Blades: Dance vs Synchro vs freestyle

[lutefisk]

I ordered the same size as my current Coronation Aces.

I made an assumption that the nominal blade size is the mount length at the boot. My current Aces are stamped 10-1/2, and a tape measure shows them to be exactly that...



A safe assumption, I hope.

Bill: Reason I asked was since synchro and dance blades have shorter tails I wondered if one would need to have a slightly different size to compensate (for the loss of the longer tail on freestyle blades).  My Jackson Freestyle boots are size 9.5M and have soles measuring  11.25".  The Ulitima Mirage blades are 10.75"; { however, according to the chart on Kenzie's closet I should have 11" blades but since these blades were mounted by the manufacturer I'll assume they know what their doing(!)}  I sure don't know squat about correct blade size, but I'm hoping to learn. Can anyone who alternates between Synchro and Freestyle blades comment on this?

[fsk8r]

Well, just for grins, I ordered some 10-1/2" Ultima Synchro blades from Kinzie's Closet.

On clearance for $69, I thought that the combination of 8' rocker and shorter length might be fun to try. I wouldn't have too much invested in the experiment.

If or when I ever mount them, then I'll have some impressions to share.

Hmmm, at that price I might have to get a pair and work out how to get them shipped over.

[TreSk8sAZ]

Blade sizes are based on the length from the front of the sole plate to the back of the heel plate. They are not based on how long the blade itself is. My dance blades and my freestyle blades are the same size, even though the blade length is clearly different.

[Query]

AFAIK, you should order the same length blades for every blade type.

Whether you should order different blade lengths for different boots is a little more complicated. That is the standard theory - that you should the longest length that is less than outsole length (from the back of the boot heel to the front of the outsole).

But really, what many people say affects you most is the distance between the back of your heel and the ball of your foot, both in terms of comfortable boot fit and in terms of how you control your skate. If you get full custom boots, and the fit is done well, the outsole size and placement are probably set to give you a good length and placement. But if you get stock boots, there is no reason for there to be any relationship between the outsole length or placement and your ideal blade length and placement. (I've never heard of anyone using different length blades on left and right feet - have any of you?)

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I think the ISE blade manufacturer is Jerry's Skating World. They are often listed as "Jerry's ISE". 

I don't know anything else about them. But they aren't a very common brand.

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Certain boot and blade makers give away boots and blades, to high profile skaters and influential coaches, because they want you to see these people in their products. (I've known a number of coaches in that category.) I believe the Figure Skating Director at Bowie Ice Arena got free MK or Wilson parabolic blades, as part of an ad campaign pushing parabolics. Even normal coaches can get substantial discounts on boots - maybe blades too?

In the past, certain boot makers have sponsored (given money to) high profile athletes. (Like Riedel and Michael Kwan - remember how her silhouette appeared on Riedel skate boxes, long after she quite publicly switched back to another brand [SP Teri???]?) I bet certain blade makers have sponsored athletes to use their gear too.

Sponsorship would matter much more than boot cost: near the very top, it is quite common for skaters to spend $70,000 (USD) or more / year. It's out of date, but Kwan's book claimed that the top skaters earned about $1 Million/year. I doubt the cost of boots or blades alone would be enough for them to switch to another brand. But sponsorships has always been a big portion of how high profile athletes earn money and cover costs, in many sports - and one of the costs of doing business for many sports equipment companies.

[icedancer]

I
Actually, Icedancer....iir, you skate on the superdance. How much of a toepick is there (relative to the MKDance or the CoroDance....I know those two)?  Could you jump if you wanted?

The picks on the SuperDance are pickier - grippier than the MKs - the MKs are smoothed off for the most part and I found them totally slippy for any kind of toe-pick action.

But there is very little "top pick" on the SuperDance - I don't think I could do toe jumps in them... I used to do waltz jumps in them - now at the age of 60 the thought of jumping at all terrifies me - so yes, I could do more jumps in the SuperDance than the MKs - also used to spin a little in them (ditto on the spins now - can't, won't do any spinning...

