735 and XX heels

[TheBert 0]

I've a pair of Vapor XX that fit me well. No heel slippage and only a bit of callousing on the back of the heel.

I was fitted to a pair of Graf 735's and was explained that it was the narrow heel/medium forefoot skate from Graf. After a few months in them, they're pretty much broken in but I'm still getting extremely painful penny-sized blisters on both sides of both my heels.

Is the 735 heel narrower than the Vapor's? Is it too tight to the point that I'm getting these? When the blistering gets real bad, I canfeel my heels start to slip, so I'm wondering what's failing in the skate between the start and end of games that's causing the blistering?

[gelowitz 0]

Blistering is caused by friction, right? You'd get pain if it was too tight, blisters if it was too loose.

[TheBert 0]

Am I lacing incorrectly? I could swear that the 735 heel is much tighter than the Vapor heel.

[schrempsky 0]

perhaps your heel isnt sitting all the way back in the boot. do you kick it back before you lace it up?

[YouTuuk 0]

take your shortest foot skate for both XX and 735, and unlace them. Then slip your foot into the skate and kick heal back and take note of the space and gaps in ankle heal area. Do this for both skates. Do you see any big differences? Take a flashlight and really investigate the differences.

Also give more detail on where is blisters located on heal. Outside of heal?

Inside of heal?

Whats probably happening in my first theory, your 735's maybe have a narrower heal than XX's, but maybe boot is longer causing more space in back - thus friction and blisters as the game progresses and you sweat more.

To get your heal to really kickback, you have to lace the top 3 eyelets fairly tight, not too tight to cut of ciruclation, but tight enought to hold heal in place - trail and error.

[sn1per 0]

I ran into the same problem. Had XXs and wanted to try something different. From what I read and tried in my LHS, the 735 was supposed to be similar in terms of fit to the XX. They felt fine in the store but I kept running into the same problems on ice. I don't think it's a length issue or me getting the wrong size. I wear my skates fairly tight with my toes almost partially curled. I think the issue was that with the 735, in the ankle they put two lobes designed to lock your ankle in place. I think this would be great, however the tendon guard has no give to it so when you come to the end of your stride with the final toe snap, your heel is forced to move up creating slippage and friction. I guess that's why skates like the One90 or almost all the Mission skates have flexible tendon guards allowing you to get longer strides with minimal restriction. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Fedorov make V cuts in his tennon gaurds on his Grafs? All in all, I didn't end up sticking with the 735s and sold them off.

[TheBert 0]

I ran into the same problem. Had XXs and wanted to try something different. From what I read and tried in my LHS, the 735 was supposed to be similar in terms of fit to the XX. They felt fine in the store but I kept running into the same problems on ice. I don't think it's a length issue or me getting the wrong size. I wear my skates fairly tight with my toes almost partially curled. I think the issue was that with the 735, in the ankle they put two lobes designed to lock your ankle in place. I think this would be great, however the tendon guard has no give to it so when you come to the end of your stride with the final toe snap, your heel is forced to move up creating slippage and friction. I guess that's why skates like the One90 or almost all the Mission skates have flexible tendon guards allowing you to get longer strides with minimal restriction. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Fedorov make V cuts in his tennon gaurds on his Grafs? All in all, I didn't end up sticking with the 735s and sold them off.

I just realized my issue with the tendon guard as well too. I thought the ankle packs would create a great heel lock but that tendon guard throws my heel out a bit at the end of a strike.

[duch 0]

It takes quite some time to adjust to Grafs. They seem to be a different concept in fit compared to other makes on the market. As I have stated before their not for everybody. I traded in my Reebok 8K's recently and got a pair of 735's and I'm just breaking them in now. Tried this once before, but didn't stick with it, but this time I'm pushing myself to adjust. So far,so good. The dude at my LHS said it toke him about ten to twelve sessions before he liked his and he's inspiring me to stick to my guns this time. Had them out public skating with the boy last week and they felt much better at the end of the skate than they did the first ten or so minutes.