my skates have DEFINITELY seen better days. in a bit i'll go grab a picture of them for you guys. but in less than a week my new 1500HLS boots will be here. and i'm SO EXCITED!!

thank goodness these are getting replaced. you should see how awful my landings look because of how broken down they are.

Hee, hee. I will post pics of my Graf Galaxys when I have finished the bunion surgery. Right now they are pretty scary looking

__________________
Karen

I skate - therefore I am

AWWWW, c'mon, MSF!!! Let's see how much you've trashed your skates so far from all those jumps!!!

(You know I'm just pickin' on 'ya...)

__________________
Cheers,
jazzpants

11-04-2006: Shredded "Pre-Bronze FS for Life" Club Membership card!!!
Silver Moves is the next "Mission Impossible"
(Dare I try for Championship Adult Gold someday???)

Thank you for the support, you guys!!!

Aww, c'mon, post it now so we can see the "before" and "after" the plastic surgery...

Hahaha, I will take a picture of my skates (with blades)

__________________
Tim David's Website

They are ALL so nice! .. Sounds sick but I'm drooling over all of them!

It's the first place that this type of thread has been made - it's about time! lol

I wanna smell them, feel'em, hold'em,...:-)

Lady! You got AOSS BAD!!!!! LOL!!!

__________________
Cheers,
jazzpants

11-04-2006: Shredded "Pre-Bronze FS for Life" Club Membership card!!!
Silver Moves is the next "Mission Impossible"
(Dare I try for Championship Adult Gold someday???)

Thank you for the support, you guys!!!

I'm really voyeurish about boots and blades. If I can't tell what they are, I have no problem skating up to someone and asking what they're wearing. This just kind of seemed like a natural progression.

Okay, you asked it. I've taken some graphic pictures and will post them as soon as someone has to tell me how to insert pictures into my post.

__________________
Karen

I skate - therefore I am

Karen, you'll need to upload the pictures from your PC onto a free online hoster like photobucket etc.
I personally use http://www.imageshack.us/ - then it gives you a link. You will need to copy the link then edit your post and wherever you want to put the pictures you click on the icon below the -> looks like a picture of mountains with a yellow background - then post the link in the box that comes up. HTH!

Okay, thanks for that AW1, hope this works.

WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS IMAGES WHICH MAY BE DISTRESSING TO SOME VIEWERS ( especially any members of the Royal Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Ice Skates. )

These are my Graf Galaxy boots with 20+ years old Phantom blades.

They're pretty scary looking right now, although not so bad with the skate tape covering them. I peeled the tape back off one so you could see the surgery.

Remember that this is a transition phase. Once I am 100% sure I have them right, I intend to cap them with a leather patch lined with a gel bunion protector. If I can do a decent job of it they shouldn't look anywhere near as bad. If they still look lousy I can always wear boot covers.

[IMG][/IMG]

[IMG][/IMG]

__________________
Karen

I skate - therefore I am

Wow, they are some serious bunions!!

Jackson Elite Suede with Ultima Mirage Blades. 1 year 2 months old.

woahhHHHHH!! If you cut it with splits like that, the boot is going to split open, right? That's why they normally put stitches around the outlines of holes and things, to stop splitting.

not in a spot like that. If it was a high-stress area (where boot bends at ankle for jump landing or something) it'd be more of a worry.

A friend of mine did the exact same thing to her boots for bunions, without the patch to hide it. It worked, it wasn't pretty, but it worked. Then she got Klingbeils which were built with the bunion in mine, so no more need for slicing and dicing.

--Sara

As I say, this is a work in progress. The slits are only there until I get the comfort level right. Afterwards I will cut the slitted area off leaving a hole with rounded edges. Gel bunion protectors will be glued in from the inside and a white leather patch over the outside. This will help support the boot and it shouldn't split from that point.

I told you it wasn't pretty .....

__________________
Karen

I skate - therefore I am

Doesn't Riedell have something like that on their boots in the pinkie toe area, in the model with the cork bottom and lace lock things? They look like little vents.

Russiet, I can't believe the creases you have on yours! I don't have a crease at all and I've had these for almost one year! Might have something to do with them being too big for me

Here are mine, not too beat up:

__________________
Skate@Delaware
Ah, show skating!!! I do it for the glitter!

One thing that my insrtuctor has never had to ask me to do was to bend my knee more. I think that encouraged the creases.

The creases are nice in the outside cuff and the head-on view also shows how the cuffs now angle to the outside. I don't know how typical that is, but it seems to accommodate my slightly bowed legs.

Jon

Here are mine when they were only a couple weeks old:




They're much more broken in now - I'll try to take some current pictures later.

__________________
Casey Allen Shobe | http://casey.shobe.info
"What matters is not experience per se but 'effortful study'."
"At first, dreams seem impossible, then improbable, and eventually inevitable" ~ Christopher Reeve

Ok, here are my skates! They are Gam 400's with an Ultima Synchro blade. I got the boots at the end of May 2005 and the blades are from June 2004. The reason for the big white patch around the ankle...we spray or dye our boots beige for synchro. I tape my laces for competition in case they come undone or a hook breaks, and when I take the tape off it removes some of the spray. I could avoid this by preparing the leather more before I spray, but this way the paint is easier to get off if I ever want my skates white again. So before each competition, I just touch my skates up with a bottle of leather spray.





ETA: My skates in action: http://calaltasynchro.com/gallery/album16/MG_4418_A. I'm in the front row on the left.

__________________
~No thinking, breathing, or hesitation!~

Here are my skates. They are about 5 months old Harlick customs. I put skate-tape around the bottom to protect the most vulnerable areas. My blades are pattern 99 K-picks. I love my skates

[IMG][/IMG]

What did I do wrong? I have a link and not an image??

Use the "Insert Image" icon instead of the "Insert Link" icon. The "Insert Image" is the yellow box with what looks like a mountain in it, third to the right of the "Insert Link" icon.

__________________