Nordic Blades
Why Nordic Skates?
If you prefer ‘cross-country’ ice skating on frozen lakes and ponds, Nordic Skates are the obvious choice, because they are the ONLY skates specifically designed for recreational skating on outdoor natural ice. Outdoor ice isn’t always smooth and hard; it can be rough, bumpy, crusty, soft or snow-covered, and outdoor skates need to perform well in all those conditions. Furthermore, the boot portion of the skate needs to be well-insulated to keep your feet toasty in frigid temperatures. In contrast, conventional hockey, figure and so-called ‘recreational’ skates are designed for the climate-controlled air and smooth artificial ice of an indoor rink, where a Zamboni resurfaces the ice every hour on the hour.
Why the detachable boot and blade?
The Nordic Skate system is a marriage of convenience between cross-country ski boots and bindings on the one hand, and a specially-designed skate blade on the other. It’s a throwback to the early days of skating, when Henry David Thoreau and his contemporaries walked down to the ice in their winter boots and then strapped on a pair of steel blades to skate across Walden Pond. 150 years later, in the 1980s, visionaries in the Netherlands and Sweden discovered that the new XC skate-skiing boots, back-country boots and telemark boots had the ideal features for outdoor ice skating. At first, they designed their own bindings to attach the boots to a pair of long blades. But as XC binding technology steadily improved, they ditched their proprietary bindings and converted to the popular XC binding systems: NNN, NNN-BC and SNS.
How are the blades different?
Nordic blades are longer, and the blades are flat-ground instead of hollow-ground. This distributes your weight over a larger area, making them faster and more efficient - especially on soft ice, where they glide on top while shorter blades dig in. Even more important, Nordic blades have long, curved tips just like skis, so they can go over bumps and in and out of cracks without tripping you up. In contrast, hockey skates have blunt tips, and figure skates have toe picks, which are the ultimate safety hazard on outdoor ice.
What are the main advantages of the Nordic Skate system?
To summarize: Comfort, convenience, safety and speed.
Comfort: Cross-country ski boots are warmer and more comfortable than most other types of skates.
Convenience: Put on your boots at home, drive or walk to the ice, and clip on the blades when you step onto the ice. No need to expose fingers or toes to frigid temperatures!
Safety: Nordic skates are less prone to trip-and-fall hazards on imperfect ice - bumps, cracks, crusty patches.
Speed: More efficient than figure or hockey skates, Nordic blades glide on top of the ice, while other blades dig deep grooves, wasting precious energy.
Why the free heel?
The Nordic Skate system makes use of off-the-shelf Nordic ski boots and bindings, which are only attached at the toe. In terms of ice skating technique, there’s no advantage or disadvantage to a free heel. Having a single attachment point just makes it quicker and more convenient to clip your blades on and off. If your bindings are good quality and have a stiff-enough toe bumper (flexor), your boot and blade will behave as a single unit, which is what you want to achieve.
What about technique?
1. Set an edge. Nordic blades are flat-ground instead of hollow-ground, so you need to tilt your ankle slightly to the inside in order to control your direction.
2. Push to the side. Set the blade down, shift your entire weight onto it and push sideways.
3. Lengthen your stride. Keep pushing on that blade for as long as you can, until you feel like you’re about to lose your balance, before shifting your weight to the other leg.
4. Keep your feet level. Nordic blades stick out pretty far in front of your toes. If you lift your heel at the end of your stride, as many skaters do, when you set the blade down again you risk catching the tip in the ice and tripping over it. So lift your entire foot, not just your heel. And don’t lift it too high. An inch is plenty (unless you’re skating through deep snow).
5. More technique suggestions here.
What brands are good? How much do they cost? Are they worth the money?
Nordic blades typically cost $135 to $300 a pair, not including the bindings.
Here are the top brands, from the cheapest to the most expensive:
1. Isvidda (made in China)
2. Nordic Skater (made in the Netherlands)
3. Lundhags (made in Sweden)
4. Zandstra (made in the Netherlands)
5. Ermine (made in the USA)
6. Skyllermarks (made in Sweden)
You get what you pay for. The more expensive blades are made from harder steel, which holds an edge longer and needs less sharpening. Buy a more expensive blade and you’ll save money and/or time on sharpening. For example, on clean, dirt-free New England ice, Isvidda blades typically stay sharp for a year; Lundhags blades stay sharp for two years, and Zandstra blades can go up to five years before they need sharpening. But if you skate out west in Montana or Alaska, all bets are off, as dust and dirt blowing onto the ice from shore can dull your blades in a single outing. If you have to sharpen your blades after every use, harder steel doesn’t buy you much.
