The laces that came with my skates are not long enough for me to lace all the way to the top hook and still be able to tie them. Right now I lace to the hook before that and have enough to make a teeny bow.

I took them out, and measured and they are 100" laces.

Now, when I buy new laces, do I buy 108" or 112"? I know this is not rocket science, but I'm not really sure how I should go about guessing on this one. I really don't want to have to tuck a lot of extra lace into my ankles, but I want enough that I can get them all the way to the top and tie them!

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-Jessi
What I need is a montage...
Visit my skating journal or my Youtube videos (updated with 2 new videos Sept 26, 2009)

I would think 4" more on each side would be enough; plus, the laces will stretch some as you wear them, so IMO, get 108".

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Can't believe that laces which came with your boots were too short. I seem to encounter the opposite problem. Sorry to hijack, but I'd like to know what others do when their laces are too long?

There's a kid at skate school who always asks me to help with her laces, and there is so much left over that it is a struggle to find a way to use it all.

I have seen some weird and wonderful ways of winding laces down the hooks to use up the excess lace. I took to mine with the scissors in the end and wrapped the raw end in sticky tape (which doesn't last long, unfortunately). Bonus spin off from cutting them is that I don't have as much wear and tear on my fingers from all the tightening/re-tightening.

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Karen

I skate - therefore I am

I like my laces long - I usually get 112 or 116. I wear footless tights, but pulled down over the heel, so I don't worry about extra length flapping about. I've also cut horizontal strips from old tights and used them as "headband" over my laces. For competition, I tie the bows just large enough so they fit over the top and bottom hook, then I tuck the ends down the front of my boot. Like this: http://www.gg.caltech.edu/~jeff/images/Kristi.jpg

To prevent them from coming out of the holes, I put small knots at the ends of the laces right before the plastic bit. If you put a little dab of elmer's glue in the middle of the loosely tied knot, then pull it tight, it'll keep it knotted pretty securely.

If you do have a lace that comes out and won't go back in normally, use a bobby pin to put it back in the hole: Slide the lace into the bobby pin, and fold the lace in half and put the bobby pin in first, pulling the lace behind it.

After you tie your laces, you end up with a bow, right? The bow has two loops of course, plus two ends of the laces sticking out. If the lace is very long, then make the bow very big. The two loops of the bow will be big ones. So then, just treat each big loop (EACH of them) as 1 single piece of lace. Then just tie the two loops together 'lightly' with a very simple reef or granny knot. Each time you tie a reef knot with the two loops, the length of the loops will shorten. So just keep tying more and more reef knots until the loops become as short as you want. You will end up with a SINGLE stubby 'plait' made up of a whole bunch of reef knots on top of each other. Then you can probably use something to cover that 'plait'.

oh yeah... a reef knot is that knot you always tie FIRST when you tie shoe laces.

Pull the extra that you don't want all the way down to the toe end. Tie a neat liitle knot, snip off the extra and now they're the perfect length.

Hijack away- I got my answer.

I think the reason they are too short is I have to buy "kids" skates because my feet are so small- but since they are wide, and the boots are not (I really have to find somewhere to stretch them) I don't pull the bottom part of the laces very tight like I did with my old boots.

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-Jessi
What I need is a montage...
Visit my skating journal or my Youtube videos (updated with 2 new videos Sept 26, 2009)

Correction on the type of knot I meant before. I said reef knot, but what I meant was 'overhand knot'.... like this one.

http://www.fieggen.com/dont_link/OverhandKnotA.gif

So what I meant was. Take the two loops of the bow, such as in this picture ...
http://www.fieggen.com/dont_link/BalancedKnot.jpg

... and then keep tying overhand knots with the loops until the loops are real short. That method from russiet is a nice one if you don't mind snipping your laces.

Heck yeah, that makes the most sense to me. I would just be worried that I made the know secure enough. But yeah, gets around the raw edge problem.

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Karen

I skate - therefore I am

Add one small drop of super glue. Clear nail polish might be handier for a lot of you & probably will work just fine.

The knot will never come out then.