But there is just something a little "off" with the SuperDance. They are just too short!!  People comment on it all the time to me saying I have the wrong size blade - but they are 10 1/4 just like my MKs and others before them - basically are correct on the sole of the boot but they are... short!

  I have heard from other ice-dancers that if you didn't like the MK Dance a lot of people like the Ultima Dance or Ultima Synchro because they feel more stable in them.  Since the Synchro are cheaper I am guessing that at a certain point I will try them out!

[Nate]

Bill: Reason I asked was since synchro and dance blades have shorter tails I wondered if one would need to have a slightly different size to compensate (for the loss of the longer tail on freestyle blades).  My Jackson Freestyle boots are size 9.5M and have soles measuring  11.25".  The Ulitima Mirage blades are 10.75"; { however, according to the chart on Kenzie's closet I should have 11" blades but since these blades were mounted by the manufacturer I'll assume they know what their doing(!)}  I sure don't know squat about correct blade size, but I'm hoping to learn. Can anyone who alternates between Synchro and Freestyle blades comment on this?

The Blade should actually be a 11" but if the manufacturer thinks it's fine sometimes they will mount a half inch shorter especially if they want to get the boots out to the customer fast and they don't have any of the proper length in stock.

The size of the blade affects where the various parts of the rockers lay relative to your foot (not just the spin rocker, think back to forward turns especially those more difficult than a three turn), and it also affects the size of the toe pick relative to your body size, since a smaller blade must have a smaller toe pick to keep that section of the blade in proportion with the rest of it.  Undersizing a blade is detrimental, and oversizing a blade can be as well except when the manufacturer recommends it due to how their boots are constructed (I think Klingbeil recommended end to end mountings).  This has always made me wonder if Pros recommended boots based on which blade sizes they have available, though...  Lol

You can adjust to the rocker though.  1/4" isn't a super ton, and dancers don't tend to do many jumps or spins (at least not nearly as much as a freestyle skater), so I guess it was largely fine and likely why they didn't feel the need to be strict about blade measurement when mounting them.

If I got freestyle boots with blades a half inch shorter than the sole, I'd send them back for the correct sole.  The Toe Pick would likely feel too small to support me on jumps, and I probably wouldn't be able to spin in them since the spin rocker would be way too far forward.  The back rocker of the blade would also be too forward, which cases you to risk rocking off the heel of the blade when doing back to forward turns (a dance blade is already super short back there, but there exist FS blades with shorter tails as well).

TL;DR - for the Sole length you quoted, the blade should generally be 11", or 1/4" shorter than the sold length.

Synchro Blades are intermediate - between freestyle and dance.  There are Synchro Blades rated up through all Double Jumps and Flying Spins.  I don't know any that are rated for Triples or Quads because pick size is limited on them and you need an aggressive pick for those jumps, among other things.  The tail length is between a freestyle and a dance blade, and like I said, there are freestyle blades rated for triples and quads that feature a shorter tail length that that is less of a factor.

[Query]

O.P.: What type of jumps are you working on now, and what type of blades are you on now?

If I understand you to be saying you are on Ultima Mirage (a semi-beginner blade), many Synchro picks would already be more aggressive picks, and might be just right.

There is such a thing as moving to too much toepick too fast. Remember that movie where the lady skater gleefully exclaims "Toepick!" every time her would-be skating partner trips and falls over his toe pick? Plus, judges often penalize ice dancers who let their toepicks touch when they don't have to.

[lutefisk]

O.P.: What type of jumps are you working on now, and what type of blades are you on now?

If I understand you to be saying you are on Ultima Mirage (a semi-beginner blade), many Synchro picks would already be more aggressive picks, and might be just right.

There is such a thing as moving to too much toepick too fast. Remember that movie where the lady skater gleefully exclaims "Toepick!" every time her would-be skating partner trips and falls over his toe pick? Plus, judges often penalize ice dancers who let their toepicks touch when they don't have to.

