Quad 0 - Marka

[marka 518]

Howdy,

Thanks to JR and ProSharp for the opportunity to try out various skate blade profiles!

About me:

I'm a relatively new hockey player, but a relatively old person. 🙂 I started skating and playing hockey in 2015/2016 at age 46.  Prior to that, I'd played a tiny bit of hockey with other neighborhood kids a couple winters on a pond in Maine, when I was growing up.  When I started a couple years ago, I could sorta hockey stop on one side and kinda do forward crossovers.  Today my skating has greatly improved and I can perform any normal "hockey skating maneuver", but nobody will mistake me for Connor McDavid or even just anyone that played hockey seriously as a kid.  I currently play in "D" leagues in the Pittsburgh, PA area, which are one step up from full beginner leagues.

I use size 7.5D Easton Mako M8 skates, with regular 263mm Step Steel.  I use a 5/8" Fire 'radius' and sharpen my own skates with my Sparx.  This set was initially sharpened by JR at 1/2" ROH when it was profiled, then I ran 6 passes with a 5/8" Fire ring at home.

Quad Zero

Please see my other reviews for context!  All of my comments and ratings are in relation to other profiles I've tried.  A Zuperior profile with a little added forward pitch was my baseline, which I rated at all 3's for each category.

After trying out a dual radius 9'/10' +1/2 deg pitch (see that review in the dual section), I switched over to this Quad Zero setup.  I did the steel switch myself on the bench, fumbling with Easton's square headed screws and weird angled T-handle wrenches thinking all the while that that Tuuk Edge holder was seeming more and more like a good idea for my next pair of skates...  🙂

At home I'd compared the quad zero to the dual 9'/10' radius setup, just laying the blades on top of one another.  There were differences in shape visible to the eye, but they were _minor_.  I didn't actually attempt to measure them, but we're talking less than 1mm difference in blade height at any point along the profile, at least according to my eyes.  I was really interested to see if I could feel any actual difference, out on the ice.

After the switch, leaving the bench my overriding impression was that if I hadn't just switched the steel myself I probably wouldn't have known it had happened.  Skating around a bit more before I started running through maneuvers, I knew I was going to have to be on the lookout for really subtle differences.

I still had the ice to myself, so I ran through similar maneuvers as I'd done with the 9'/10' profile.  I did forward/backward crossovers around the circles, forward/backward stops & starts, tight forward turns, forward/backward strides, forward/backward one foot glides, and what I call "defensive turns" where you skate with forward crossovers in a large arc, then switch to backwards crossovers midway through and finish with backwards strides.  I also did some stick handling and shooting, just to break up the time a bit.  All in all, I was on the ice for about 15 minutes with this profile.  As I've mentioned before, I'll try to repeat these maneuvers with all of my initial profile reviews.

If the differences between my baseline Zuperior profile and the dual 9'/10' profile were subtle, these were even more so.  The increased toe contact I'd noticed with the dual profile wasn't there with the Quad 0.  As such, when I skated backwards in particular I noticed that I had to think more about pushing on that last toe flick to get good ice contact.  However, with a bit of concentration, the grip / push was still there, it felt like I was just as fast, etc.  The Quad 0 profile just felt "natural" to me and I'm not sure I'd have noticed a difference between my Zuperior baseline and the Quad 0 even in a blind back to back situation.  My feeling was that perhaps it still had a touch more toe contact with the ice as compared to the Zuperior, but it was slight if so.  I liked this a bit better than the 9'/10' dual profile just because I didn't have a thought that _maybe_ I'd have a slightly increased chance of toe picking myself.

My incredibly unscientific ratings reflect this:

Acceleration: 3.5
Mobility: 3
Stability: 3.5
Speed: 3

That's all down to the feeling of slightly less toe contact with the ice as compared to the dual 9'/10' profile, but perhaps, maybe, slightly more than the Zuperior setup.

This profile, in the 15 minutes I tried it, felt so similar to the Zuperior profile that I'd been using that I'm leaving it on the skates and will skate with it for my next few games without any worry that it affect my gameplay.  Perhaps I'll notice a few more differences during that time and if so, I'll update this with a followup review.

Having compared three profiles in a short time at this point, my overall impression is that after you get anything reasonable on the profile, the differences are going to be much more about what you happen to like vs. any actual measurable difference in performance or balance.  I seem to notice big changes like ground off toes/heels or decently large changes in pitch, but otherwise all of these differences are things where I need to be concentrating on my skating to feel.  Other things, like if my skates are sharp, hardness of the ice, etc. have more of an impact, at least with my completely un-blind and "have to bust out the tools" runner switching.  I now think of it more as being similar to a favorite t-shirt... Its not that its measurably better, its just that you happen to like it a bit more and so that's the one you grab out of the drawer over another.

Right now though, the Quad zero is my favorite t-shirt.

Mark

[marka 518]

Howdy,

Quick follow up to this... I skated a couple games on the Quad 0 and then gave both sets of steel back to JR at Winterfest for the next set of profiles to try.  That meant that for tonight's game I was back on my baseline set with the Zuperior profile, pitched forward "25%".

It wasn't back to back, since I last skated on the Quad 0 yesterday, but if I hadn't switched the steel myself, there's no way I'd have know it was different.  For me, a Quad 0 and the Zuperior profile with some additional forward pitch are indistinguishable.

Mark