Parabolic Blades | Page 2 | Golden Skate

Parabolic Blades

Ic3Rabbit

Former Elite, now Pro. ⛸️
Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 9, 2017
Country
Olympics
No data, just going on what general consensus is.
But john wilson and Mk are both owned by hdsports. Have never heard of any world champions who didnt wear either of those blades, andjohn wilson tends to be predominantly used by most world competitors.

There are champs: World, Olympic, GPF, and varied Nationals that have also worn Paramount blades, whether for freestyle or dance.

2 examples being Javier Fernandez and Vincent Zhou.
 

kolyadafan2002

Fan of Kolyada
Final Flight
Joined
Jun 6, 2019
There are champs: World, Olympic, GPF, and varied Nationals that have also worn Paramount blades, whether for freestyle or dance.

2 examples being Javier Fernandez and Vincent Zhou.

Fair enough, thanks for the info.... somebody needs to create a trivia game with these questions :)
My point being John wilson are very reliable, and I'm sure faulty blades are sold by every company.
 

rianataylor

Spectator
Joined
Mar 9, 2020
I can tell you than John wilson has the best quality of all blade manufactures. Sometimes mistakes can happen, but each blade has a lifetime guarantee ��

Sure each pair of blades has a lifetime guarantee but I'm not sure how to go about to prove that the pair I got were defective or not. My tech says they're fine but my coach and I think other wise.


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yirumi

Spectator
Joined
May 25, 2015
Actually, it is your job and the boot/blade techs job to check the blades. You learn how to do it. I am a pro and former elite, I know what I'm talking about here. I reassure you that most blades of most well-known and worn brands are usually good, but you do get ones that aren't, it happens.


ETA: If the coach doesn't know how to check blades, esp for sharpening (which is rare in my experience), then that is a coach you need to not walk, but run from.

_____________________

While you might be lucky enough to get a coach who knows a lot about blades, not everyone has such luxury. In countries where figure skating isn't overly popular, you get a coach who has only done axels in their entire life and that's all you get.

They do make good blades, and they need to improve their consistency. Do you know HD is getting a new machine so their blades can be more consistent, the technology they are using now is very old. Obviously HD is aware of the consistency issue but it seems very hard for hardcore fans to accept and critics.
 
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Ic3Rabbit

Former Elite, now Pro. ⛸️
Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 9, 2017
Country
Olympics
_____________________

While you might be lucky enough to get a coach who knows a lot about blades, not everyone has such luxury. In countries where figure skating isn't overly popular, you get a coach who has only done axels in their entire life and that's all you get.

They do make good blades, and they need to improve their consistency. Do you know HD is getting a new machine so their blades can be more consistent, the technology they are using now is very old. Obviously HD is aware of the consistency issue but it seems very hard for hardcore fans to accept and critics.

It's not my coach, I no longer need one and haven't for years. As I stated before and you seem to be missing the point of: I am an elite skater turned professional. AKA a skater you would or would have seen on television or at competitions/shows.

I learned how to do it and I know many other skaters in many other countries across the globe that have learned how to do it as well, and their techs. It can be learned, just simply ask to learn how. Also, blade reps do come around to countries and would teach you as well, that is who I learned from.
 

rianataylor

Spectator
Joined
Mar 9, 2020
From my limited experience Parabolic's should make edges easier to hold, not make you slip.
99% sure defective blade or bad mount.
Just curious how are you finding loop jumps? Loop is the one which tends to slip for many skaters, so if you are good with loop jumps right now (or at least before the lockdown) then that may indicate that 1 Blade is faulty and 1 is good, or maybe 1 is mounted incorrectly. Any Chance you can post pictures of birdseye of both blades side-by-side with boots directly next to each other for comparison?

Loops were about the same as my sals, slippy and hard to take off/ land. Not really sure what you can tell from this picture but I'll take different angles if that will help.

7f4528a7cda349e556a8a3fe156d4f73.jpg



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rianataylor

Spectator
Joined
Mar 9, 2020
It's not my coach, I no longer need one and haven't for years. As I stated before and you seem to be missing the point of: I am an elite skater turned professional. AKA a skater you would or would have seen on television or at competitions/shows.

I learned how to do it and I know many other skaters in many other countries across the globe that have learned how to do it as well, and their techs. It can be learned, just simply ask to learn how. Also, blade reps do come around to countries and would teach you as well, that is who I learned from.

I don't think anyone was doubting your knowledge on this. We understand that you were an elite at some point and that you know about things like this but I think they were trying to say not everyone can learn about proper blade mounting/ installation or cant get to someone that can teach them properly without going to bigger competitions such as nationals or places that JW or MK techs frequent. I would love to learn how to judge if my blade is off in some way and be able to fix it myself without having to drive 3 hours to my tech, but I don't have that experience yet. Hence the reason why I asked on this forum for advice.