O.P.--???  Ocean Pacific?  Order of Preachers?  Opus Number?  Who is this O.P. you speak of? ;-)

If you're talkin' to me,  yes I have Ultima Mirage blades.  I spoke with my coach about the idea of switching to synchro blades last night and she pointed out that until I clean up my alternating outside 3s (they're scratchy 'cause I'm too far back on the blade) I'd probably kill myself with short tailed blades.  So while I admire and acknowledge the diminished toe pick hazard provided by synchro and dance blades I don't want to exchange that for an increased potential of falling backwards.  As tempting as the discount price is, I'm gonna wait until I hear more from Bill S.

[fsk8r]

I can safely say that unless you're right at the very back of your blade your scratchy 3 turns will remain just that with synchro or dance blades. It's a subtle difference in weight which makes you scrape your turns. I can scrape mine in both my freestyle and synchro blades and it's mainly down to my weight being slightly wrong on the sweet spot where the turns happen.

[Nate]

A skater can (and will) adjust to the toe pick. It isn't the same as over booting, which has serious health risks and the skater may never be able to break the boots in if they're too stiff anyways. It is hardly anything to worry about, and most skaters will move early so they learn the elements on high end equipment and don't have to most them to a completely different blade later.

This is why if you look on ebay there are tons of lower end child boots with Pattern 99 blades on them, lol.

Most of the skaters here move above Pro/Ace blades by the time they're preliminary or the level afterwards, before they're even working on doubles. They do fine and practically none have that problem now.

A lot of skaters avoid over booting by getting Edens now.

The pick on a Gold Seal is barely bigger than a Pro or Ace pick, and Pattern 99 isn't that much different than Vision. The biggest change in the picks moving up is the angle of the Drag and Master picks. The angle on the higher blades make edge jumps much easier because they "catch" with a lot less toe point that the lower blades (which have a smaller angle to prevent tripping). The bigger master picks on some blades help toe jumps a lot as well. The bigger top pick helps a lot in toe spotting.

This means when moving from one to another blade, technique has to be adjusted, as well as timing. You make this easier on the skater later on by moving up sooner. It doesn't hurt anything. The skater will adjust early and won't have to do it later, which can or may come at a bad time for them (growth spurt, puberty, etc.)

This also explains somewhat why most people wouldn't jump on dance blades and why very few buy synchro blades for freestyle. Smaller, blunted tor picks are inefficient... but is is possible to jump on [some] of those blades (especially the synchro blades).

Sent from my Galaxy Note 3 using Tapatalk.

[Nate]

I can safely say that unless you're right at the very back of your blade your scratchy 3 turns will remain just that with synchro or dance blades. It's a subtle difference in weight which makes you scrape your turns. I can scrape mine in both my freestyle and synchro blades and it's mainly down to my weight being slightly wrong on the sweet spot where the turns happen.

The reason why the dance and Synchro blades have shorter tails is because they skate close to others as well. For dance, VERY close. The shirt we tail reduces risk of tripping.

Additionally, it's a lot easier to "get it wrong" in a dance program as unlike a freestyle program, theirs are predominantly clusters of turns and transitions.

With the much higher volume of maneuvers on the ice, the risk goes up. They also need quicker turns because timing and tempo is of utmost importance to them.

Sent from my Galaxy Note 3 using Tapatalk.

[Nate]

O.P.--???  Ocean Pacific?  Order of Preachers?  Opus Number?  Who is this O.P. you speak of? ;-)

If you're talkin' to me,  yes I have Ultima Mirage blades.  I spoke with my coach about the idea of switching to synchro blades last night and she pointed out that until I clean up my alternating outside 3s (they're scratchy 'cause I'm too far back on the blade) I'd probably kill myself with short tailed blades.  So while I admire and acknowledge the diminished toe pick hazard provided by synchro and dance blades I don't want to exchange that for an increased potential of falling backwards.  As tempting as the discount price is, I'm gonna wait until I hear more from Bill S.

Original Post[er]

Sent from my Galaxy Note 3 using Tapatalk.

[lutefisk]

Original Post[er]

Sent from my Galaxy Note 3 using Tapatalk.

Now I know.  Thanks.

[Query]

A lot of skaters avoid over booting by getting Edens now.

Is this what you mean?

[Nate]

Is this what you mean?

