Anatomy of skate liners
The liner is the essential part that determines the comfort, the precision and the quality of your skating. It may be made of leather, foam, or other more technological materials. It may be thermoformable or more classic, integrated or removable. Each characteristic influences the whole. Focus...
Par alfathor
Description
It wraps around the foot and ensures the comfort of the skate. It is generally made of several layers of foam or fabric, even leather for speed skating boots.
It also has reinforcements and airing to optimize the foot’s comfort. Its role is to support the foot and limit the lateral and longitudinal shifts of the foot. When it is removable, it enables to protect the foot from being in contact with the boot.
Removable liners
As their name indicates, they are independant from the boot and can be removed after use. They are thus very easy to clean and maintain. For example the liner of the ‘CI 5’ on the right is removable.
Most fitness skate models have a removable liner today. It enables to maintain them more easily in taking them off the rigid boot that is poorly aired.
Integrated liners
There are two types of integrated liners on the market:
- The liners that are totally integrated to the boot, just like in speed skating for example: the leather of the liner is directly glued on the carbon boot for more precision. It is also the case in roller hockey, rink hockey and artistic skating.
- The liners are partly connected to the boot as it is the case for the semi-rigid boots. For those types of skates, the liners can be partly stitched to the boot.
In both cases, it gets harder to clean and maintain!
Useful links
The manufacturing processes of skate frames
Anatomy of an inline skate boot
How are made rink-hockey skates?
Speed Skating: The age of made-to-measure boots?
The trade secrets of skate boots
Translation: Chloé Seyres
Photo: Alfathor
