FlexToe Review

[meaks17]

my first on ice session with flextoe one came unhooked...second on ice session on of the bungees broke and I had to go into the locker room and replace it with laces...good idea but turned out to be a waste of money for me

[chasewill]

I just ordered mine last week sometime and it was in my mailbox in like 4 days. Pretty quick turnaround! I had a problem putting them on my pads cuz I have Vapors and they don't have a toe bridge attached to the pad (just two SMALL holes in the pad itself that the lace goes through). After some drilling and a coat hanger experiment (which surprisingly worked very well!) I got them on. With my lace toe ties (which would fray and break after about 8 games cuz of it rubbing on the ridges of my skate boot), I found myself making my boot strap fairly tight on my skate to make the pads rotate how I wanted. With flex-toe however, I seem to need to make my boot strap loose to achieve what I want. At first I had the flex-toe hooks on about the 4th or 5th skate lace on my skate but found this to be too tight (compared to my normal lace toe tie slack as the flex-toe bungee cords are fairly short). So I switched to the very bottom skate lace and it was like magic. I really like the product so far (only played two games with it) as I just leave it attached to my skate lace (It's a b*tch threading the hooks through the front opening in my Labeda Chassis) and it cuts down on dressing room time and feels the same to me as my lace toe tie method. With a minor boot strap adjustment of course BTW, my 'regular' lace toe ties prolly had like 1-1 1/2 inches of slack.

[influenza]

Originally Posted by meaks17

my first on ice session with flextoe one came unhooked...second on ice session on of the bungees broke and I had to go into the locker room and replace it with laces...good idea but turned out to be a waste of money for me

i have a feeling you did not attach them correctly. i had one come unhooked after about 10 uses or so. just popped it off and back on in seconds. i think i didn't have the elastic part all the way to the end like the video stresses.

as for the bungee breaking? that's news mine still look brand new, i'm wondering what happened there, someone's skate may have caught it to weaken it.

[AVictor35]

Originally Posted by influenza

i have a feeling you did not attach them correctly. i had one come unhooked after about 10 uses or so. just popped it off and back on in seconds. i think i didn't have the elastic part all the way to the end like the video stresses.

as for the bungee breaking? that's news mine still look brand new, i'm wondering what happened there, someone's skate may have caught it to weaken it.

When it came undone the first time he could have skated on it himself and weakened it.

[influenza]

Originally Posted by AVictor35

When it came undone the first time he could have skated on it himself and weakened it.

That too!

[Danny99]

Quick question,
how does the flextoe relieve stress from your ankles, knees and hips?
do toe ties cause this and I just never noticed? I use about an inch toe tie slack.

[njt42]

Originally Posted by Danny99

Quick question,
how does the flextoe relieve stress from your ankles, knees and hips?
do toe ties cause this and I just never noticed? I use about an inch toe tie slack.

The flextoe makes it worse!!

[AVictor35]

Originally Posted by Danny99

Quick question,
how does the flextoe relieve stress from your ankles, knees and hips?
do toe ties cause this and I just never noticed? I use about an inch toe tie slack.

When you go down in a butterfly it allows your toes to touch the ice. If you have toe ties they will not let your toes do this and will make them parallel to the ice, causing a lot of stress (that is if you don't use much slack).

I am also not very proud to say that I just found out that one of the bungee cords in holding on by a string. I must have stepped on it when it fell off during my first and only ice session in these .

[njt42]

Originally Posted by AVictor35

When you go down in a butterfly it allows your toes to touch the ice. If you have toe ties they will not let your toes do this and will make them parallel to the ice, causing a lot of stress (that is if you don't use much slack).

I am also not very proud to say that I just found out that one of the bungee cords in holding on by a string. I must have stepped on it when it fell off during my first and only ice session in these .

Damn, these things are ****ing cheap.

[influenza]

Originally Posted by njt42

Damn, these things are ****ing cheap.

I think you may have installed wrong. I just realized a big mistake I had made. When inserting the band in to the clip I stopped at the tip that you can see. It had hit the top, but i just redid it and twisted the band and it slipped past and went in further to the top of hook (it's hollow). I thought I had done it right the first time, cause it hit the top, but infact when i twisted it found it's way deeper in to the clip.

[meaks17]

Originally Posted by influenza

as for the bungee breaking? that's news mine still look brand new, i'm wondering what happened there, someone's skate may have caught it to weaken it.

I think i figured out that problem...I don't have my gear at my house so I can't take a pic, but I have a pair of CCM 452 Tacks, it is metal up front so I think that may have caused the bungee to cut.

[njt42]

Originally Posted by meaks17

I think i figured out that problem...I don't have my gear at my house so I can't take a pic, but I have a pair of CCM 452 Tacks, it is metal up front so I think that may have caused the bungee to cut.

Time to upgrade those skates.

[AVictor35]

Originally Posted by njt42

Damn, these things are ****ing cheap.

They are not cheap, it just happened to come off and I stepped on it, so its not really the flextoes fault. I sent them an email regarding it and they responded almost immediately and said they will ship out a new one tomorrow morning. Great service!

[lowe]

FlexToe is a joke. I have worn them for three games now, i have v3's and the hooks will not stay on the lace. Not any of them. I even ran a lace around the skate just to hold the hooks and they would not stay on. I delayed our game 4 times tonight trying to get the damn things back on.

Its a good idea, but the hooks need to clasp the lace and not allow the lace to slip out.

Im going back to toe ties immediately. And i agree the flextoe is way to short, it offers no slack. the idea is not garbage, it just needs major improvements to be suitable for high level play where a lot of b-fly and b-fly sliding and push offs is required.

[jpatmac]

Here's another thought on the Flextoe...

I think I like them. I've played with them for about 5 or 6 games now.

I actually think that in my case they do what they are supposed to do. They seem to take pressure off of my ankles. Maybe my hips and kness, too, but I notice it the most in my ankles as I don't have the pain in them that I would sometimes have after games. I notice that I can play more often with less soreness. (That's important for a 38-year-old.)

Re: the hooks... I had one of the hooks come off only once and never even noticed it until I was taking the pads off after the game. Other than that, they've stayed put so long as I make sure that my laces are fairly tight to begin with. They will certainly pull on the laces and make more slack as you continue to play, so you need to be aware of that at the beginning.

Speaking of that, what I don't like about them is that they screw up the way I like to wear my skates. I tend to go pretty loose across the top of my foot and tighten my laces really only at the ankles and higher (the last two eyelets). This pulling on the toe area of the laces means that I need to keep things tighter across the whole skate. Not a huge deal, BUT I think they could come up with a better way of attaching them so they aren't constantly tugging at the laces.

I'd probably try to go with something that (A) wasn't plastic (though this might be the only realistic option), and (B) somehow hooked through the eyelets of the skate instead of the lace.

I don't think this product is really necessary, though. Before I used laces and I might have achieved a similar level of comfort by just adding a little more slack. Maybe, maybe not. However, I think I like having the combination of a relatively tight pad to my skate with the flexibility of a little bungee-slack only when I need it.

Not an "omg, I can't play without it!" product, but probably worth checking out. In my case, I'm glad I gave them a try and I think I'm going to keep them for a good while.