How to adjust and/or change your roller skate toe stops

Tools for the job!

Using your toe stops is essential in derby and therefore should not be neglected. Between figuring out the correct length for your skating style and keeping them from falling off mid-practice, toe stops can be almost as confusing as choosing your first set of wheels.

Yesterday I received a new set of Gumballs, so I figured I’d share with you how I tech my toe stops while I’m changing them out. Please note that if you ask five different skaters on their chosen length, you will get five different answers. So the key is for YOU to keep a log whenever you adjust your tippy toes so you can track what works and what doesn’t.

My Current Toe Stop Settings

Photo by Rob Robinson https://www.facebook.com/robdotrob

It’s helpful to know your most common starting position when you are adjusting your stops because often one toe stop will be longer than the other based on what foot you put in front.

I usually start with my right foot in front. This is a photo of me about to go down into my starting stance. See how my left heel is naturally much higher than my right heel in my stance? My toe stops are different lengths to reflect this positioning.

At a gear session with Coach Pauly, he said a good starting point for your front skate is to have your back wheels the same height as four fingers when you are up on your toes. That is what my right skate is currently set at. My left skate sits higher, which means your toe stop will be adjusted closer to your skate compared to the right skate.

Have I confused you yet?

Long story short, the closer your toe stop is to your skate, the higher your heel will be when stand on your stops. You need to find your balance of where you are comfortable when you stand on your toes.

There are many ways to gauge and record your toe stops… do what works best for you!

Any of these ways works to measure your toe stop height

Cherri’s Toe Stops (prior to changing them)

RIGHT FOOT
4.5 cm from skate
9 threads from skate
4 fingers heel height

LEFT FOOT
4 cm from skate
8 thread from skate
More than 4 fingers heel height

Now that I’ve established my current settings, it’s time to change to a new brand of toe stops. My stats will change on the thread count because of the brand change, but I plan to keep the distance and heel height the same as my previous brand.

Removing Your Toe Stops

I don’t like the little wrenches that come with many skate tools. They just don’t offer enough torque to loosen and tighten my stops effectively. Plus I don’t want to strip the nut of the skate. I always carry a large wrench in my bag for this job. I find it works best.

Lefty loosey

Once your nuts are loose, unscrew the toe stop from your skate then remove the nut and washer from the toe stop. They will be a little gunky so I take this opportunity to clean them and I also wipe out inside the hole of the skate.

Paper towel works fine. I don't use water.

Screw your nut and washer on your new toe stop and position it further than necessary down the stem of the toe stop. Remember, the washer goes between the nut and the skate.

Then insert the toe stop into your skate and screw it in until the desired height is reached. If your nut gets in the way, position the nut further down the stem.

Check your height

Once you are happy with your toe stop height, finger-tighten the nut down to the base of the skate.

Get it as tight as you can with your fingers so it won't move when you tighten it fully.

Using your wrench, tighten your nut. If you have finger-tightened it enough, the toe stop shouldn’t rotate as your tighten. But if it happens you may need to hold the toe stop in position while you tighten so it doesn’t move.

Right tighty.

When tightening my toe stops, I really put my back into it. I hate having to keep checking them to make sure they aren’t getting loose. So I lay my skate on its side, put my foot on the toe of the skate and pull up as hard as I can with my wrench.

Heave-ho!

If you have toe protectors on your skate…

DO NOT place them in between your nut and skate. The leather becomes compressed over time and it will slide out. Then the extra slack between the skate and nut will make your toe stop come loose. I just let mine hang loose. I guess I could also cut them off since the rest of the cover is secured by tape. I just haven’t done it yet.

Leave the piece of leather out of your nuts. (hehe)

Last step: Remeasure and log your new toe stop settings

RIGHT FOOT
4.6 cm from skate
5 threads from skate
4 fingers heel height

LEFT FOOT
4.1 cm from skate
2 threads from skate
More than 4 fingers heel height

Hope this helps some of you tech your own toe stops!

All pretty and ready to be broken in!