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Ic3Rabbit

Former Elite, now Pro. ⛸️
Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 9, 2017
Country
Olympics
I don't think anyone was doubting your knowledge on this. We understand that you were an elite at some point and that you know about things like this but I think they were trying to say not everyone can learn about proper blade mounting/ installation or cant get to someone that can teach them properly without going to bigger competitions such as nationals or places that JW or MK techs frequent. I would love to learn how to judge if my blade is off in some way and be able to fix it myself without having to drive 3 hours to my tech, but I don't have that experience yet. Hence the reason why I asked on this forum for advice.


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My point was completely missed, as was the help I was giving. I'm out.
 

tstop4me

Final Flight
Joined
Oct 2, 2015
Country
United-States
No data, just going on what general consensus is.
But john wilson and Mk are both owned by hdsports. Have never heard of any world champions who didnt wear either of those blades, andjohn wilson tends to be predominantly used by most world competitors.

The fact that many top competitors wear Wilson blades only shows that Wilson is capable of making high-performing and reliable blades. It does not, however, necessarily show a high degree of quality control. Top competitors will have access to top coaches and top techs (as well as specialized knowledge of their own in many cases), allowing them to screen their blades to accept properly made units and to reject improperly made units.

What remains unknown is the variability of the blades produced by Wilson or any other blade manufacturer; that can only be established by field data. I’m not aware of any such field data. So "general consensus" is tantamount to naked assertion. Anecdotally, two top techs in my region claim they find more consistency in Paramount, Ultima, and Eclipse than in Wilson and MK. So these techs would not agree with your general consensus. But neither of them keep a detailed log either; so their anecdotal reports are not tantamount to statistically significant evidence either.
 

1111bm

Final Flight
Joined
Dec 31, 2016
...only shows that Wilson is capable of making high-performing and reliable blades. It does not, however, necessarily show a high degree of quality control. [...] Anecdotally, two top techs in my region claim they find more consistency in Paramount, Ultima, and Eclipse than in Wilson and MK...

Adding more anecdotal 'evidence': our local sharpener who's also selling boots & blades has said the same thing about MK and Wilson, while praising the consistency and precision of Ultima. He does however get very excited at the very good craftsmanship and steal quality of my Gold Seals each time he gets to sharpen them. :laugh:
So there you go, exactly what you just wrote.
 

kolyadafan2002

Fan of Kolyada
Final Flight
Joined
Jun 6, 2019
The fact that many top competitors wear Wilson blades only shows that Wilson is capable of making high-performing and reliable blades. It does not, however, necessarily show a high degree of quality control. Top competitors will have access to top coaches and top techs (as well as specialized knowledge of their own in many cases), allowing them to screen their blades to accept properly made units and to reject improperly made units.

What remains unknown is the variability of the blades produced by Wilson or any other blade manufacturer; that can only be established by field data. I’m not aware of any such field data. So "general consensus" is tantamount to naked assertion. Anecdotally, two top techs in my region claim they find more consistency in Paramount, Ultima, and Eclipse than in Wilson and MK. So these techs would not agree with your general consensus. But neither of them keep a detailed log either; so their anecdotal reports are not tantamount to statistically significant evidence either.

Everybody at our rink uses john wilson. Never had a single issue with blades here. This includes hundreds of skaters who have all had multiple pairs of John wilson blades.
 

1111bm

Final Flight
Joined
Dec 31, 2016
Everybody at our rink uses john wilson. Never had a single issue with blades here. This includes hundreds of skaters who have all had multiple pairs of John wilson blades.

But would you know, if these skaters went to buy their blades and the tech had noticed that the blades were faulty during mounting? And didn't even tell the skater, just sorted them out and grabbed another pair? Or they noticed it together, during the mounting and adjusting process, and replaced the blades right away with a different pair? How likely is it, that skaters would mention this when simply chatting with each other? :shrug:

Also in my experience, people tend to be very brand-biased. If it's a popular, reputable brand consumers are usually quicker to dismiss or forgive quality issues. Likewise they are more likely to remember or be aware of any issues they had with a brand, that they didn't expect to be good in the first place (because it's cheap or whatever).
But I realise I'm pretty off-topic now, so I'll stop here. ;)
 

tstop4me

Final Flight
Joined
Oct 2, 2015
Country
United-States
Everybody at our rink uses john wilson. Never had a single issue with blades here. This includes hundreds of skaters who have all had multiple pairs of John wilson blades.
You would have support for these assertions if one of the following is true:

(1) You are a skate tech. Every skater at your rink purchases their blades from you. You have first hand knowledge that every skater at your rink skates with Wilson blades. You have first hand knowledge that you never had problems with any Wilson blade as received. You have first hand knowledge that no skater ever had an issue with any Wilson blade upon skating.

