Online skates recommendation

[TAHbKA]

Heya,

I work on the local ice rink during the public skates (basically my job is to kick parents off the ice and call the paramedics if needed). I get to spend 3-4-5-6 hours on with the skates on. That's about it - I don't plan jumping anything more than half loop any time in the future and I will probably never learn to spin. The ice rink is open for 2-3 months a year, during the rest of the year I get to skate 5-6 times for 3-4 hours.

I have some crappy `made in China' skates that I bought for 30E 5 years ago in Finland. They were just fine, but the leather (I doubt it's actually leather, but who cares) is completely torn around the ankle and am not ready to pull a Fernandez and skate with the tape around the boot.

So which skates would you recommend taking
1. I will have to order online - there are no ice skates shops in my country
2. I need a soft comfortable boot, don't care much about the blade
3. It has to cost (shipping included) under 75E (otherwise I get into the tax area... complications and headache) and they have to ship overseas
4. I want them to survive a few years, but it doesn't have to be the last pair of skates ever.

Thanks!

[treesprite]

I ordered mine from Kinzies Closet. Great prices - I spent almost $200 less than I would have on the same items at a local pro shop. Also good customer service.

You could go for one of the Jackson "Soft skates". Where I work uses them for some of their rentals and those are the ones the coaches tell people to use if rentals are needed.

[GarrAarghHrumph]

I also recommend the Jackson "Soft Skates". They're actually really good basic recreational skates.

[FigureSpins]

I like the Jackson SofSkates too, but not the Glaciers. They don't have enough support for adults.

[TAHbKA]

Thank you all very much! treesprite, Kinzies Closet's customer support is awesome. Thanks!

[treesprite]

Did you order from there?

[TAHbKA]

Am still hesitating. I.e. if I decide to order those skates it will be through them for sure. However, the models they recommend (and sell) are a bit too expensive to order without trying (and also too professional for me. I.e. the skates they recommend are good for double jumps, which I will never attempt. My impression it'll be quite painful breaking those boots, and not having an intention to jump it seems useless. I think....)

[hanca]

Do you have no chance at all to try any boots on? Even if it was not quite the model you want, at least to know if the boots within that brand fit you... Different brand fit different feet. Some are better for narrow feet, some for wider feet, some for narrow heel and wider toe... if you get boot with too narrow toe area, you will suffer frequently with cramps and you will grow bunions. If you get wider boot, it may be ok in the toe area but too wide in your heel and then your heel would be slipping - not very helpful for learning anything in those boots. My first boots were too narrow for me in the toe area (without me even realising it) and as a result I got awful bunions. Since then I know that Edea is not my brand. It is really hard to buy boots without being able to try them on (unless you are buying the same brand you have had before, which doesn't apply to you).

In Kinzies Closet they discuss which boots are better for narrow feet (Risport), then what is wider, then even wider and the widest. Unfortunately their comparison doesn't include all the major brands, but I found it very helpful. Maybe read through it if it helps.

[TAHbKA]

Do you have no chance at all to try any boots on?

No.

[hanca]

Graf is a good make. What about this? (But I haven't tried them so I can't say if they are any good). The price looks good too.

http://www.iceboxskating.co.uk/produ...products_id=84

Or Jacksons:
http://www.iceboxskating.co.uk/index.php?cPath=81_22_60


What type of feet do you have? More on the narrow side, or wider feet, or duck type like me (narrow heel and wide-ish toe)?

[TAHbKA]

I can't try Graf just as I can't try Jacksons nor Ridell. So either would be a bet.

The rest is in the PM

[Skittl1321]

Rainbo Sports was able to make recommendations for me based on tracings of my feet that I faxed to them. I didn't like the first pair they sent though, so they sent another and those were okay (I ended up changing to another size a year later). It was a bit expensive to ship back and forth though, but having them look at the tracings was better than just guessing.

[TAHbKA]

Rainbo Sports was able to make recommendations for me based on tracings of my feet that I faxed to them. I didn't like the first pair they sent though, so they sent another and those were okay (I ended up changing to another size a year later). It was a bit expensive to ship back and forth though, but having them look at the tracings was better than just guessing.

Thanks! They might be able to advice on something, but their prices are more or less the same as in Kinzies Closet. I can ask the same questions and will probably get the same advice, which will leave me where I am now - not daring to order something for 200$ without trying it first. I now know more or less what type of skates I should be looking for.

Not quite what I expected: skating on a 30E crap I assumed there would be 2-3 companies that produce the same crap and it would be easy to get a new crap

[sk8er1964]

You could also try Edea. They have low level skates with blades, and IME their skates are quite comfortable. The insides can be molded to your feet. One of the main reasons I bought mine was the price - it was quite a bit less that what I had paid for my old Klingbeils.

Being a European company may be a help for you as far as customer service - I only have US contacts, though.

[TAHbKA]

You could also try Edea. They have low level skates with blades, and IME their skates are quite comfortable. The insides can be molded to your feet. One of the main reasons I bought mine was the price - it was quite a bit less that what I had paid for my old Klingbeils.

Being a European company may be a help for you as far as customer service - I only have US contacts, though.

Thanks. From what I read and was adviced Edea will not fit me. As for modelling for my feet - I doubt it can be done online and am not sure I'm willing to ship my feet abroad
Am not in Europe, so European shops would be just as useless as the American for me.

[hanca]

You could also try Edea. They have low level skates with blades, and IME their skates are quite comfortable. The insides can be molded to your feet. One of the main reasons I bought mine was the price - it was quite a bit less that what I had paid for my old Klingbeils.

Being a European company may be a help for you as far as customer service - I only have US contacts, though.