Thank you for making me laugh

[Bill_S]

The Jackson Ultima Synchro blades arrived today. I took some measurements, made some tracings of the rocker, and compared the toe picks. I was a bit disappointed to see a sticker on the blades indicating the country of origin to be Taiwan. Note that the measurements  below are for 10-1/2" blades (measured from toe tip to back of heel on the mounting plate) to fit my size 7-1/2 Riedell boots

First the toe picks...



The Coronation Aces are on the left, the Ultima Synchros on the right. I was astonished at how aggressive the toe pick appears on the Synchro blade. While the picks are straight cut, they are cut considerably deeper than the Aces. I never found the Aces to be lacking for my own toe jumps, so I don't expect any problem using the Synchros  - especially since I don't jump as much any more. This is armchair speculation, and actually skating on them later will settle the matter for me.

At 11.25" long, these Synchro blades are 1/2" shorter than my Aces. It's not that much visually. We'll see how much that helps tight footwork.

The stanchion height is a little taller than my Aces, measured at two locations. At the heel stanchion, the Ace height is 1.75" while the Synchros are 1.92" (difference of 0.17"). At the spin rocker stanchion the Aces were 1.77", Synchros 1.85" (difference of 0.08"). The Synchros will sit a little taller in the tail than the Aces. They will also provide marginally better clearance for boot lean. I'm unsure how this will translate into the feel of the blade on ice.

What I found most surprising was a tracing of the blade rocker. The Synchros are advertised to have an 8' rocker, Aces are 7'. When I overlaid the blade tracings, there was almost no difference between the rocker shape. From previous scale drawings I made, I didn't expect a huge difference, but there was almost none...

(click the picture to enlarge it)



It's possible that even the gentle hand-sharpening that I've given the blades (very slow steel removal rate) has changed the rocker over time. It still surprised me how closely these two blades matched each other in rocker.

The sole plate is narrower than the Aces (under 2-1/2" wide vs. 2-7/8" wide). It might be an advantage for narrow width boots, but I'm not sure. The edge will need a sharpening touch up. There was no protective strip on the edges like the Aces had when I bought them. I suspect that I'll stay with the advertised 7/16" ROH, so I'll need another Pro-Filer set. (I've been wanting that size anyway!).

That's the measurement part of my experiment. I'll have to mount them and skate on them to conclude the experiment. Unfortunately our rink isn't open just yet, and my teaching job is preventing any travel to other rinks. So stay tuned. It might take about a month for the rest to be done.

[Nate]

Straight Cut picks are typically deeper than Cross Cut picks.

They allow the pick to dig deeper in the ice so that the skater can get better height on their jumps, the cross cut picks don't dig as deep, but they prevent the slippage that can occur with the straight cut picks so while the height may not be as great, the take-offs may be as consistent as the pick engagement can be more secure.

Most Synchro Blades by the major manufacturers are perfectly usable for both Freestyle and Dance, and are rated up to Double Jumps.  Designed to be "combination" blades and are kind of popular with skaters testing up in multiple disciplines (Dance, Freestyle, maybe working with a Synchro Team) since it's not optimal to buy multiple pairs of boots and blades to swap out on the fly.

Same reason boot makers started offering low cut backs, dance scallops, etc. on their freestyle boots.

I'd still personally prefer jumping on the aces.  The pick angles are better for it so I'd be able to jump without pointing as much, especially Axels and other edge jumps.  The Ultima Synchro blades are cut at an angle similar to an MK Professional which is more optimal for dance-type things. That also affects spin entrances.  If I knew back then what I know now, I'd have gone with the Aces over the Professionals from the get go.  They are a better designed blade for Freestyle.  If I was also doing Dance, then I'd have still gotten the Professionals for that reason, or perhaps gone with a Synchro blade.

The rocker shape of the Ace compared to the Synchro Blade is interesting but I'm not sure how many times each was sharpened.  In any case, JW blades have been reported as measuring as much as 2' under their advertised radius out of the box, so getting blades that are bigger than advertised (close to 8' instead of the 7' they quote) isn't "out of the norm" going by history.  I think Ultima uses a machine-guided process to getting their blades right practically 99.99999% of the time, so I think the Synchro Blade is likely the most accurate radius (by what you'd expect) in that comparison.