What length blades to get? And how many pairs?
The blade has to be long enough to accommodate the length of the XC ski binding and the length of your boot. And it has to be short enough to be maneuverable and not cumbersome.
Contrary to popular belief, longer blades are NOT faster, if you’re on good quality ice. They’re just better on bad ice. They’re more likely to bridge two bumps, where a shorter blade might land in the trough between the bumps. On soft ice they’ll glide on top when a shorter blade might sink in.
Here’s my recommendation if you want a single pair of all-purpose Nordic blades. These lengths work best on good quality ice - not too bumpy, soft or snow-covered.
5’1” and shorter: 40cm (15”)
5’2” to 5’8”: 45cm (17”)
5’9” to 6’3”: 50cm (19”)
6’4” and taller: 55cm (21”)
If you plan to skate in adverse conditions - bumpy, soft, and/or snow-covered - then get a second pair of blades 5cm (2”) longer than the lengths listed above. The longer blades will definitely improve your performance and enjoyment on poor quality ice.
Are all brands of Nordic Skates sized the same?
No. While most manufacturers (like Isvidda and Lundhags) measure the length of the aluminum platform, Zandstra measures the length of the steel blade, which is shorter than the platform. Thus Zandstra skates are about 2.5cm (1”) longer than the labeled length.
What kind of bindings, and where to mount them?
The bindings must match your boots, so pick out your boots first, and then get your blades set up with bindings to match. Your boot sole has a logo stamped into it that indicates which binding system matches up with it: NNN, NNN-BC or SNS.
I use manual bindings, which have rugged components that can withstand the stresses of skating. Step-in bindings sometimes get clogged with snow and can’t be cleaned out except by bringing them indoors into a warm place and thawing them out. Lastly, some step-in bindings only work when mounted on a cambered ski. If you mount them on a flat surface like a Nordic skate, the toe slot simply won’t open up wide enough to connect with your boot.
Make sure your bindings have stiff ‘flexors’ (toe bumpers) that are designed for skating. If you use a soft flexor, when you lift your foot at the end of your stride, the tail of your blade will hang down from the heel of your boot, dragging on the ice and slowing you down. You may also be able to accidentally twist your foot, causing damage to the boot and/or binding.
Positioning the binding front-to-rear can be tricky. Some blades have only a single mounting position per binding type, and these blades should be avoided because you may be forced to mount the bindings in a position that’s totally wrong for your boot size and skating style. Good-quality blades have at least three sets of pre-drilled mounting holes to choose from, and the best blades have mounting slots instead of individual holes, so you can fine-tune the binding position.
To find the correct mounting position, clip your boot into a binding, set it down on the blade, and notice where your boot sits relative to the driving part of the blade. (This is the section of blade that contacts the ice, not the part that curves up off the ice.)
If your boot is centered on the driving part of the blade, this is the ‘aggressive’ or ‘performance’ mounting position. Your blades will be more maneuverable on good ice, but less stable on bad ice.
If your boot is to the rear, this is a more ‘recreational’ position, which makes your blades less maneuverable, but more stable on bad ice. In Sweden some skaters place their boot heel directly over the tail of the blade; this is taking things to extremes. I prefer to have at least an inch of blade behind my heel.
If your boot is forward of the center, you’ll be totally unstable and you’ll trip and fall and get hurt. Move the bindings further back. If the mounting holes don’t allow it, you’ll need to switch to a different length, or a different brand of blade.
What about sharpening?
Your blades need to be sharp at the beginning of the season, when you’re likely to encounter the hardest, smoothest black ice. As the season progresses, soft gray ‘snow ice’ tends to dominate, and sharp blades are no longer necessary. So I just let my blades get duller and duller and I wait to sharpen them until the spring or summer to prepare for next season.
Whether you build a homemade jig or buy a top-of-the-line Zandstra, successful sharpening requires both blades to be sharpened together, and they must be precisely aligned both vertically and front-to-rear in the jig, in order to preserve not only the 90-degree edges but also the vertical curvature or ‘rocker’ that allows the blade to pivot around its midpoint when you change direction.
I use a Zandstra tabletop jig and a DMT 10-inch diamond stone. I keep the stone horizontal at all times, but instead of sliding it directly front to rear, I move it diagonally, taking a number of strokes from southwest to northeast and return, then an equal number of strokes southeast to northwest and return. This method evens out the wear on the surface of the stone, without adversely affecting the sharpened edges. As a final step I use a small pocket-sized stone to deburr the edges, taking several strokes front to rear only along each side of the blade.
Have more questions?
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