Rocker Chassis

[Stampede 0]

How many of you out there still use the rocker chassis bauer/nike used to put on their boots?

I have a customer pair of 8000's with the rocker on and love them.

Have you tried them? Did you like them? What benefits do you think they have?

I coach a few kids and they all ask me the questions. I find they enable far better control on turns and more ice like strides etc.

[Aussie Joe 0]

Never liked them to be honest. I guess its because I am so used to Inline more and prefer it over Ice. The benefits are mixed between what BNH claim they're chassis can do and what actualy players say about its capabilities. A few of my juniors have the Q1 Rockers and Roller Daddys. They ALL prefer the Roller Daddys.

[Jim A 4]

It made the transitiion, for me at least, back to ice when I had to take extended periods of time off...a lot easier..

biggest issue i had was i constantly wore a flat spot on the 3rd wheel from the pivot point catching...

it was nice to have the radius on both ice and inline skates matched up...

plus..skating in some of the smaller rinks in CA...i think it helped

[jrock 0]

biggest issue i had was i constantly wore a flat spot on the 3rd wheel from the pivot point catching...

With which version of the rocker chassis did you have this issue? Was it the original all-aluminum, the aluminum with "comp" rocker section, or the current plastic version?

[MDE3 0]

The reason most of the elite players I know prefer the solid chassis, is that at the extremes of stopping , starting and turning, there are times when having all four wheels on the floor you are at the limits of grip, so having only three wheels in contact with the floor would be a definite disadvantage.

For those who make the transition back and forth from ice to inline regularily, I believe the rockers seem to make this happen with less adjustment..or so it is claimed....There is no doubt that the stride with inline skates ends up being different than with ice(mostly the push angles), but a well trained ice hockey skater usually becomes a very good technical inline skater....however the reverse is not necessarily true. The biggest problem with going from inline to ice if you started with inline skating, is that there are very few(except maybe Peter Dale's clinics) formal clinics which actually teach a proper stride for inline skaters....unlike what most ice players have access to almost everywhere.

A good inline stride is not dissimilar to an ice stride, but very few ever have the benefit of being correctly shown the stride angles. Most inline players do not have a "toe kick" at the end of their stride, and so lose a lot of speed. It IS possible to achieve this even with solid chassis, but I believe it may seem more natural for ice skaters to keep their "toe kick" with a set of rocker chassis. It requires less adjustment to the stride angles.

When I was coaching both inline and ice, and the inline players would come to the summer camps to start their ice training (even when they had already been playing ice for a few years) the biggest problem was they had lost their "toe kick" and were almost kicking themselves in the butt with the heel of their skates as they finished their push. Done properly, both strides can be equally effective, and starting and stopping on inlines can now be accomplished almost as quickly as on ice..given the new technologies out there. But they are two separate disciplines, and must be learned as such to get maximum performance out of either.

[Jim A 4]

they were the plastic, well made out of Tuuk material, ones...a pair of Quest 1's...I moved on to some 2090's..

[Stampede 0]

ADE3 - what do you mean by toe kick. We get no proper skating training in the UK at all. So any tips would be appreciated. I may already do things with out realising but anything I can pick up would be great and help me with my coaching.

[MDE3 0]

A correct hockey stride is composed of two or three parts depending on which school you listen to. I always used the three piece stride, which involves more lateral hip movement to begin the stride. The hip on the side of the leading foot swings outside the centerline of the body, actually transferring the weight to the outside "edge" of the lead skate. The first movement of the stride is for the lead leg, well bent at the knee, to push outwards using the outer hip muscles to drive the hips and body away from the skate. The second part of the stride is extending the leg from it's coiled position(should start with at least a 90 degree bend) further driving the body forward and sideways away from the skate. The last part is driving backwards with the "point" or toe of the skate, using your ankle to finish the stride.

Because on inlines you are pushing against a wheel, this last action is more difficult to accomplish than with the sharp edge of a blade in ice hockey. It requires that you angle your foot more to the outside to keep some "bite" on the wheel. If your foot angle is too straight then your foot will simply spin out from under when you try this. Hence you will see a lot of skaters in inline hockey, who look like they are trying to kick themselves in the behind as they finish their stride, instead of finishing it with the toe pointed behind and to the side. The use of exagerated hip swing will help get more weight over the driving skate, and although this form is also taught for ice hockey, it is even more important for inline power skating.

It is this different push angle which makes inline skating seem foreign to ice hockey skaters, and it is also why they prefer to use the rocker chassis because they can use a shallower foot angle due to the fact that the wheels stay in contact with the floor longer when the chassis "rockers"..The action of the rocker makes the skate feel closer to ice skating technique, and easier to finish the toe kick. While this benefit of the rocker chassis is undeniable to skaters who play a lot of both kinds of hockey, there are several other times when it is a detriment, because under extreme cornering or extreme stopping, you can only have 3 wheels in hard contact with the floor at best, as opposed to four with a fixed chassis...a condition which gains you 33% more grip on a fixed chassis than with a rocker.

[Stampede 0]

Cheers - appreciate the tips.

Those of you who do use rocker chassis - what wheel set up do you use? And what benefits does that set up offer you?

[Jim A 4]

I started with the 9foot radius..but switched to a 10'...i have the 9 on the ice skate..but found that i was washing out a bit when trying to turn quickly etc on the Rocker

[Ballbearing 0]

I like this concept, however, I am having a hard time locating any of these. It seems as most online shopping sites only offer a couple of models in a limited size range.

I also noticed that you can buy the chassis, but I would rather buy the entire skate.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

[Stampede 0]

Bauer/Nike don't use the rocker on their boots anymore, however the company that makes them still supply them so I've had a pair of ice boot converted.

