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Boots: spacing for frame mounts
By Gavin Thulien and Charles (Carl) Britney
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Arguably, the most important part of any skate is the boot .
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For a few years, the spacing of inline boots has been set at 6.5 inches or 165 millimeters. Not surprisingly, this is the same as is used for all short and long track ice - with one or two exceptions. Thus a skater could easily adapt from summer inline to winter ice with the same boot. As well, upgrades could be carried out by changing only one of the main components - i.e. a new frame for an existing boot or vice versa. Plus, for many, getting a properly fitted boot is not necessarily easy and the flexibility of the single spacing norm was a benefit.
With the rather sudden emergence of the larger wheeled frames, specifically the 4 by 100mm and some 4 by 90mm, a new 7.5-inch spacing has resulted. The rationale for this is to minimize the distance to the ground from the boot mounting points. As it turns out, a 7.5 inch spacing allows a lower mounting point for these new wheel frames than the earlier 6.5 inch spacing. Note that the mixed wheel frames (3x 90 + 1x 84 and 3x 100 + 1x 84) support the 6.5 spacing in most cases. For the 7.5-inch boot itself, the points at which the foot contacts the frame has moved essentially 1/2 inch outwardly both at the back and front.
If you are thinking of moving to these new frames (4 by 100mm and some 4 by 90mm) with the 7.5-inch spacing you should consider a few things first:
- Standard - Two 7.5 inch spacings are mentioned by different vendors (195mm and 190mm). Should this be the case there might be interchangeability problems between the frames of different manufacturers
- Boot Sizing - the increase in spacing may limit the available boot sizes to larger feet. Skaters with smaller feet may be shut out of this.
- Cost - Basically a new complete skate is required as both the frame and boot are new. There is no re-use of the existing 6.5-inch boot unless an adaptor is available.
- Technique – Due to the shift in contact points some differences may be noticed that require a different technique as the push points are altered.
- Training - Using the older skates (6.5) for training and the new (7.5) for events may be less attractive nor effective if the technique has to be modified.
- Ice - The 7.5 spacing will not work with current short and long track frames. This limits the 7.5 boots to inline skating uses on 4 by 100mm and some 4 by 90mm frames only, at this time.
The boot spacing is only one of a number of factors with the advent of the new large wheel skates. On its own, the new boot spacing appears to have limited application along with some additional costs. However, other points need to be addressed to get a complete picture.
Got Questions?
When we first got together to collaborate on this series of the Big Wheels Keep On Turning we had assumed that a short meeting to look at some different setups and check out a few Manufactures technical stats would generate a article or maybe two. Our first information-gathering meeting was expecting to be an hour. At the 4.5-hour mark we had spent a lot of time checking web sites measuring all of Zt Sports stock, reading through reams of Manufactures catalogues and we realized we had only scratched the surface as with each setup we checked out it brought up more questions. As we have tried to answer some of the questions we had we thought we would open up the form to questions that you might have had as you read through the series. So if you have questions about equipment or areas in the articles we have written or have specific items you wish addressed we have set up a special technical expert email account for this series.
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