(2) You or someone else at your rink polled every skater at your rink and polled every tech who sold blades to the skaters. The results of the polls showed that (a) every skater skates with Wilson blades*, (b) no tech reported issues with any Wilson blade as received, and (c) no skater reported issues with any Wilson blade upon skating.

*Alternatively here, you examined the blade of every skater and determined they were all Wilsons.


So which of the above is true?
 

kolyadafan2002

Fan of Kolyada
Final Flight
Joined
Jun 6, 2019
You would have support for these assertions if one of the following is true:

(1) You are a skate tech. Every skater at your rink purchases their blades from you. You have first hand knowledge that every skater at your rink skates with Wilson blades. You have first hand knowledge that you never had problems with any Wilson blade as received. You have first hand knowledge that no skater ever had an issue with any Wilson blade upon skating.

(2) You or someone else at your rink polled every skater at your rink and polled every tech who sold blades to the skaters. The results of the polls showed that (a) every skater skates with Wilson blades*, (b) no tech reported issues with any Wilson blade as received, and (c) no skater reported issues with any Wilson blade upon skating.

*Alternatively here, you examined the blade of every skater and determined they were all Wilsons.


So which of the above is true?

We have an academy, and the coaches always choose the same blades for everybody depending on the level they are at. It would be found it pretty quickly if somebody had an issue. We have one blade tech, who is a coach. There are I think a total of 5 people using other blades, and every other person pretty much uses John wilson blades.

I am not counting in this learn to skate, or adult skaters as not enough data, but just the general skaters in the academy.
The coaches always choose John wilson when skaters get new blades and boots. And except for most people, it always goes down the coronation ace -> gold seal root except for adults who more often than not get 99s. And whenever anybody has an issue with anything related to boots etc it is often well known to everybody due to the parents talking about it.
 

1111bm

Final Flight
Joined
Dec 31, 2016
Curious why adult skaters more often get Pattern 99s over Gold Seals?

Do they? In my hometown most use intermediate blades, mainly MK Pros.

Coro Aces are not popular at all it seems, or rather it's not something that gets recommended to them in our shop. And since the majority of adult skaters in my area don't know anything at all about the different types of blades, they rely on what they're being told in the shop.

There's also quite a few that skate on Ultima, either regular or Matrix.

As to Gold Seals vs. P99s, I wrote about this in another thread not that long ago. Gold Seals have that very pronounced spin rocker and that might throw off some people, or feel less stable on jump landings? So it's possible that some skaters do not like that and/or are not willing to invest the time to get used to it (or they assume they never will). It took me 2-3 weeks until I didn't notice it anymore (but my old blades were totally flat, so I was in for a big change either way I guess, this was just the most extreme I could go).
Out of the three people I know of in my area, that have also skated on Gold Seals (two adults and one 11-year old) only one has stuck with them, the other ones hated the spin rocker. :shrug:

Apart from that, there's also a price difference between the two blades, and P99s are cheaper I believe? So that might also play a part in it.
 

kolyadafan2002

Fan of Kolyada
Final Flight
Joined
Jun 6, 2019
Do they? In my hometown most use intermediate blades, mainly MK Pros.

Coro Aces are not popular at all it seems, or rather it's not something that gets recommended to them in our shop. And since the majority of adult skaters in my area don't know anything at all about the different types of blades, they rely on what they're being told in the shop.

There's also quite a few that skate on Ultima, either regular or Matrix.

As to Gold Seals vs. P99s, I wrote about this in another thread not that long ago. Gold Seals have that very pronounced spin rocker and that might throw off some people, or feel less stable on jump landings? So it's possible that some skaters do not like that and/or are not willing to invest the time to get used to it (or they assume they never will). It took me 2-3 weeks until I didn't notice it anymore (but my old blades were totally flat, so I was in for a big change either way I guess, this was just the most extreme I could go).
Out of the three people I know of in my area, that have also skated on Gold Seals (two adults and one 11-year old) only one has stuck with them, the other ones hated the spin rocker. :shrug:

Apart from that, there's also a price difference between the two blades, and P99s are cheaper I believe? So that might also play a part in it.

Also , in risk of potentially throwing more confusion there are more adults who have revolution blades than younger skaters, so almost everybody up to senior has regular gold seal (with younger skaters having coronation ace), and many of the adults have revolution blades (p99 revolution more often than not) - I'm not saying more than 50% adults wear revolution, but there are a much greater quantity than those who are competing in novice - senior.
 
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