Ermine A110 vs. Ak1

June 1, 2026

Why we said goodbye to our A110 Nordic skate and launched the new and improved Ak1

In 2021, Ermine launched the first Nordic skate ever made in North America, our A100 ‘Alaska Skate.’ The stout, stiff, and colorful A100 was a success, and the next season we replaced it with the A110. The biggest change from the A100 to the A110 was the binding mounting pattern — I wanted Ermine’s A Series skates to add compatibility with Xplore. The A110 also did well (and for a time it was the only option for Nordic skaters on Xplore!) but after a couple more seasons it was clear that once again we needed to make a change. We’d learned a lot since our founding, both in terms of manufacturing and how our product was being used. This time, a minor update wouldn’t do: the A Series needed a redesign from the ice up.

The Ak1 represented our first major product overhaul, and the redesign process was very exciting. This was a opportunity to adjust and improve every aspect of our core product, and make our new A Series skate an even more reliable, capable, and fun adventure partner.

The Blade

The most important part of a Nordic skate is the blade. In fact, it’s almost fair to say that everything else on a skate is just a glorified connector. While a good blade won’t necessarily make for a good skate, a skate with a poor blade is guaranteed to be a bummer.

A Nordic skate blade’s ability to resist wear primarily comes down to two properties: hardness (i.e., edge retention) and toughness (i.e., ability to resist chipping). As a general principle, these properties are in tension with one another. Increase hardness and you decrease toughness; increase toughness, and you decrease hardness. For the types of stainless steels used in Nordic skate blades, this balance is generally set by varying the amount of carbon in the steel. Higher carbon content = higher hardness, and vice versa.

Our original A100 was optimized for “adventure skating,” which often involves skating in challenging environments with rocks, sticks, silt, and other debris. It was important to us to spec our A Series skate with a blade that would resist damage, even if that meant a bit of compromise with edge retention. We settled on 440A, a workhorse stainless steel often used in surgical tools, kitchen knives, and other quality cutting implements. While a bit softer than some other Nordic skate steels, our view was that 440A would make up for it in increased toughness.

A100 Nordic skates blasting through frosty foliage on the Palmer Hay Flats

Four seasons of experience with the A100 and A110 showed that we were largely correct. Our A Series skates did very well resisting chipping and other damage. 440A blades did a great job with corrosion and were pleasant to sharpen, too. However, over time we came to believe that our customers simply wanted more emphasis placed on edge retention. Most people can’t feel a chip or two on their blades — but everyone notices when their skates are dull.

We didn’t need to change things up completely as much as lightly put our fingers on the scale. After extensive research and work with our steel suppliers, we decided to spec the Ak1 with 440C from a high-end, reputable supplier. By using 440C we gave up a little bit of toughness, but in exchange got a significant amount of hardness and edge retention. The 1.62mm 440C blades on our Ak1 could still be thrashed through the grasses at Twentymile and stomped through silt at Rabbit Slough, but now they were finishing the day with more bite, and needed substantially less time between sharpenings.

Extrusion, frame, and machining

All Nordic skates on the market today use frames that are machined out of extruded aluminum. Aluminum extrusion is created by pushing heated aluminum through a die, producing long “sticks” with a consistent profile down their lengths. To make Nordic skates, these sticks are cut down into smaller pieces and the tip, tail, blade slot, and fastener holes are machined into each piece. Once the machining is done, we now have a fully functional (if unfinished) Nordic skate frame.

The extrusion that Ermine spec’d for the A100 and A110 was designed to be stiff and durable, as well as provide excellent support for both the blades. The extrusion profile had served us well, but I still felt that there was room for improvement. The A100 and A110 extrusion had sharper corners than was optimal from an engineering standpoint, and I wanted to redesign the area between the pins and the skate decks to transfer forces more effectively.

The Ak1 used a completely new extrusion profile. We rounded corners to better distribute mechanical stress, tweaked the location of the pins, and adjusted the thickness of the ‘neck’ between the deck and pins. The result was a sleeker, better-engineered, and higher-performing extrusion without any weight penalty.

Even more importantly, Ermine completely changed the machining and manufacturing process used on the frames. Accurately cutting blade slots is a difficult task, and we worked hard with our new machine shop partner to develop a system that would reduce problems with this step. The result was an across-the-board increase in the machining quality on our Nordic skates. This was a case where solving one problem led not only to fixing the problem, but also a wide range of other improvements.

Pinning

From the very beginning, I wanted the blades on Ermine’s skates to be securely attached to the frames with robust mechanical pins. I’d seen blade pullouts on Nordic skates that used glues, pressure, or inadequate pins to attach blades, and I didn’t want our go-anywhere, skate-anything Nordic skate to suffer the same fate.

