Trouble skating in new Edeas - help!

Hi There-

My son is a 6-year old figure skater with some of his single jumps and working on some of his Skate Canada dance tests. He was in Riedell Stride with a Coronation Ace blade, but he had a massive growth spurt and his skates had to be replaced. The only thing they had in his size at our local store were Edea Overture with a pre-installed JSW Sterling blade. As the Edea takes a smaller blade, he could not re-use the old Coronation Ace blade and they didn't have any in-stock, but the store assured us that he would be "fine" in the blade given his level.

We put him in the new skates for a public skate session to start getting used to the boots and it was like watching a toddler learn how to skate - all wobbly and unable to stop, falling all over the place. As he is 6, he has trouble describing what the problem is, but he said he "didn't like the blade". I've heard that Edeas can be hard to get used to due to the higher heel, but I am wondering if it could also be the blade, as he suggests. The Coronation Ace has a 7' rocker as compared to 8' on the Sterling blade. It also appears that the blade is taller on the Sterling. Maybe all of that feels different to him.

We tried for hours on multiple occasions to get these Edeas to work (we even checked the sharpening and blade mounting with a professional) but he literally can't skate in them. Not. At. All. Although we had already stretched his Riedells, we took them to be stretched again, but he is still uncomfortable, so I want to get him out of them.

Is it worth me trying to order a Coronation Ace blade to see if that solves the problem? Has anyone else experienced this and have any insight on what the problem could be? Coach checked and the boots fit, although she said that because the Riedell has a low heel and the Edeas have a high heel, it could be too much adjustment vs. if he had a regular height heel to begin with. Or should i give up on these Edeas, sell them on kijiji, and order something else? I wasn't getting much help at the store beyond "the Edeas are better than what he was in before".

Thanks!

How many hours did he try? The last skates my daughter got took exactly 10 hours to get used to.

When my daughter had a issue like you are describing - freaked out and couldn't skate really at all - it was due to the sharpening. Her old sharpener always did her skates so there was no issue. The new sharpener changed the hollow and the blade because the old sharpener's machine was pretty much hand worked so one edge was shorter than the other. The unevenness didn't bother my skater because it was so gradual.

So he fixed the edge AND he changed the depth of the the hollow (he knew our new coach and did them 7/16th like all of her students). It was like brand new skates and terrible feeling for her. We went in and he watched her on the ice, he resharpened them to a different depth (1/2)and she put them back on and everything was perfect.

But what you are describing - totally unable to skate - is exactly what happened after the change in hollow/blade correction. Once it was fixed she was better than before (her edge jumps were not coming along and after the correction, that changed, I really think that she didn't notice the unevenness but her jumps did notice. She couldn't figure out why her 2L was becoming wonky and flutzy and actually before she lost her other coach, he thought her jumps might be due to blade placement. The placement is perfect, it was just the blade itself that was no longer even).

Adding - I would ask them to order the Coronation Ace blades and ask they refund you for the ones that came with the skates. It's your money, you should get what you want vs what is on hand. Blades usually come in very quickly. At the very least I'd go to MK Pro. Kinzies had our blades delivered within a couple days.

I don't know how they can say the Sterling is comparable - mk pro , ultima legacy and C Ace are twice as expensive. Kinzies says Sterling is for "These Blades are recommended for beginner and instructional students learning
basic skills to beginning jumps." Ace, Pro, and legacy are for These Blades are recommended for intermediate skaters learning single and double jumps. I wonder why they put him at six in a $300 boot and then went with a blade downgrade. It just sounds so odd. It is my non coach opinion that unless you are jumping aggressively, a standard boot with a better blade is better than a better boot with a lesser blade. With a blade upgrade, my skater really improved very quickly.

SmallAminal said:

Hi There-

My son is a 6-year old figure skater with some of his single jumps and working on some of his Skate Canada dance tests. He was in Riedell Stride with a Coronation Ace blade, but he had a massive growth spurt and his skates had to be replaced. The only thing they had in his size at our local store were Edea Overture with a pre-installed JSW Sterling blade. As the Edea takes a smaller blade, he could not re-use the old Coronation Ace blade and they didn't have any in-stock, but the store assured us that he would be "fine" in the blade given his level.

We put him in the new skates for a public skate session to start getting used to the boots and it was like watching a toddler learn how to skate - all wobbly and unable to stop, falling all over the place. As he is 6, he has trouble describing what the problem is, but he said he "didn't like the blade". I've heard that Edeas can be hard to get used to due to the higher heel, but I am wondering if it could also be the blade, as he suggests. The Coronation Ace has a 7' rocker as compared to 8' on the Sterling blade. It also appears that the blade is taller on the Sterling. Maybe all of that feels different to him.

