of skaters seemed to imitate Gretzky's style. Lace wrap I don't recall seeing on him.

    Geeze, couldn't they get a better picture of him? He looks like he's 100 years old.

    Yeah, he looks a bit confused and as if he's suffering slight indigestion, funny pic.

    Can I count this Gretz' opinion as a win for Lemieux?


  5. I'm very interested in these except I'm a little scared of the forward pitch (being a defenseman and not wanting to hurt my backwards skating). I've never tried a skate with a forward pitch. For those of you that have, i.e. Grafs and MLX's or Mako's, should I not be worried about that?

    From the Wikipedia page on Micron 10-90's:

    "The design of the boots made the skater lean forward slightly when skating which meant they were ideal skates for balancing weight when skating backwards. This proved popular with ice hockey players that played defence."

    Bauer bought out Micron a year or so before I started playing ice hockey, and I only saw them once on a player in person, but perhaps the forward pitch could be a pleasant surprise for you. That, and if you're one of those who ends up liking the fit of the Mako so much, I imagine you'd feel more comfortable skating backwards, whether or not you keep the pitch you're used to now, or wind up changing to something more forward leaning. Just don't let that be a deal breaker when, as Chadd points out, you can adjust the pitch independently.


  6. There is no "one skate fits all" out there. Sorry.

    I wish I had known that right away when I started playing. Graf 703's fit me much better than anything else I've tried. I have flipper feet, where the instep is so shallow that most of my shoes look zipped up rather than tied with laces because the average volume for my foot length must be quite a bit higher. From the sound of the shallowness of the MLX boots, I may have really liked those.


  7. I think they're a bit ugly too, but I could really care less if the fit and performance work for me. These skates really intrigue me, first skates in quite awhile that are making me seriously consider replacing my current pair, I love the idea of a skate that focuses on maximizing your range of motion. It'll all depend on the fit, though.

    I feel the same. Skating in Graf after Bauer was an fit and performance improvement for me that I didn't know was possible. Skating in the 703 instead of the 705 was a further improvement. I loved the Grafs especially for their decreased stiffness and lower cut. They worked so much better. The Mako concept is what I hoped for to improve even on my feel in 703's. The only thing is, I like to tape the tendon guard for tighter turning, and I'm not sure how this would work out on Mako's wishboney tendon piece, it seems like it might even be an improvement over other tendon guard shapes.


  8. These are incredibly ugly.

    I thought so too, but they've grown on me considerably. I'd probably end up blacking out that Home Depot Orange. It seems the trend is for hot colors, and I can guess why that is from a marketing standpoint, but I'd love a classic blue or something, like on the One90. I'll gladly try them out if I can afford to.


  9. sogaduch Posted on Jun 16 2006, 11:22 AM

    well when your sharpen it tip of the toe to the end of the heel it rounds the blade out meaning it makes your blade look like bannana. some places do a few passes like that then sharpen the main area of the blade then final pass toe heel.

    I think that's how my LHS did it. I see what you mean about it beginning to look like a banana. It didn't do that. Sometimes when I start on my toes I think I use that part of the blade. I don't have video of it to be sure, but it just bothers me when it's not sharpened that way. Essentially it doesn't really make a difference?


  10. How do you feel if I as a customer ask you to sharpen the front and back of the blade on my skates? Some places don't sharpen them that way. It seems like a 50/50 thing; either they do it one way or the other. Is there any reason why? I've thought about it and if they sharpen pretty much just the flat it probably wouldn't affect my skating but the place I started with back home did them that way. It just bothers me for no good reason. When I've asked once or twice if they'll do them the way I want they usually give me the "it won't make any difference" with the tone of (you don't know wtf you're talking about, just pay up for what I give you when you leave).

    P.S. I'm loving this post, never having worked at an LHS before. I've never thought about the stick flexing. I have always done it to feel what the stiffness is like, especially now that I've been reading on here that the same stiffness rating from different companies is not the same stiffness in the actual stick. Maybe next time I'll ask the workers how they feel about it because there are lots of different opinions on it in this post.


  11. bauer 5000 (I think) helmet

    rusty jofa cage

    easton ultralite shoulders

    koho4440 elbows

    mission L-1 gloves -- 14"

    takla 4000 (?) air breezers or pants

    bauer vapor 6 shins -- 17"

    mission s400 skates (11), just divorced my graf 705s (11) because they were too stiff

    easton ultralite shaft, curved (and cracked) ultragraphite modano blade

    mission M-1 hatcher that I plan to cut and use a warrior dolomite smyth blade in

    P.S. go purple pride district five!

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