RBK 8k Leg Pad Questions

[srv2miker 0]

Hey guys,

Used the 8ks tonight, and I have a few comments and questions I want to share - anyone with any advice please post!

- Rotated beautifully, much better than my Brians Beasts.

- Landing gear seemed stiff on dryland, but on ice they were just fine, not too hard at all.

- Toe laces were crap, one snapped after two minutes on the ice, no exaggeration

- Lateral movement was so-so, but probably more to do with me than the pads

Issue #1 - Missing Landing Gear

So I started with the straps fairly loose, as is standard with these pads. However, after a couple butterfly slides it was noticeably dicey hitting the landing gear. I wasn't coming down above or below the gear (so fit doesn't seem to be the problem) but instead my knee was hitting away from the landing gear, as though my knee was too far away from the inside of the pad. I tightened the straps to compensate, but that made it harder to stand straight up, and will also cause my problems down the road (which I'll cover next).

Has anyone else had this issue? I tried messing around a little on the ice, but there was only so much I could do. Any thoughts? Could the broken toe lace have caused the missed landing gear?

Issue #2 - Five Hole Not Closing

I was having issues closing the five hole. Part of it may be technique, but I think I want a little more S bend in the pads - has anyone else had this issue, where they've put the pads under a table or something to get more S? Is it even possible with these stiff pads? And, since I currently have to strap these tight or else I miss the landing gear, won't the bigger S stop me from standing? Hopefully some one can address Issue #1 above and then this won't be a problem.

I can definitely see how these pads could be great for me, but not without dealing with these two issues. Any assistance would be appreciated.

Mike

[Goalieboy#1 1]

Well, my 8K's when i butterflied my knees landed far away from the landing gear, causing the bottom of the pad to raise while in bfly. What i did was un velcro the inner side of the landing gear and pull it back far as i could, then velcroed it there and put tape over it. It made my butterfly go from being lifted up on the bottom to being flush with the ice. I can/will take pics of it tommorow because its hard to explain.

[srv2miker 0]

Well, my 8K's when i butterflied my knees landed far away from the landing gear, causing the bottom of the pad to raise while in bfly. What i did was un velcro the inner side of the landing gear and pull it back far as i could, then velcroed it there and put tape over it. It made my butterfly go from being lifted up on the bottom to being flush with the ice. I can/will take pics of it tommorow because its hard to explain.

While I was carpet-flying tonight I was having a similar problem. It'd be great if you could post a shot or two.

[Law Goalie 147]

That's pretty fast for toe-strings to break... even crap ones. Remind me: what skates are you using? For the time being, just replace them with skate laces, but your skates may have been the culprit in breaking them so fast.

Re: Issue #1 -- the broken toe-strings certainly could have contributed from your knee being pulled away from the back of the pad at the knee-block, but there are almost certainly strapping issues at play. I'll get into that more below. One question: did you ever get yourself a pair of knee-pads? They are almost required for comfortably wearing RBK's. (That said, do NOT buy the RBK ones with the hard round exposed plastic knee-cap. They're terrible.)

Re: Issue #2 -- That is absolutely a strapping problem: pulling RBK straps too tight in certain configurations is guaranteed to cause problems closing the five-hole and under-rotation at the top of the pad. You will not be able to add any more curve to the pads without applying totally excessive and damaging force. This is the problem with the RBK design: it's unforgiving. The layers of foam that constitute the body of the pad are glued together in such a way that only breaking the glue or the hardest foam inside (HD110, I believe) will change the shape. If you try to do that by compressing or bending them, you'll probably blow the seams or crush the edges of the foam first. This issue is also likely about strapping.

Part of the problem is that 8K's can have several strapping arrangements, so just saying you tightened them isn't enough info to go on. Here's a good picture of the strapping setup around the crucial knee area:

Not pictured (out of frame to the right) are the lower calf-strap and the boot-strap. We'll get to them soon.

