Speed Skates

[Barry P]

Solomon makes a skate blade on which you mount a standard cross-country ski binding. These make skate ski boots into speedskates. Gear West is out of them right now due to the high demand. According to the folks at Gear West, they are better than speedskates for lake skiing because they smooth out the bumps a bit.

http://store.yahoo.com/gear-west/nordicskates.html

Has anyone tried these?

[Tighe]

These look interesting. There was a site that had these and others posted awhile back. My only concern would be not having your heel locked down. The boots are by far, more comfortable.

let me know if you try them.

tighe

[Coach]

Someone let me/the-rest-of-us know where to get them, if you've seen them in stock somewhere. I want a pair!

My X-C stuff has been sitting idle for way to long now, I might as well use the boots for something.

-Coach

[Tom]

There are plenty of different skate models like that where the foot is locked in the back too. I haven't seen them here yet but you can buy them anywhere in Sweden, so I would think you could find them online.
for some of them you can use a regular boot and strap that into the skate.
Let me know if anyone wants me to check into buying these online!
/Tom

[Tom L]

Has anyone tried kiting on any type of speed skates yet??

Hockey skates are kind of squirrely because thats what they are meant to do, turn quickly. I would think that speed skates would be a definite improvement. More edge and more stable.

[steveb]

I know Steve Hendrickson has a pair, he's mentioned in passing he loves them. Steve where are you? give us a response.
Additionally Dave Weinke machined two huge ( 6 inches high) ice blades which he attaches to a regular ski boot he uses them with his Skimbat style gismo and flys through the crud and over ice.
Unfortunately I don't know if these guys look at the chat to give us info.

[Don S]

The Nordic skates are availale at http://www.nordicskater.com/

I talked to someone wearing them at Calhoun yesterday. He said they work really well on rough ice and hard snow covered ice as well.