We tried for hours on multiple occasions to get these Edeas to work (we even checked the sharpening and blade mounting with a professional) but he literally can't skate in them. Not. At. All. Although we had already stretched his Riedells, we took them to be stretched again, but he is still uncomfortable, so I want to get him out of them.

Is it worth me trying to order a Coronation Ace blade to see if that solves the problem? Has anyone else experienced this and have any insight on what the problem could be? Coach checked and the boots fit, although she said that because the Riedell has a low heel and the Edeas have a high heel, it could be too much adjustment vs. if he had a regular height heel to begin with. Or should i give up on these Edeas, sell them on kijiji, and order something else? I wasn't getting much help at the store beyond "the Edeas are better than what he was in before".

Thanks!

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It's hard to believe that much wobbling could be solely due to the blade. Ask him if he feels like his ankles wobble from side to side in the new Edeas. That's how I felt when I got Edea Ice Fly boots. The heel height was not what made me feel like I was teetering. Does anyone have a pair of used Coronation Ace or MK Professional blades you could borrow and mount for him so you can see whether it's really the blades?

I can’t comment specifically on the differences between your son’s particular boots and blades: I have no direct experience with Riedell Stride boots, Edea Overture boots, or JSW Sterling blades; I have skated many years on Wilson Coronation Ace blades. What I can do is describe my experiences with changing blade parameters and changing boots; they may help you troubleshoot your son’s problems. But note: (a) There will probably be a wide variation in individual experiences to different boots and blades. (b) I’m an adult male; so I don’t know how my experiences translate to that of a 6 yr old boy’s. (c) Troubleshooting for you is made more difficult because a 6 yr old probably is not able to describe the problems accurately.


(1) With the same boot and the same blade (Coronation Ace), I’ve skated with a radius of hollow (ROH) ranging from 5/16 to 9/16 inch. Sometimes intentionally (wanted to try out different hollows), sometimes unintentionally (machine was out of calibration, or skate sharpener decided he knew best what hollow I should have). There were effects on glides, depth of edges, and how hard I had to push on a stroke; and, most significantly, a strong effect on my spins. But I didn’t notice any effects on balance (such as “wobbling”).


(2) ~Two years ago I switched from old Riedell Royals to Jackson Elite Suede boots. There were significant differences that required a lot of tweaking and ice time (probably at least ~40 hrs) before I got comfortable with the Jacksons. I stayed with Coronation Ace blades. Here are some issues to look at.


(a) Blade Length. Because of the different boot designs, I went from a 9N in Riedell to a 8W in Jackson. Consequently, I went from an 11” to a 10-1/2” blade. This will have some effect; though probably minor in my instance.


(b) Heel Pitch. The Jackson has a much higher heel pitch than the Riedell. This caused me to ride up towards the toepicks. I ended up having to remount the blade forward and to have to deliberately lean back more. Funny thing is the effect was much more pronounced when skating backwards than forwards. The first time I tried to skate backward, I was practically pitched up on my toepicks, and did feel like I was about to topple over. Two skate techs (who are also coaches and former competitive skaters) confirmed the same experience. I don’t have a good explanation why though. [I don't know about the Edea Overture, but one skate tech told me the Edea Ice Fly has an even higher heel pitch than the Jackson Elite; you can't always judge from the exterior of the boot, because some boots have heel lifts inside the boots.]


(c) Arch Support. I have fallen arches and pronate strongly. The Riedell had fairly substantial arch supports built into the boots. The Jackson has none: the insole of the boot itself is flat, and the removable footbed is also flat when stepped on. I needed to remount the blades towards the inside; and I also needed to make a pair of substantial arch supports to insert into the boots.



Hope this helps, and good luck!

It might just be a blade hollow issue. My daughter went from Riedell to Edea and has been in 3 different Edea boots and 3 different blades. It has never been an issue getting used to the differences. However, when someone messed up the hollow on her blade, she couldn't skate *at all* for a week before I figured it out.

The hollow will make a huge difference in how the blade grips the ice. If you don't know the hollow of the old skates and don't have them anymore, have them measure to be sure the new skates weren't sharpened incorrectly.

My daughter is 60 pounds and just moved to a 7/16" hollow, which improved her landing accuracy by about 50% overnight. You may find that they were sharpened like rental skates by someone who was not familiar with the importance of proper sharpening.

Thanks everyone for the input - this is all really helpful.

Our skate tech had fixed the sharpening and mounting, but this didn't appear to make a difference. So my guess is that the problem is elsewhere.

We went back to the store and found a more helpful employee. He thought the skates were just a tad too big, which would make his foot out of alignment more than an adult in skates that were just a tiny too big. Also, he said the higher heel pitch and blade would take some getting used to, but that combined with the skate not fitting 100% the way he would recommend, it could be just be unmanageable.