First, where are your top two straps (the ones that run through the knee-block) bolted in on those two anchors?

In my experience, there is absolutely no advantage to having those straps anywhere other than both on the lower anchor (to the right in the picture). When either or both knee-straps are attached to the upper anchor (left in the picture), they run directly behind your knee. This means two things when the straps are anything other than absurdly loose: one, when you butterfly, the side of your knee gets driven into the straps; and two, when you're standing, the hard curved thigh of the pad pushes the back of the pad away from your leg, driving the straps into the back of your knee. When loose enough not to cause these problems, this setup does nothing to keep your knee close to the pad. It's the worst of both worlds.

If you drop both straps to the lower anchor, there's far less interference with your knee in either position. You can tighten the straps more in that position without major issues. The only draw-back is that the top of the pad is now totally unsecured, but that's exactly how they're designed.

When you have those top two knee-straps dialed in to a nice spot, mark the holes you like with a pencil, When you're absolutely sure (after a few skates), mark the spot in pen).

Only after getting those straps perfect should you start monkeying with the calf and boot straps. Leave them very loose to begin with. Once the knee-straps are set, try them with a slightly tighter boot-strap. you want your skate to move freely, but you don't want any excess slack in the boot-strap. Ideally, the boot-strap should act is a kind of cable or guy-wire, allowing your foot to slide easily from stance to butterfly but not allowing it to pull or swing too far away from the back of the pad.

Once that one is set, do the same with the calf-straps. Start with the top-calf strap: when you're down in the butterfly, your calf should be pressing the calf-wing down into the ice, and the top-calf strap should have no slack, but no tension -- not resisting the downward pressure, but with no extra looseness. Same procedure on the bottom-calf strap.

[srv2miker 0]

Thanks Dunc, a few responses below:

I was looking at knee pads yesterday, but couldn't find ones I liked. Last night I googled around and the PAW ones were really well spoken-of - do you have any experience with them? Will they be appropriate in the RBK design, or do I need to look for something more bulky?

After doing carpet flies last night, I'm pretty sure I don't need more S, but what I do need is for the pad to lie flush better. Right now my top strap is in the same place as your example image, but the 2nd strap is at the top anchor - I'll try adjusting it tonight.

I find with the boot strap I have to have it quite tight, or else the pad shifts during butterflying and my knee doesn't hit the landing gear nicely. The pad still seems to rotate fine, by my foot hardly moves at all away from the pad.

[Law Goalie 147]

Sounds like you've got the boot-strap dialled in - starting there or at the knee is strictly personal preference. If you like it where it is, don't touch it. It also sounds like the boot and toe are doing much of the work to keep your leg close to the pad, which is a good thing -- breaking the toe-string makes have really thrown you off.

I may not have been clear about the anchors: I think the ideal strapping for stock RBK's is to have BOTH straps bolted into the same anchor (the lower one, to the right in the picture), so that they're right next to one another. That's what will keep the straps out of your knee and allow the pad to lie flat. Basically, you want the straps angled as far down as possible.

Playing with the calf-straps after that is also important. A lot of people have found that the RBK 3-D calf-wedge can be difficult to work with. The easiest thing to do is put the pads on with the calf-straps undone (so just knee, boot and toe done up), get the pad to sit properly, and then start playing with the calf area.

The PAW knee-pads are a relatively unique beast. I've never seen them in person, but they look solid. My preference, however, runs to simpler designs like the Brown and Brian's - Bauer and Itech also had good simple designs. The newer NHL-spec RBK knee-pads (without the hard plastic exterior knee-cap) are also quite good.

[srv2miker 0]

Update:

I made the strapping adjustments you suggested Dunc, and based on carpet flys, I'm hitting the landing gear more consistently

(side note: what really made a difference was a subtle change in technique. Instead of shooting my legs out sideways to fall into a bfly, I shot my legs a little more diagonally backwards. This drove the boot strap against my skate, which in turn positioned the pad correctly under my knee. This made my blfy slightly more narrower, but that may not matter as you read on. Is this terrible technique? Am I committing a faux paus of goaltending? Let me know.)

