Fred Bartick, a Minnesota-based (Bloomington, MN) skate technician with over 35 years of experience, continues his discussion of boots and blades with a short discussion of toe picks. (See Part 1 of the series here and Part 2 of the series here and Part 3 of the series here and Part 4 of the series here and Part 5 of the series here and Part 6 of the series here and Part 7 here and Part 8 here.)
There are a wide variety of toe pick designs on the market today, but little if any research has been done to support these design variations. As Fred notes, the most important difference is toe pick size, as beginner skaters benefit from smaller toe picks so they don’t continuously trip over them. Advanced skaters need larger toe picks to provide the necessary anchoring for athletic jumping involving speed and flow and quickness.
Fred explains that some toe pick designs include “cross-cut” picks, designed to create more “points of contact” with the ice, but again, little if any reliable scientific data exists to support their use. Slow motion analysis of the picking action of a typical triple jump at high speed shows the entire pick or lowest teeth of the pick fully embedded in the ice, and not resting on only the points of contact at the ends of the pick teeth. Analyzing pick marks left on the ice also indicates that the pick interaction with the ice typically involves high forces with little need for “subtle” pick design details. Most toe pick design variations appear to be largely artistic, based on unproven theories, or simply an accepted feature of legacy designs.
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