I’d been searching for skate bags that could comfortably hold the Powerslide Next skates I’d just bought. I fitted them with an Endless 3x110mm frame and large wheels. These big-wheel skates have been all the rage among urban inline skaters for many years now. They’re great for long-distance skating on rough roads.
But these wheel frames were longer and taller than the usual 4x80mm hockey frames I’d skated in the past, such as the ones on my True carbon skates. These hard boots were also taller and bulkier than the hybrid carbon-shell boots, such as the Powerslide Tau, that I’d been skating in for the past three years.
These big-wheel skates did not fit any skate bags in my possession. The Inline Warehouse skate bag that had carried many of my past skates, for instance, couldn’t be zipped up when I squeezed a pair of PS Nexts with big wheels into it.
In this treatise, I show four skate bags, their actual measured dimensions, and whether my monster pair of rollerblades fits inside them.
In this journey, I also discovered a new way to pack big-wheel hard boots. I found that I could nest the two skates at right angles. That makes them fit any of the four bags. But this arrangement generates other issues.
Reign Ares as big-wheel skates for urban marathons
As a postscript to Big Wheels on Carbon Hockey Skates, I mentioned that I discovered Powerslide Reign Ares 100. They look like carbon hockey skates. Yet they're equipped with Trinity mounts for big wheel configurations, such as 3x110mm. These skates seemingly disproved my assertion that "you simply can't buy skates with big wheels on full-bodied, carbon hockey shells - they don't exist".
I bought a pair of Reign Ares, heat-molded them, and skated on them. I've examined them, and pondered on the internal structure of these skates for a week now. I've done all I could, to divine how they are made, short of cutting my new skates up. I can confidently say that, "they are no carbon hockey skates".
But I love them. I think they are the best answer to my quest to find big wheels on carbon (almost) hockey skates. This long post documents my journey to customize and set up Reign Ares. I turned them into the right big-wheel skates for me, for urban marathons such as Wednesday Night Skate NYC.
What are carbon-fiber inline skates ?
A few weeks ago I set out to write a short article on my quest to get Big Wheels on Carbon Hockey Skates. I organized pictures taken during the quest for illustrations. And I realized there were enough materials to address all topics on which I found no information online, during my quest.
So here is the first installment, on what exactly are carbon-fiber inline skates. How many types are commercially available. How your foot actually feel when you put them on. And how they are made.
Big Wheels on Carbon Hockey Skates
I’ve been skating for a while on inline hockey skates with four 80mm wheels. These are normal-sized wheels popular since decades ago. These skates are great for urban skating on paved streets, skating on bike trails, skating at an outdoor rink, slalom skating around cones, and doing two-foot wizard skating moves.
But they are no good for marathon skating like folks do at Wednesday Night Skate NYC. So I set out to get myself a setup with three 110mm wheels. But it turned out that nobody makes carbon-fiber hockey skates that can take wheels bigger than the usual 80mm. So I had to compromise and make modifications to commercially-available skates, in order to mount big wheels on them.
Asian-fit helmets are a lot of hot air
Asian Americans who bike or skate know that helmets sold in America are generally not shaped properly for Asian heads. This is a phenomenon alien to most non-Asian people. Lately some brands have come out with so-called "Asian Fit" models. After an extensive research, I think these are just hot air, except for possibly a few exceptions.