But, a new problem has arisen, and no matter what I do with the straps etc., I can't get rid of it. At the point where my pads meet the bottom edges rise up, breaking the nice seal against the ice, and creating a slight inverted "v", which is about the perfect size for a puck to shoot through. I took some pictures tonight to demonstrate, but I don't have time to upload them - let me know if you want to see them.

On GSBB, a lot of members attribute this gap to a tight boot strap and toe ties. But, even if I leave both loose (or even completely undone) the gap still appears. The only way to get that gap to disappear is by physically pressing down on the top of the pad - it seems like none of my weight is pushing this area down and so it lifts up. This seems really bizarre, since RBKs are supposed give you a perfect seal along the ice.

In the end, I could always go to a more narrow bfly where I stop puck with knee stacks (any my knees) in the luongo/giguere mold. I guess I'm not against this entirely, some people even espouse it as the superior way to play, I just find it funny that I even have to.

If I go to a narrow bfly, and the less bulky Browns/Brians going to hold up to this kind of abuse, or will I need more heavy duty protection?

[Law Goalie 147]

The Brown/Brian's knee-pads are simple in design, but incredibly protective. They're full-plastic with foam on both sides. I've been drilled with straight shots, and while you do feel it, you're not crippled (which I would have been otherwise). That said, DO NOT rely on your knees to make saves for you: it's not only poor form, it's actually dangerous. Knee-pads are supposed to be backup protection, not a device for stopping pucks. You never know if the knee-pad might slip, of if there's a gap between your knee-pads and pants - nobody wants a broken femur.

What you're describing isn't bad technique per se, but it's not ideal technique with the RBK's. These pads in particular like a strong knee-drive: you want to focus on driving your knees straight down out of the stance, down through the knee-block as if you were going to spike your knee-caps through the ice. If the pads don't want to follow this movement, something's off.

That little V at the top of the pads in the butterfly is the fault of the calf-wedge, in general estimation, but fixing it is partly strapping and partly your balance in the butterfly. Basically, if you start to see that, you need to start from scratch. Put the pads down on the floor in the butterfly, and find out where they balance in a perfect wall. Then do up the straps to where you normally would, and see what happens (I call this the 'Phantom-fly'). If nothing changes, great. Then undo the straps and kneel down into the pads, leaving the straps undone, and see how they behave. Throw on knee-pads if you have them at this point. If you see the 'V' at this point, shift your balance around and move your knee around on the stack (high, lower, closer to the pad's back, further away, etc.) and your calf on the calf-wedge until the V goes away. Then do up the straps to keep your legs in that position.

The other design issue (which was only fixed on the PS3) is that the medial roll doesn't run all the way to the top of the pad, which would partially seal this gap.

[srv2miker 0]

I've just also read about the Goalie Heaven knee savers - they get rave reviews on GSBB - any experience with them?

I don't think I described my technique very well. My old method of a bfly was to drive my knees towards the ice, while straining to keep my bfly as wide as possible, therefore exerting simultaneous downward and outward force. Now I'm accepting that my bfly will need to be narrower, and I drive my knees down (and together) while letting my legs fan out naturally behind me comfortably. Not only does this keep my knees nice and tight for five hole coverage, it also seems to make hitting the landing gear easier.