I had a pair of the last Nike Quest what has them. On Monkey and Giant they still have them but in limited sizes (but for very little money). You could buy a cheap pair and if you like the rocker get it put on a better stiffer boot.

I meant what wheel set up do you guys out there use? All 76mm or a 72mm on the front? Etc etc

[MDE3 0]

I started with the 9foot radius..but switched to a 10'...i have the 9 on the ice skate..but found that i was washing out a bit when trying to turn quickly etc on the Rocker

That's an inherent problem with using the rocker chassis...not sure which wheels you are using, but with a rocker you will need the grippiest wheels you can find to minimize "washing out"....At stopping and turning extremes is when you really need "four on the floor". However the trade off is as I described above...you will need to change your stride more to get full performance out of a non rockered chassis.

[Stampede 0]

Hyper Trinity or Rink Rat Hornets are awesome on the rocker and you can stop like you can on ice. I play on the ice court and sports court and they never budge. Bit of the cracking on the back 2 wheels but you get that with a hi-lo.

The main benefit is that you don't have to take your foot off the gas going into loose pucks on the boards. Playing on the small rinks often people falling can result in game winners. Keeping your edge makes a huge difference.

[JR Boucicaut 3759]

Bauer/Nike don't use the rocker on their boots anymore, however the company that makes them still supply them so I've had a pair of ice boot converted.

I had a pair of the last Nike Quest what has them. On Monkey and Giant they still have them but in limited sizes (but for very little money). You could buy a cheap pair and if you like the rocker get it put on a better stiffer boot.

I meant what wheel set up do you guys out there use? All 76mm or a 72mm on the front? Etc etc

http://www.smarthockey.com

[Hiub 0]

I've been using the rocker for quite some time now, and together with some rink rat wheels I do not think that I am at a disadvantage at all when it comes to grip. I am also not very light at 185 lbs. Ive been on the rocker for about 4 years now, and I love them. I am actually thinking of buying my next pair of skates without a rocker, to see if there is any difference at all, and if that doesn't work I will go right back to the old chassis. I've always used straight 76mm wheels, and I've never found it necessary to fiddle with that. Stampede, it is pretty weird that I coach my little brother's team, and they're called Stampede!

Here is a snapsot of my skates.

[Stampede 0]

I got the name from the old Buffalo Stampede (1994)....... all the other names for Sheffield... were already taken. Combined with the way we all couldn't skate a fell into teams I thought it was appropriate!

We've had a few changes over the years (mainly due to players coming and going) but always go back to the old name and the same old faces.

[MDE3 0]

Stampede...do you play out of Sheffield?..Were you at the MLRH demonstration there this past summer? (atually there were only four "regular" MLRH players that went over there)

[Stampede 0]

Yeah played in it. Was great for us playing on a proper rink with actually people watching!!!!

The MLRH guys didn't really turn it on too much. When they did it was awesome.

Great standard of hockey in all the divisions.

Problem is with these events is that were a proper club team and a lot of people put in tournement teams that makes it hard to get results. We won one, drew one and lost to the Arizona boys. All fun and games though.

The only problem was the surface. It was a virtual ice one, which are slippy enough but it had been used out doors which made it hard for the really good skaters...... no problem for me though!

[MDE3 0]

My son said he was having all kinds of problems with the floor...I thought it might have been that it was laid over the top of the ice, and had some "sweating" from condensation......He only played a few shifts on CJ's and Tracey's line with Yingling...most of the time he played on the second line. He, along with CJ Yoder Ron Tracey and Brian Yingling were the only "current" MLRH players that went over. There were a couple who had played for the Arizona Stallions who had a team from their club in MLRH in 2002/2003, but I am not sure they played for the MLRH club..more likely for their juniors. In fact a couple of the Arizona players who went over had never played puck before......

[Stampede 0]

Was your son the quick guy with the Hi-Ho silvers on then?

[MDE3 0]

That was probably my son....he was wearing the HiHo's at that time..he has switched to the Beemers now, but I think he had the Hum'ers on the HiHo's when he went to the UK. He had a lot of trouble he said getting up to speed and handling the puck on that floor...said it was bouncing unbelievably, and that the floor was installed pretty unevenly with a lot of raised seams. (they get pretty spoiled with facilities over here sometimes lol)

To get an idea of what level the MLRH was over here, CJ Yoder was first in scoring...total points, Ron Tracey was also in the top three before he got hurt last year, Brian Yingling was probably in the top 15, and my son was in the top twenty five or so, out of about 180 total players. Of course CJ, Tracey, and B. Yingling play for the Tour Mudcat's Pro team and all have been, or are still, on Team USA FIRS as well. So you guys did well to keep the games as close as you did.

[Stampede 0]

Floor or not he still put 4 past us! SOB!

He played for the Arizona team against us and we lost 6 to 3.

It was the first senior game of the comp and our lads went on the rink expecting to get hammered, by the time we had realised we could play with them we were to far down to claw it back.

If your boy (think his name was Simon Edan.... E on the end of your initials) had missed his flight we could have won 3-2! Bugger.

I noticed as he flew by me several times that he had his skates laced ridiculously low and loose. I tried the same cos of the jets he had and nearly snapped my ankles!

[MDE3 0]

Yes..he used to practice skating with his skates completely unlaced..to help develop balance and lateral ankle strength. It's "Egan".

[jtlrip8 0]

ive played roller for about 10 years mostly on hi/lo setups, just started doing some ice skating. and i love how much more power and easier turning it seem like i can get with the ice blades. I never get the feeling of that toe kick on hi/lo chassis

Do u guys think that the tuuk rocker would translate to a similar feeling for me in roller?

If it maters im about 5'8.5 and 140lbs. CCM Maverick exturnos.