Our A100 and A110 Nordic skates used ‘slotted’ spring pins, which are shaped like a ‘C’ in which the ends almost meet. We’d never had any reports of spring pin failure, but I still wanted to revisit every aspect of the skate’s design and make improvements where possible. After consulting with a top US-based spring pin manufacturer, I decided to spec spiral pins on the Ak1 instead. Spiral pins can bear heavier loads and have a longer service life, and the additional expense was manageable. As an added (if very minor) bonus, the ‘꩜’ shape just looked cool.

Ermine was the first company to spec spiral pins on a Nordic skate. I’m proud of this design decision because it exemplifies the belief that we should make the best product we possibly can, even when customers aren’t driving demand for a certain feature or improvement.

Spiral spring pins on the Ak1. The Ak1 was the first Nordic skate to use spiral (rather than slotted) pins.

Mounting pattern

The binding mounting pattern that Ermine developed for the A110 was the first to accommodate Rottefella’s new-at-the-time Xplore binding. While this was an important milestone and something that we were excited about, a side effect was a reduction in the usable mounting positions for other binding types. Ultimately, this meant we sometimes had to mount NNN and NNN BC bindings farther forward or back on the skate than we preferred.

For the Ak1, we decided to effectively “fork” our A Series line into five versions: the standard Ak1 for NNN and NNN BC bindings, the Ak1 X for Xplore, the Ak1 Alpine (drilled) for Dynafit Speed Radical alpine touring bindings, and the Ak1 Alpine (undrilled) for DIY drilling and installs. This created a lot of SKUs (a ‘SKU’ is a product code for each version of a product), but the ‘great SKU-splosion’ of 2025 meant that we no longer had to make compromises by trying to pack too many standards onto a single skate. Now, were able to get every major binding on the market positioned exactly where we wanted it.

There was an unexpected bonus with the new systems, too: mounting screws naturally centered in the holes as they were tightened. This was a nice improvement over the long slots in the A110, which required attentive install work to maintain alignment. The upshot of the new system was faster installs with perfect alignment.

The new and improved mounting system we designed for the Ak1 and its variants was such an integral part of our new skate that we decided to give it its own name: Salmonshark™. Salmonsharks resemble small great whites and are the most well-known shark in Alaska. I thought the rows of tightly-spaced holes in our new skates evoked the bite from this small but fierce predator.

The Ak1 used the standard Salmonshark mounting pattern, while the drilled version of the Ak1 Alpine used Salmonshark Alpine, the Xplore version used Salmonshark X, and our kids Nordic skate, Kit, used Salmonshark Jr.

Ak1 Nordic ice skates at Twentymile

Sizing

The A100 and A110 came in three sizes: 40cm, 45cm, and 50cm. While the overall range was good, the jump between sizes was larger than I’d liked. I felt that the 50cm size was slightly too long for such a burly (and therefore heavier) skate design, and from the beginning Ermine had been part of an industry trend toward shorter, more maneuverable skates too. On the other end of the size spectrum, I liked the small size of our 40cm skate but its blunter nose meant that it couldn’t ride over bumpy ice as easily.

For the Ak1, we moved to 42cm, 45cm, and 48cm sizes. The new 42cm size maintained the agility of the 40cm skate it replaced, but its longer nose significantly improved performance on uneven ice. Our 48cm size was a bit lighter and more maneuverable than the 50cm, while still being long enough for virtually any size boot. Our 45cm size remained the same. Coupled with the new Salmonshark binding mounting system, this tighter sizing system also created more overlap between different sized skates and made it easier to choose a skate size based on performance characteristics rather than boot size alone. The overall result of these changes was a more refined and versatile lineup of Nordic skates.

A110 vs. Ak1 Nordic skates: the bottom line

Ermine wasn’t founded just to make Nordic skates in Alaska. Rather, goals from the very beginning included making the highest-quality product we could, exploring new market categories, engaging and supporting the evolving Nordic skating community, and continuously improving our products.

The Ak1 represented a huge step forward for our core Nordic skate line. We made substantial improvements with the extrusion, machining, pinning, blade quality and design, sizing, and binding compatibility — not to mention a range of smaller technical improvements that would probably be tedious to go over. While the A110 remains near and dear to us (I still happily skate it from time to time), the Ak1 was a big step up and reflects all of those goals we had started with back in 2021.”

- Paxson Woelber has been a dedicated Nordic skater and advocate for wild ice skating since 2016. In 2021, he founded Ermine Skate, North America's first Nordic skate company. Today, Ermine offers a range of premium Nordic skates and Nordic skating products designed for wild ice.