(first post) i am getting back into skating please help

[handsum_Rob]

ok so here is the deal i am getting back in to skating. i used to skate quite a bit when i was really young i am 22 now and want to start fitness skating. and need some help deciding what skate to buy i want a really smooth skate that can handle ruff streets extremely well that is comfortable to wear for hours and balance has never been a problem for me and i would love a carbon shell if possible. i can't find a skate shop that has a decent selection but i like what i have read about the K2 moto extreme and the RB crossfire 8.0. Any help out there any one have these skates. or have any ideas at what i should look at. since i can't find a web site that is up to date on it's reviews of in line skates i want top notch stuff. cheap equipment is why i stopped skating at about 12. thanks for your help.

[Bill in Houston]

The k2 Moto is a nice skate. Look at the Radical 90 or 100 as well.

[handsum_Rob]

yeah i have the reason i am even thinkin about the rb carbon is because i fond them discounted to 165 and they sold for over 300 every where else. another question i have is what advantage does the moto extreme have over the moto 90. i realize the extreme has a hi low frame and 100mm to 90mm wheels but what advantage does that give it?

[Bill in Houston]

The hi-lo is supposed to roll better, but i think i would rather have a skate with all four wheels the same size so I could rotate them.

The rb carbon is probably a fine skate, but I haven't had my foot in a rollerblade in 14 years, so i can't really advise you much.

[handsum_Rob]

thanks for the help, i am not too worried about the rotation issue. i just want the best skate. any way i just found a pair of rollerblade lightning 2's but are they i have herd a lot about them are they worth a look, they keep in mind i am going to be using them on some rough pavement, are they to much of a race skate.

[BWI-Sheldon]

RB lightning marathon is a fine skate. I would worry about a HI-LO setup. Rotating wheels is a weekly chore for many skaters and can not be accomplished with different size wheels. Period.

[Jim White]

"Can not" sound a bit extreme. If you have two wheels the same size on each skate, that's 4 wheel positions on the frames, and 8 positions counting changing the outside edge to inside. So each wheel can be rotated to any of 7 other positions.

If there's only one wheel of a size on each frame, that's still 3 other positions to rotate to. And such frames usually have the odd wheel in position 2, which receives less wear than front or back, and thus needs rotation less.

Yes, HiLo does limit rotation options, but that may not be critical for someone who doesn't mind wheels being a bit unequal (they wear so all wheels are always touching the ground anyway), and/or is willing to get new wheels a little more often, as part of what it takes to have a good skate.

[BWI-Sheldon]

Example 90 90 100 100

The front of the skate wears faster because the new skater toe flick but the left goes faster beause he T stops alot.

Right skate goes down to 88 89 99 98
Left goes to 87 88 98 97

This is a typicle pattern as the front and rear wear faster for a lot of people.

Now what? Any situation will have some wear off the ground. I don't care about wear on one side, because they can be put in any way opposite wear, but how do you line this up and get a true flat line?

[zoraster]

Personally I would pass on the Lightning 2's. I have both the Lightning 10's (2005) and the Marathon Carbon TF (2007). The Lightning 2 was the 2006 model equivalent of the Lightning 10.

You mentioned you wanted a carbon shell, well these don't have one. Rollerblade decided for the 06 year to make the skate cheaper, so they cut out the carbon fiber, replaced it with plastic, gave you a less stiff frame, and gave you 90 mm wheels instead of 100mm. Then for 07 they realized their error and returned the skate to it's previous materials, back to carbon fiber which made the skate a bit lighter and stiffer.

I used these skates for just about everything. I even started racing on them. They worked just fine to start out with. After several races though they really started to lose their appeal. I have since retired them for racing due to their overall weight and lack of proper ankle support/fit.

These skates are not light. They are basically five pound weights attached to your feet. For a half marathon, the weight didn't bother me that much, but once I started doing longer distances I found the extra weight really tired me out.

The ankle support and fit isn't very good either. The padding in the boots are in all the wrong places. I found both skates to have too much padding in the toe box and on the upper cuff, but not enough padding in the ankle/heal area. This caused my heal to consistantly slide up and down. No matter how tight I put the ankle straps, my heal always would rise up. The extra weight exacerbated the problem more. Overall this bothered me a lot. I thought the ratchet ankle strap would help solve this problem in the 07 Marathon line, but it doesn't. The boot is too stiff for the strap to tighten the boot properly.

I still have both of these skates, but I rarely use them. I have since moved on to what I consider to be one of the best all round skates I have ever owned and that would the Bont Semi Race skate. These might be too much of a race skate for you though. They fall into a category between the Rec and Race skates, but much lighter and much faster than rec skates. I would highly recommend these skates if you are considering getting into racing or want to skate long distances. They work fine on rough pavement as well. Although I have yet to really have a skate that didn't work well on rough pavement. Any skate with big wheels seems to work fine on rough pavement.

I hope that helps a bit in your decision on the Lightnings. I don't know much about the crossfire models. I have a hard time getting past that stupid TFS lever on the back of the skate.

Scott

[Jim White]

Right skate goes down to 88 89 99 98
Left goes to 87 88 98 97

Rotate to 88 87 97 98
............. 89 88 98 99

[BWI-Sheldon]

#2 and 3 do not touch the ground.

I don't like it.

[Jim White]

All wheels would touch the ground because if there's only one mm difference between wheels, when you step on the ground, your weight compresses the wheel more than .5mm, which is the difference on the bottom (the other .5 is on the top. Just like when they were 88 89 99 98, all the wheels touched when skating. (If they didn't, the front and back wouldn't wear any more until the middle two wheels were worn down to be closer to the front and back. But we all know that the difference in wheels gets greater the longer they are used, and not rotated.)

I don't like it.

For sure, so you shouldn't use HiLo's. But people who do want them shouldn't be held back because of wheel rotation issues.