Blade mounting concerns

[supersharp]

e) [BONUS] Coaches would be smart to look at their students' skates if they see any sudden changes in technique, particularly right after a sharpening or getting new skates.  And the entire skating world would benefit if coaches would explain to their skaters that new skates need to be assessed and sharpened...when a skater gets new skates and asks if they need to be sharpened, the answer should always be "take them to your skate tech for assessment".  I recently rejected two low-level pairs of brand new boots in a row that one skater brought me for sharpening and assessment, and she is very happy now that she has an appropriate pair of boots to wear.  Sometimes blades have defects and need to be rejected, too.  Equipment that is not set up right --or equipment that has fundamental flaws that can't be fixed-- generally leads to a lot of frustration and wasted lesson time.  Lesson time is $ expensive and frustration is very mentally costly.  My guess is there are a lot of people who give up skating or never liked it when they tried it due to bad equipment. 

[Query]

I think we don't have enough information to unambiguously answer Kaitsu's questions.

My blades are about the length he shows - but my feet are small for an adult. I have certainly at times deliberately had my blades mounted much more offset (side-to-side and to some extent front-to-back - I never really needed special directional alignment) than these are - and that was in some ways an improvement over symmetric mounting, though in the end I decided it worked better for me personally to reshape the interior of the boots than to offset the mounting positions.

Perhaps Edea is only using the dotted lines to show where to mount the blades if the skater has no special asymmetric issues, rather than being meant as a universal mounting template. Given the range of foot shapes and other anatomical differences, there is no way for there to be one best way to mount blades.

Coaches often don't have time to examine their students' boots and blades between on-ice lessons. E.g., they often schedule one student after another within the same skating session, and time is money. But if a coach is good at looking at boots and blades, it might occasionally be worth it to pay the coach to look them over before or after a skating session. Plus a lot can be told about the boots and blades by a good coach by watching the student skate and interacting with them. I guess any good coach needs to budget their lesson time between technique and equipment issues.

I am curious Supersharp - if a skater's blades show evidence of frequently repeated landings of one blade on top of the other, what do you conclude, or are you just talking about the need to deal with the nicks, which I would hope any reasonably good skate tech can do?

[Kaitsu]

What do you think about this blade mounting?

[Query]

What do you think about this blade mounting?

My take:

It's obviously way off center from the outsole in the back. But whether the current blade mounting makes sense depends on the skater's anatomy, and how well the outsole mirrors the shape of the skater's foot. E.g., for all we know without additional info, that tail is underneath the center of the skater's heel. Also, I wonder whether the skate tech tried modifying the insole instead - it is possible that being that far off in the back and midfoot would make it harder to spin.

It would make sense to have the skater do 1 foot glides, on all edges, and ask her whether she is fighting to skate straight or on the desired edges. Of course that might not be possible if the skater isn't experienced enough to skate on all edges. I would also ask the skater (and/or her parents) whether there were specific reasons for that blade placement. If not, it might make sense to try a better centered mounting.

Also, more screws have been used than are usually needed, and the test mount screws are still in place. One wonders whether the blade has been forced into warping, rather than being properly shimmed, to fit the bottom of the boot without extra pressure. Or maybe some of the holes are stripped, and the skate tech is trying to compensate - instead of fixing the holes, which I consider better. OTOH, there does look to be at least one shim, which suggests the skate tech might have known what they were doing - a lot of skate techs don't know what shims are.

[Kaitsu]

I was asking this question behave of skater whom was asking my opinion to her bladed mounting. Skate tech whom has mounted the blades has not tried to make adjustments based on the skater anatomy. I was also hoping to raise some discussion by making those green lines which are evenly made to the both sides of the blade.

Query,
Can you explain why blade slotted holes should not have screws...is your advice to remove them after the so called final mounting?

[Query]

In terms of anatomy, it could be something simple, like maybe that outsole has more curvature than the skater's foot... Or maybe the skate tech watched the skater skate with a centered mount, and noticed troubles? Or was matching the mount on the skater's old skates? Or maybe the skater complained that the left and right sides of the heel had unequal pressure?

Otherwise I don't understand why it was done that way. It's too big an offset at the back to be an accident, unless the skate tech was really, really bad. But some skate techs are that bad...

I think you should just watch her skate, and ask whether she would like it moved. E.g., does she tend to get a back outside edge when she wants a back inside edge? But a good coach could give better advice on what to look for than me.

I can't see that screws in the slotted holes matter - unless someone was worried about a few grams of weight. But among the skate techs I've talked to, it's customary to remove them. I've left them in, in my skates, in case other screws comes loose - I'm not a good enough skater for a few grams to matter. But some skaters pay a few hundred dollars extra for blades which are slightly lighter than others. Maybe they think it matters?

But I'm not an expert. I mostly speak from my own experience. I once used offsets bigger than that - though they were offset both front and back, not just back. I decided it worked better for me (and twisted the boot shapes less) to center my blades on the boot, and add cloth tape under one side of the insole to equalize the left and right side pressure under the foot, or to cut foam insoles with that shape. But it is faster to offset blades, and it is what many skate techs are taught to do.