This is the alternative to the Lundqvist style bfly (which I used to try to emulate), where you're using your thighrise to seal the five hole (wide bfly and knees further apart):

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/109/3075286...0538086.jpg?v=0

The "v' issue is funny because it seems like lots of pros in RBKs have the same opening along the ice at their five hole

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3541/330058...a071991.jpg?v=0

Here's an old shot of Huet with the same issue:

[Law Goalie 147]

That's what I mean about the V-issue being a design-flaw: it's partly a result of the 3-D calf-wedge, and partly because on the PS1 and PS2, the medial roll taper off about 4" from the top of the pad, which adds about 3/4" to the problem. Basically, the problem is this: on the bottom of the RBK calf-wedge, there's a small flat strip closest to the medial roll on which the weight of your lower leg is supposed to fall:

The problem is that when your lower leg is held this close to the back of the pad, your knee ends up *very* close to the back of the pad, which does two things: one, your pants push on the outer edge of the pad, tilting it forward; and two, your weight on your knee is over the front edge of the medial roll, tipping the pad forward just a couple of degrees. Believe it or not, this really was intentional.

Take a look at the boots of Huet's pads: they're flush to the ice, even though the boot actually tapers about 1.5" away from square with the shin. This was Turco's idea in making RBK redesign the calf-wedge. He didn't want a 100% square pad (nor did Lefebvre), but he wanted to be able to seal the boot along the ice (as Huet does above) by shifting his weight. The result of sealing the tapered boot to the ice in a stiff pad with no lateral flex is exactly that V-issue.

I'm actually going to Goalie Heaven today to buy some foam from the Mother - I'll have a peek at the knee-savers for you. They're certainly going to be protective, but I'm not 100% sure if they're going to stabilise the pad. The best option for you apart from the Brown/Brian's might be the unfortunately expensive RBK pro-spec knee-pads (the ones with the built-in garter-belt) -- although I have seen a few deals on those recently.

Your technique is a lot clearer now; believe me, I struggle to find the right words for this stuff. I'm writing a goaltending curriculum right now, and there are times when I want to throw up my hands and write "Just stop the f***ing puck!" Heh.

[Goalieboy#1 1]

That's what happened to me! Read the first reply in here and that's how I fixed it. Its kind of hard to explain, but I can get pics if you want.

[srv2miker 0]

I found some Brians knee/thigh guards for $15 at a local used sporting goods store, so I'll use those for now. Out of curiosity, what did you think about the Knee Savers from Goalie Heaven Dunc?

[Law Goalie 147]

Nice pick-up - those Brians's ones you got are the ones with two velcro straps that wrap above and below the knee, right?

The GH knee-savers are a neat compromise between the old-style thigh-guards or thigh-wraps (not thigh-boards) that attached to the pads and actual knee-pads. They looked extremely protective. They are, however, designed only to protect against pucks - not to increase the stability of the knee on the knee-block, which is what the Brown & Brian's knee-pads do.

[srv2miker 0]

Yes on the Brians - one strap one the thigh and one behind the knee. I think they're an older model because they have poly in the thigh and then only on the inside of the knee (the front and outside knee are protected by foam). They also don't have the extended 5-hole blocking section newer ones do. But, for $15 bucks I'm pretty happy - they'll at least last until Father's day when I can pick up a newer, more protective set :)

Interesting on the knee savers - sounds like a good alternative to the major-brand stuff out there.

[Law Goalie 147]

Those 5-hole blocks are beyond annoying on knee-pads - you're lucky you found a set without them. I wouldn't even bother looking to replace those, unless for some reason they don't fit you well in-game: just ride them until the foam breaks down, which should be the better part of a decade. Great knee-pads.

All of Goalie Heaven's in-house stuff is quite nice, including the Arcadi gloves/pads. It's pitched into that curious little niche market between the pro-level stuff from major brands and the price-point senior stuff - probably a little better than current offerings from Simmons, about on par with McKenney. They actually make the pads in the basement under the shop (which is where I was picking up my foam and 420D, although I'm starting to wish I'd got Air-Knit or Exceed instead) - I've seen people actually watching their pads put together in front of them. It's a pretty small operation, so they're a little more limited in terms of material offerings and construction tricks than the small custom builders (Smith, Battram, Viper, etc.), but they're also significantly cheaper.