chippa13

Most new skaters and even their parents can't analyze their skating until they have skated for a few years. The best solution for young skaters would be to learn to skate on a neutral profile and then look for tendencies after they have conquered the basics of balance and stance.

Contrary to the myth that youth skates do not need to be profiled or radiused, just the opposite is true. I recommend all youths learn to skate with a properly radius and pitched skate. No sense developing bad habits/body stance when you are young, it will haunt you later in life. Youths learn easy, bad habits as well. I can't even count the number of testimonials from parents who noticed drastic improvements after a PROPER radius/pitch was put on their child's skates. I won't even go into proper matching of left/right radius's. The thing is, until you've seen how a kid skates on non-profiled skates, you can't know what the proper profile will be. It would be foolish for parents to be profiling and reprofiling their 7 years olds skates trying to find the right combination. It's better to leave the skates unprofiled until tendencies can be identified.

A 13' radius means you have a flatter blade with more blade contact on the ice. It should provide for more stability and a stronger push off. Your difficulty turning would be because you are turning that much more blade than if you had a lesser radius. It works the same with a car. A small sports car can turn on a dime but a stretch limo takes a huge space to turn. Same principle.

A long stride and stability would call for a flatter profile where sharp turns would call for much more of a rocker to your profile. What you may want to do is have a flatter profile but go with a little deeper sharpening.

So is it safe to assume that the Rbk skates fit more similar to the old Externo line?

With low kick shafts there isn't nearly the stiffening effect as there used to be with mid kick sticks.

Something fine so you don't roughen up the shaft.

Sandpaper

Helmet - Bauer 5000 Visor - Oakley Modified Shoulder pads - none Elbow pads - Bauer Vapor 4 (identical to Cooper techniflex) Pants - Mission M-2 (starting tonight, being delivered today) Shin pads - Franklin 7700 (see above) Skates - CCM E-60's Gloves - Muskoka 950's Sticks - Mission L-2 100 flex, Hull; Synth Grip 100 w/Si-core Iggy; Synergy 100 Iggy; R-2 regular w/Si-Core Iggy; plus others not in rotation........... Bag - Nike