SkateScience blades

[Casey]

The following text is a snippet from the Professional Skater magazine, shared in another thread by Query:

"For many years, Reidell skates were the North American distributor for the John Wilson and MK brands for HD Sports.  In 2010, that relationship ended.  That decision brought several changes and additions to the market.  HD Sports initially made a strategic decision to work directly with several independent skate technicians and coaches.  One of those coaches was Warren Maxwell, a coach from the Dallas area.  While the relationship was never finalized, Maxwell realized that the best-selling blades had all been designed over fifty years prior and for mostly double jumps.  Maxwell suggested that HD, "...develop blades that would be more relevant to modern figure skating."  Since the millennium, HD did make several changes and innovations to their blade like introducing the parabolic blade and more recently adding composite materials, the rocker profile remained the same on their models.  Maxwell decided to design a blade and go into business himself.  His company SkateScience designed the first blade specifically made for triple and quad jumps.  Specifically, the "sweet spot" has been moved backwards toward the arch, allowing the drop pick to engage the ice quicker.  The rocker profile is in fact similar to the now-defunct Strauss blade of the 20th century."

The website seemed presumptuous, but curiosity killed the cat, and I just called up Warren Maxwell (creator of these blades) and spoke at length about them.  He was friendly and courteous, and while explaining how his blades are designed, did not come off as presumptuous.

• The blades are completely stainless steel, without any chrome plating.  They are highly polished and look like silver and reflective like chrome however.
• This approach means that the sides of the bottom of the blade does not need the chrome plating removed - a process that is inherently prone to slight inconsistencies between blades.  So the bottoms of the blade will be a more exact line.
• He said that for an adult skater, he would not recommend the Axel Express model, as they are really engineered more towards lighter skaters who are focusing more on basics.  At the same time he cautioned extensively against overblading, because the Triple Quad blade is really geared towards the jump techniques not used when doing singles or doubles, which are difficult to do and if not done, that blade would actually make things worse.
• The blades are not lightweight, and he does not think that weight of the blade is all that important and that if you want to save weight, you're better off doing it in the boot.  However, they are lighter weight than traditional blades because the stainless steel is slightly lighter than carbon steel, and the cutouts in the stanchions reduce weight a bit (though mostly those are there for brand recognition).  Personally, I don't like the cutouts being there, though he claimed it does not reduce the strength of the blades.
• He claimed that the difference I noted feeling when switching from Gold Stars to Gold Seals (more secure edges, quicker turns, etc.), I should feel redoubled if I moved to the Double Plus blades due to their profile design.
• My primary concern would be how spins are affected, since the blades seemed primarily optimized for jumps.  He said that the spin rocker should actually be a benefit, and spoke a fair bit about the different rockers on the blade.

All in all, it was a nice, positive conversation.

Personally, although Gold Seals are an old design I am not sure it needs changed, and I have some attachment to what I know has worked well for other skaters.  That said I do find the SkateScience blades intriguing and am feeling pretty inclined to give them a shot when I replace my current blades within the next few months.  I'm a little leery of investing that much money into a relatively unknown thing, but every prior skate purchase I've done has been that.  You never know how something will work until you try it for yourself, unfortunately.  If I do end up getting a pair, I will be sure to post about my experiences here.

Has anybody else had experience with these blades or know other skaters who have?

[Loops]

...... spoke a fair bit about the different rockers on the blade...

Could you go into more detail about the above point?  I'm also intrigued by these blades.....

[Casey]

Could you go into more detail about the above point?  I'm also intrigued by these blades.....

They don't advertise the rocker profiles because they don't want competition to copy them, though I doubt it would stop a competitor from just buying some blades and analyzing them themselves.  In any case I think there are three distinct rockers on the blade - one in the front, one in the middle, and a third in the back.  The specific profiles and dimensions of each might vary per model, but I don't really know specifics.  The middle should be the flattest one, and might even be more than 8' (again pure speculation) as I have heard (and they advertise) that you can skate faster on these blades, with increased stability even compared to Gold Seals.  That might necessitate adding a third rocker on the back to make turns using that part of the blade manageable even with a flatter center profile.  In any case the front and rear profiles come into play when doing turns and footwork, and the center when doing stroking or gliding.  Mainly he spoke about how the front profile was engineered to help with jump landings, particularly helping arrest the rotational force when landing multi-rotational jumps.  I don't recall the details very well, as I don't do anything but single jumps currently, but you could contact him yourself for more details or with other questions!  I don't know if it's okay to share a phone number here, but the E-mail I contacted was warren@skatescience.net which is shown on the http://skatescience.net website.