Soooo.....we are going to try to stretch the boots (again) at a cobbler preferred by one of the camp coaches. I hope we don't exceed the stretching capacity, but we have no other choice in the short term (literally, NOTHING in stock in his size at the store). We will order the Riedells and wait for them and put the Coronation Ace on again. I think the lesson I learned is that there are so many factors that have to come together and I need to be aware of them all. I also learned not to take what the store tells me as the gospel truth - one of the coaches said that next time I *must* have her come with us as she can advocate and disagree from an informed place.

I think I would have him skate on the factory edge when he gets his new boots and new blades and see how it goes before the first sharpening.

loopy said:

I think I would have him skate on the factory edge when he gets his new boots and new blades and see how it goes before the first sharpening.

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I'm not being argumentative here, but I'm trying to understand your rationale here. In your first post, you stated that a minor change in ROH from 7/16" to 1/2" made a dramatic difference for your daughter from being totally unable to skate to being able to skate normally. For a Coronation Ace, the factory supplied hollow is a nominal 7/16", but several skate techs (at different shops) I've talked to tell me that the factory-sharpened edges from MK and Wilson are extremely variable, and hence recommend an initial shop sharpening. Since many [not all] shops include an initial sharpening free if you buy the blades through them, they are not simply trying to ring up unnecessary charges.

tstop4me said:

I'm not being argumentative here, but I'm trying to understand your rationale here. In your first post, you stated that a minor change in ROH from 7/16" to 1/2" made a dramatic difference for your daughter from being totally unable to skate to being able to skate normally. For a Coronation Ace, the factory supplied hollow is a nominal 7/16", but several skate techs (at different shops) I've talked to tell me that the factory-sharpened edges from MK and Wilson are extremely variable, and hence recommend an initial shop sharpening. Since many [not all] shops include an initial sharpening free if you buy the blades through them, they are not simply trying to ring up unnecessary charges.

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You usually cannot return a blade after it has been sharpened. I would just give it a shot and have him skate on it and see if the issue remains. I can't see the shop charging for the first sharpening if she comes back the same week with the same blade.

loopy said:

You usually cannot return a blade after it has been sharpened. I would just give it a shot and have him skate on it and see if the issue remains. I can't see the shop charging for the first sharpening if she comes back the same week with the same blade.

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There are two possible outcomes: (1) All is fine; problem solved. (2) All is not fine; now what? For outcome (2), my guess is that the skate tech's response will be along the lines of, "The factory edges are not up to snuff; I recommend a shop sharpening." In which case, you either follow his recommendation and have the blades sharpened (which means you can't return them); or, you return the blades, and start all over again (with what? another order of Coronation Ace? another model of blade altogether?).

If the OP has sufficient time (but she doesn't appear to at this point), the best approach would be to order a new pair of boots first, and then check whether the existing pair of Coronation Aces [assuming they still have usable life left] can be remounted on the new boots; if not, there will then be an additional delay in ordering a new set of blades. With new blades, there will be an adjustment period due to the different length, but if she sticks to Coronation Ace, most of the blade parameters will be the same (within manufacturing variations), with the ROH under the control of the sharpener. Fewer variables than with an entirely different model.

I am, unfortunately, out of time as his two weeks of camp start this week, but there was no chance to get the new boots in before the next few weeks (we live in Canada and apparently orders can take a while to come in as they get tied up in customs). The irony is that my son and I *almost* joined my husband in Minneapolis this week.....we probably could have gone direct to Riedell in Red Wing (1 hour outside Minneapolis), assuming they ever let non-famous skaters in.

My son is light (~46 lbs) and so I am wondering if is OK to stockpile the next few sizes. I don't anticipate he will be doing doubles for a few years, but who knows. I am going to ask his coach what she thinks. I guess the worst that can happen is that we have boots that aren't appropriate and we see if we can sell them to recover some of the cost.

SmallAminal said:

My son is light (~46 lbs) and so I am wondering if is OK to stockpile the next few sizes. I don't anticipate he will be doing doubles for a few years, but who knows. I am going to ask his coach what she thinks. I guess the worst that can happen is that we have boots that aren't appropriate and we see if we can sell them to recover some of the cost.

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I would not recommend doing this. (1) You don't know whether your son will stay interested in the sport. (2) You don't know how quickly his feet will grow. (3) You don't know whether his foot shape will change (such that Riedells may not be the best choice). (4) You don't know how quickly he will progress (which will determine the level of boots and blades he should get). Even if you try to sell off the unused boots and blades, you'll need to take a significant loss on them.