Can lower level Edea be heat-molded? I thought that only higher level of boots in most brands are heat moldable.

[hanca]

Thanks. From what I read and was adviced Edea will not fit me. As for modelling for my feet - I doubt it can be done online and am not sure I'm willing to ship my feet abroad
Am not in Europe, so European shops would be just as useless as the American for me.

You don't need to ship your feet abroad. I successfully heatmolded my Jacksons. You are risking that you will bake them though!

[sk8er1964]

Can lower level Edea be heat-molded? I thought that only higher level of boots in most brands are heat moldable.

Mmm. Afraid I don't know.

[Diane Mars]

Regarding the heat molding, here's a translation from a post I made on a french board that IceMom (where is he ? What's going on ?) put on her blog in April 2010, if it can help ! :

How-to: Heat Mold Figure Skating Boots at Home


Note from Ice Mom: This guest post is from Diane Mars. (Diane Mars is not the gal under the hair dryer.) Diane offers how-to information for skaters who have a pressure point on their figure skating boots and don’t have time to go to the figure skating shop to have them punched out. Diane explains how skaters can heat mold the boots at home and relieve the pressure. I have translated it from French. Any errors are mine.

I have tested a way to home heat mold figure skate boots with a hair dryer. It works! Just call me MacGyver’s main squeeze!

You’ll need:
•a pair of knee-high socks, like you use when you skate
•Dr. Scholl’s Molefoam padding
•Rubbing alcohol (or something less caustic – it will be used for removing all oil from your skin)
•A pair of scissors
•A hair dryer

Step One:

To start, wash your tootsies, dry them well, and put them in those hard wooden boots (well, yes, right now they are more like hard wood than something comfortable, so…) bare foot, and make sure that your heel is in the back of the boot. Put the boot’s tongue in place (well, try anyway, seeing as the tongue is probably wooden, too; ok, lined with something very moldable, but you don’t feel that flexibility yet). Try to lace them up. Don’t pull out your hair if you can’t do it. Tighten the boots very well, because the goal is to find the pressure points and get rid of them. When you’re sure where the boot hurts you, take them off.

If you have been smart and you quickly took off the boots, you can move on to step two right away. If, like me, you had really wanted to verify your pain like, “Yes, but if I push a bit more, it stops hurting.” That doesn’t work; it just hurts worse. Wait 24 hours until that bone sticking out of your ankle (malleolus) is more or less its normal color, every two hours moisturize the spot on your ankle where it burns from the friction in your boot, try fitting the boot around your ankle again, and verify that the swelling in your shins has gone down.

Step Two:

Find the Molefoam. Cut the stuff into pieces that you’ll stick on your feet at the pressure points. (Personally, I made circles that I stuck to my left malleolus – the right foot was perfect!) I made two more strips to protect my shins where they were still swollen from step one the night before.

Wash your tootsies very carefully and, at the places where you’re going to stick your Molefoam, degrease the skin well. (I’m hardcore; I do it with rubbing alcohol until it burns.) Stick your foam to each foot’s pressure points. Then, put your knee socks or nylon skate socks on top. (If you skate with bare feet, you still need to put on a very thin nylon knee sock so you’re sure the moleskin doesn’t move out of place. Again, degrease your skin very well to prevent this.)

This is the annoying part: the hair dryer (so, normally, you’re in the living room, bathroom, kitchen, in knee-highs, with these growths on your feet, a hair dryer in one hand and a pair of skates on the gound. Before you begin, go into a room with a mirror and take a look at yourself. When you’ve finished laughing like a maniac, go get something to drink because once your skates are hot and on your tootsies, you can’t move! You don’t want to deform your friendly skating boot and deform yourself, too.)

Take the first skate, unlace it correctly with the boot’s tongue wide open, and warm it up little by little with the hair dryer. Give it around 10 minutes on full blast. One problem is that the hair dryer can overheat and catch fire and whoops! – the skate boot can scorch, too. If this happens, you’ll have to extinguish the flames and then start over). So, don’t put the hair dryer in the skate and then leave to open a bottle of wine, hey? And besides, if you have followed the instructions well, you already have something to drink!

When the boot is very hot, (watch out for the skate lace hooks), and the boot is flexible, turn off the hair dryer and slip it on, MAKING SURE to:
1.Put your heel in the back of the boot
2.Put the boot’s tongue in place

Lace the boot all the way up as tightly as possible (yes, I know, it’s not great against your shins…it will hurt, but that’s the way it is!). Sit down. No, don’t walk and don’t bend. You want the boot to mold around your foot, not take a year off of your life.

You have to be well inside the boot and it should have been easy to lace and get your foot inside. If that wasn’t the case, start up the hair dryer again and heat the boot where you have pain, while keeping your foot in the skate boot. And yes, after the first fitting, you can do it all over again, but this time even tighter. Once the skate boot is cold, take if off (or not, because it’s so comfortable that you don’t remember you have it on) and do the same thing for skate #2 (if it’s necessary).

This heat molding method doesn’t perform as well as heat molding with a convection oven, but in my case I didn’t have too many adjustments to make and it’s worked well. And I swear to you that I had no desire to take off the blade during the heat molding and then mount it again!

Now most of you will know how perfectly well how to heat mold your own skate. Maybe that will be useful to someone, which would be cool!

Of course, I tried this by myself and that's the result of my own experience.

Ragarding a brand of skates, why not having a look at head skates ? I don't have any idea of the prices, but I think you should be able to find something which fits your budget

[hanca]

OMG, the head skates are so cute! Not sure how good they are for actual skating, but the look is 10 out of 10!