[Query]

Bill:

I assume that you lined these up so that the front and end of the mounting plates coincide, and that the mounting holes coincide, so that the parts of the tracing that coincide will coincide as well relative to your skate, right?

Assuming that true, the Ultima Synchro toe pick is further forwards (especially the master pick), higher, and that the angle of the drag pick is blunted. That means that it is harder to reach, and that you have more play around the sweet spot, and that if you place the picking foot far enough behind you (so you are fully pointed), you may glide rather than stop the picking foot on toe jumps. That is exactly what is meant by a significantly less aggressive toe pick, precisely what is to be expected.

Yes the differences are small in inches - but a few hundredths of an inch in toe pick shape and position are a fairly big deal, because it is a large fraction of the height of a toe pick, or of the distance between the ball of the foot and the sweet spot. That is the scale of subtle motion changes that figure skaters use all the time.

As for rockers, take a look at this image of 7', 7.5' and 8' rocker curves, that I have temporarily uploaded:
(a bit quick and dirty - open it, zoom it up until the lines look solid. 7' - 8' rockers are NOT very different, visually.)

[Bill_S]

Bill:

I assume that you lined these up so that the front and end of the mounting plates coincide, and that the mounting holes coincide, so that the parts of the tracing that coincide will coincide as well relative to your skate, right?

That's an incorrect assumption - I wanted to compare rocker shape, so I adjusted the placement of the tracings until the drag picks mostly aligned, then nudged the two lines vertically (as layers in Photoshop) to closely overlap. When mounted, the Synchro blade will be taller and it will be tilted almost a degree downward toward the front because of differences in front/rear stanchion height. If I had matched mounting positions, the two blade tracings would be too far apart to show small differences in rocker - which was the goal here.

I'm not going to predict how these will feel/perform at this point. Actually skating on them will be the test. A few more weeks and our rink will have ice again.

[Query]

oops

Ignore everything I just said. 

[Bill_S]

That's OK, maybe it helps clarify things for someone else.

One other little discovery - these blades are visibly thinner than my Aces! The blade thickness on the chrome part (where my Pro-filer's 0.170" slot will ride) is:

Aces: 0.167"

Synchros: 0.158"

I'm going to have to use extra tape on the sides when I sharpen them, otherwise the Pro-Filer will rock side-to-side producing an uneven edge.

[lutefisk]

That's an incorrect assumption - I wanted to compare rocker shape, so I adjusted the placement of the tracings until the drag picks mostly aligned, then nudged the two lines vertically (as layers in Photoshop) to closely overlap. When mounted, the Synchro blade will be taller and it will be tilted almost a degree downward toward the front because of differences in front/rear stanchion height. If I had matched mounting positions, the two blade tracings would be too far apart to show small differences in rocker - which was the goal here.

I'm not going to predict how these will feel/perform at this point. Actually skating on them will be the test. A few more weeks and our rink will have ice again.

Bill: Have you had a chance to try those new blades? 

Best regards,
Curious Lutefisk

[Bill_S]

I've been procrastinating for a couple of reasons. 1) I'm lazy and I currently have blades that work, 2) I ordered a 7/16" Pro-Filer sharpener for the new blades, but it took weeks to arrive even after a couple of follow up emails. Then I discovered that it was a 3/8" ROH model instead of the 7/16" that I ordered. It's been difficult communicating with the company this time around. I hope their financial health is OK.

I'll elevate the changeover on my to-do list.

[Bill_S]

I apologize for not getting the comparison done.

It's been the craziest year of my entire teaching career, and even weekends are consumed by work that didn't get done during the week. I thought that I had Veteran's Day off (it's a university holiday), but even that has now been scheduled for a day-long committee meeting.

I know, excuses, excuses!

[lutefisk]

No worries, Bill.  We're mostly adults here, with many the same time constraints.  I'm sure you'll give us a full report in the sweet by and by.