Author Topic: New ice skates  (Read 1039 times)

Newskater52

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New ice skates
« on: March 02, 2018, 01:53:10 am »
So I'm new to skating and looking at buying my first pair of skates. I hope to progress to jumping so wondering if it's worth just going and buying a good high end pair of skates with a high stiffness rating outright? Or will I struggle with a high stiffness rating as a beginner? Would I be better to get some cheaper beginner boots right now and wait to buy good ones? Just don't want to spend £100 on beginner boots to then spend £300 in a few months on better boots?

The Sacred Voice

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Re: New ice skates
« Reply #1 on: March 02, 2018, 03:20:21 am »
How fast are you progressing at the moment? It's hard to give you advice that's too specific on this front because it's impossible to know how fast you'll progress. In skating learning then progression for one person can be a matter of months and for another it can be years, nothing wrong with either, but it's difficult for me to say "YES, SPEND ALL THE MONEY IMMEDIATELY" as a way of saving long term costs if something cheaper would've been perfectly adequate and tided you over for enough time that you don't mind paying more money further down the line for an upgrade. Also, there's the chance that you spend loads of money and in six months decide skating's not your thing - though arguably you could still sell whatever you buy second-hand and recoup some of the cost so maybe that's not such a big deal.

Without knowing how fast you're progressing then, as a compromise, you could consider getting a skate that strikes a balance between being a boot appropriate for learning in as well as doing the single jumps in - the Edea Overture (~£180) springs to mind but I'm not that experienced when it comes to skate shopping options so you'll have to wait for the wiser people here to chip in with their thoughts on appropriate boots for this kind of situation! :)

In case it's helpful then my story went like this: the advice I got when I was starting out was not to spend too much at first because you can learn a lot on relatively beginner level skates. I initially picked up some Graf 500s for ~£70 with the expectation that I'd have to upgrade around the first year mark and I was okay with this. I progressed a bit faster than I'd anticipated and, after six months, was told by my coach I needed to get something stiffer than those to have the correct ankle support for the single jumps. She recommended the Edea Overture (hence my earlier suggestion), which is something like £180-ish. I did upgrade at this point, but I ended up with a different skate to the Overture.

Would I have done things differently if I'd known I was upgrading like that in the first six months? Probably not, but it'll all depend on your financial situation so your reaction might be different.

Not sure if anything I've said is actually helpful... ::) ;D :D
« Last Edit: March 02, 2018, 03:31:07 am by The Sacred Voice »
I'm blogging about my skating journey, please read along at dontexcelaxel.blogspot.com

Leif

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Re: New ice skates
« Reply #2 on: March 02, 2018, 07:59:13 am »
I should prefix this by saying that I wear hockey skates, not figures. That said, I agree with TSV. Yes you can get high end boots from the word go, but you might lose interest in skating, or you might decide you want to pursue a different style of skating. A new hockey skater would do okay to spend up to £100 on a pair of basic but decent skates to learn in. They should last 6 months if the person works hard, much longer otherwise, before they need to upgrade. Of course someone could take the risk and go for posh skates instead, and in that case they MUST make sure they fit properly. Go to a good shop with a wide range of skates. That also applies to cheap skates, but the financial risk is less of course. I don't know where you live, and I don't know about figure skates, so someone else will need to make suggestions of where to buy.

In my own case I had a pair of cheap Bauer hockey skates for 15 years. When I upgraded, the plum at Guildford rink who sold them to me did not know what he was doing, so the new pair did not fit, and I had to spend another £200 on some that did fit. Oddly enough the two skates felt totally different, so I suspect there was something wrong with the first pair I bought, maybe they were worn out or something.

The Sacred Voice

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Re: New ice skates
« Reply #3 on: March 02, 2018, 03:10:06 pm »
I should prefix this by saying that I wear hockey skates, not figures. That said, I agree with TSV. Yes you can get high end boots from the word go, but you might lose interest in skating, or you might decide you want to pursue a different style of skating. A new hockey skater would do okay to spend up to £100 on a pair of basic but decent skates to learn in. They should last 6 months if the person works hard, much longer otherwise, before they need to upgrade. Of course someone could take the risk and go for posh skates instead, and in that case they MUST make sure they fit properly. Go to a good shop with a wide range of skates. That also applies to cheap skates, but the financial risk is less of course. I don't know where you live, and I don't know about figure skates, so someone else will need to make suggestions of where to buy.

Good points that I missed here. I've always felt like <£100 is a decent starting point for a first set of skates, you can learn a lot with them and you're taking on relatively little financial risk in terms of accidentally getting the wrong fit or changing your mind about hobby or skating discipline.
I'm blogging about my skating journey, please read along at dontexcelaxel.blogspot.com

WednesdayMarch

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Re: New ice skates
« Reply #4 on: March 04, 2018, 11:13:26 am »
If you want to progress to jumping, I'm assuming you are already taking lessons?  If so, the person to ask is your teacher.  He or she will have a much better idea of your physique and skating style and is therefore much better placed to advise accordingly.  I would say that buying a pair of majorly stiff boots at the start is more likely to put you off skating than help you enjoy it enough to want to progress.  Being "overbooted" isn't fun and can be even more of a false economy than buying a pair of "beginner" ones.
Returned to the ice in Sept 2017 after a major leg injury in 1999. Skating in Jackson Elite Pro & MK Vision Syncro. Still scary after all these years.



 

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