Synthetic ice?

Question

if your ice skating on it how does it feel the same as normal ice or different? and what is it really is it like plastic ice?

Answer 1

I haven't skated on it myself, but have heard things from people who have.

Apparently it feels less responsive and more sluggish than ice.  The plastic is covered with some oily silicon lubricant stuff which can get on you if you fall.

And apparently it blunts your blades really quickly.  Like, in an hour instead of the 30 hours or so equivalent on ice!!

Answer 2

It's actually acrylic, I think. I haven't skate on them before but from what I've heard, it shortens your skate sharpening life by half. If you used to need sharpenings every 20 hours, you need them every 10 hours.

Also, they are harder to skate on. The theory of ice skating is that you move because when you push, there is a force generated to move you forward. At the same time, the ice melts a bit because of friction, thus easier to move. On synthetic ice, however, it only uses half of that theory! So more force is required.

If you spin, you notice that unless your technique is impeccable, you will have problem centering them.

On synthetic ice, they use this lubricant across the plates of synthetic ice. So when you fall, this lubricant gets onto you. However, there is this new method that they apply onto the blades you have, so that the "rink" doesn't get dirty. (When dust and dirt fall, the lubricant makes them stick if the whole surface has lubricant). One disadvantage is that the lubricant has to be applied every now and then.

The good thing that comes out of this is that once you get back onto real ice, you skate a lot faster, spin much better.

Answer 3

hhaha well its just a lot slipperier

Answer 4

I find fake ice a lot harder to skate on mainly because it is so "plasticky" and non-slippy and you can't glide well at all.

Yes, a synthetic ice rink is made up of layers of a type of plastic called polyethyline fit together in panels like a jigsaw. On top there is a thin film of grease to make it slightly slippy. Not nearly as good as real ice but fake ice skating is still quite good fun!