Advice on wheels!

I want to purchase some new wheels from Sin City but I'm really confused about which ones to get! Can anyone give me some advice?

Yeah, me too!

joker will be at practice tomorrow ask him

I have 6 spare 88A wheels if anyone wants to borrow some and try em out? They are slightly softer than the orange fugitive 'pusher' wheels a lot of folks have on the inside, but green.

Kitty recommended getting harder wheels generally - bc our floor is so grippy - to make it easier to plow and generally nip about on the track. She reckons we're having trouble bc our floor is so sticky. But I know we've still been getting slidey wheels on the corners - specially those cayman wheels that come on the Torqs and R3s. A few girls at Glasvegas asked Trish about them and she said they're just shit wheels.. So right now I have 6 hard (93A?) and one of the soft ones on each. Works okay so far on our floor, but when we trained at Bedford it kinda sucked bc I wasn't used to the hard wheels on the hard floor. It felt really slidey and I couldn't stay on the track on the corners. So I duno; maybe it's just a technique shortcoming on my part, or maybe you need different wheels for different surfaces, which is kind of a drag.

I got a set of hockey wheels.. I know Joker is really into them and so was Mikey, so I'm curious. I haven't had time to put them on yet, but when I do y'all are more than welcome to use the other hard wheels as well while I try em out. I have 7 of those bc one isn't round (yep, unbelievable but true). I kinda like the look of the hockey wheels for jamming bc they're so narrow, so if they work then the other wheels will be on sale for cheap to anyone who likes em

x x x

I bought some wheels for Gill, this are the ones that the woman recommended when I asked for wheel advice, for different skaters:

Sure-grip fugitives - for blockers. She said these are the most popular wheels overall. This is what I've got - green (which I think are the hardest) on the outside and orange pushers on the inside. (Sin City will sell you mixed sets). If anyone wants to try them out at the end of a practice they can (My skates are size 6, or you can swap them onto yours).

Radar Mojo - for blockers/jammers - faster than the fugitives, and narrower which is good for weaving, but not super slippy. They have aluminium hubs, which apparently is good for some reason, but I can't remember why. These where what she skated. Gill has these, but I don't know if she's used them yet.

She also recommended another fast wheel for jammers, but I can't remember which it was. Might have been the Radar Speed Ray.

She said that, while those grey swirly wheels you get in the Riedel packs were rubbish, the bearings were fine, so you don't need to buy new bearings if you've already got these (unless you want to keep them as outdoor wheels)

Sxx

Okay, I checked:

I have the green Radar Speed Ray wheels and they're 96A, almost as hard as you can get. They work well on our floor with the 88A on the inside. On other floors, I'll probably have to change to two soft ones on the inside (rather than one) to get enough grip.

Having all super-grippy wheels will make it hard to plow, especially on a grippy surface, and overall will slow you down.

I tried to change over to the hockey wheels and I couldn't get the bearings into the shitty plastic hubs!!

Your best bets would probably be to get a mixed set of fugitives - or get two sets of 8 wheels and then split them between two people? probably cheaper to do that and combine postage with Sin City.

Am I correct in saying that our floor is hard, so NOT GRIPPY which is why we need GRIPPY wheels.

nah, other way around!

Or floor is sticky/grippy - I think it's the polishing they do on it, rather than its hardness. So soft/grippy wheels will be extra grippy on our floor. This is why it's hard to plow - when you plow (or t-stop), you want the wheels to slide across the surface, rather than grip it.

In speed terms, any wheel that's grippy/soft is going to stick to the floor, making you slower. However, when you lean to go around a corner you don't want your wheels to slide, or you'll slide out towards the edge of the track, or fall sideways onto your face. Not good. So the grippy wheels on the inside are to stop that happening, and to make you feel more stable when you lean on the corners.

Also, when you're moving around the track - particularly for jammers - dodging and stepping and weaving - grippy wheels and/or grippy floor make it harder. You can't turn and change direction as easily bc your wheels are sticking. Kitty said it was hard to do this on our floor. I guess you want a bit of slide at the right times, but you have to balance that with the need for grip when you corner.

In durometer terms, soft/grippy wheels (fugitive pushers, flat outs) are about 88A, and speed wheels are harder, going up to 98A. The way they're described is sometimes confusing - some wheels are 'hard' but also described as 'grippy'. I guess a hard grippy wheel is like the holy grail, but basically they're two ends of the spectrum. I asked Trish about this, and that's what she said. She sells em, so she should know.

ok then gottit! Please excuse my dodgy *grip* on the facts here..

one more stoopid question.. on Sin City, is their "Men's size 8" etc normal US size? So Men's size 8 = uk 7?

Bex, yeah US 8 = UK 7

yep, but it doesn't say US 8, it says MEN'S SIZE 8...?

Is that the same thing?

If it's an American site then yeah definitely. US mens 8 = standard UK7
The US have a different size system for women which is why they are saying mens instead of US
US Women's 8 = UK 5 1/2

oh ok then thankyou, I am sure you have to answer idiots like me at work every day, so apologies for being one more

see you tonight xx

I recommend the riedell size stick:



My feet were about 9 1/4 inches and my skates are a cosy US 5 1/2. Remember to measure both feet though - one of mine was a bit bigger! And do it at the end of the day when your feet are all warmed up and stuff. They shrink at night.

Mine are the same size as my UK shoe size. They are a tiny bit narrow, but I think they'll stretch. I read somewhere that the sizing is the same as for converse allstars.