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#1
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making inline skates slower (and wetter)
I just put a full set of "Continental all season" 80 mm wheels from K2 on my
inline skates. The package says they're made of rubber. Are there other rubber wheels for inline skates? (especially around 78 mm or larger, like on many racing and "fitness" skates nowadays) I immediately noticed that my skates felt a little slower, this was confirmed in a side-by-side downhill test with Sharon on normal polyurethane wheels. They definitely stop my faster doing a drag-the-blade style stop. But not so slow as my Jenex V2 830 rollerskis -- which also have rubber wheels, I think -- one of the slower skate rollerskis available. So these K2 Continental wheels make my skates more snow-like in resistance. It rained today, so I also got the chance to try out some other characteristics of rubber. If it's good for more car, and good for my bicycle, why not my skates? Wet pavement performance: Well those K2 Continental wheels gave me rather good traction or "edge grip" on fully wet pavement, even climbing up a steep hill (about 10% grade). There were a very few spots on smoother wet pavement where they skidded a couple of times out in the far range of my push motion, but on at least 99% of my push-strokes they were just fine. (I compare that with using my normal polyurethane wheels climbing a wet hill a couple of weeks ago -- the wheels skidded out so easily that I could not apply full force or range of motion in my skating -- so I just gave up and switched to rubber-wheel rollerskis.) I went back inside, got on the web, and ordered a bunch more for Sharon. Ken P.S. Then I went back out in the light rain and skated some more. And I got this sudden urge to see if I could learn "double push". And to my great surprise, after half an hour out in the rain on rubber wheels, I was doing something that looked and felt sorta like the videos and descriptions I've seen of the "double push" technique. Now the process can only accelerate -- the thorough corruption of my technique by my inline skating. |
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#3
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making inline skates slower (and wetter)
Yes I'm rather intrigued with the idea of my next inline skate having 100 mm
wheels -- just like you say, so they'll roll over irregularities better. Today I did a workout on dry pavement of both skating and double-poling on inline skates with _all_ wheels rubber. Definitely slower than polyurethane -- surely a better simulation of on-snow speeds. I liked the feel. Now with these rubber wheels I think I'll be raising the percentage of my training done on inlines. Once Continental starts making rubber wheels in the 100 mm size, we can try to figure out why a rollerski with rubber 125 mm wheels is so much better at simulating skiing than a race inline skate with rubber 100 mm wheels. Speaking of accurate simulation of skiing, seems that my Salomon TR Mag Elite inline skates are a better simulation of _weight_ in snow skiing than some popular rollerskis. How many Aero skiers have compared the weight of an Aero rollerski with binding to the weight of a race ski with binding? Ken |
#4
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making inline skates slower (and wetter)
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