When I started slalom skating with Jeremy, both of us bought new skates. I chose the Roces SKT 100 and he chose the Sebas. I think both are great skates. I have been skating in the SKT 100s for about 6 months now. Recently I went to Philadelphia to visit Jeremy and have a skate practice weekend. At the very end of the session on Sunday just before I headed home, Jeremy was comparing skates with someone and both of their skates had a hinge up on the boot for your ankle to be able to move forward and back. I was very surprised to see their skates bend like they did.I wondered why mine did not as they were the SKT 100 skates designed specifically for slalom as are the Seba skates. Even skates that are not designed for slalom but have the hinges bend the same way. I looked on my skates and found two bolts on the back of each skate that bolted the upper boot to the lower boot preventing the hinge from working like a hinge. I am not sure why Roces decided to do this. I removed the bolts pictured to the right, and now the hinges work like they are supposed to. I can not believe I have been skating on them for 6 months without the hinge. I think skating will be different now. (If only it would stop SNOWING.)

Update (7:10pm):
It did stop snowing finally. I went out front and just did some simple moves around the parking lot and oh man is it so much better. I have a feeling that the shoot the duck is going to be much easier. Possibly toes and heels easier too.

Update (Dec 9, 2006, 9:52pm):
From Bayside Blades online store rep, Jenny:

“The bolts are in place to make the cuff stiff and supportive so that it
remains very responsive. The FSK skate range is the same. It has hinged
cuffs but bolted in place at the back.

The FSKs were the best selling freestyle skates for last year so they must
be fixed for a goor reason!”

I really want to know what that goor reason is still!

Introduction
I love these skt100 (skt 100) skates. There are a few things that are new about the skt100 skates: (1) wheel spacing, (2) fatness, (3) laces, (4) rockered, (5) heel height, (6) wheel sizes and (7) tongues.

Wheel Spacing
The skt100’s have a different wheel spacing than my old hockey skates. On my old skates, the front wheel is directly under my toes and the back wheel is directly under my heel. The skt100 skates, the front wheel is a bit in front of my toes and the back wheel is a bit in back of my heel. So the wheels are spread out more.

This new wheel spacing helps me and hurts me. It helps me because I have better balance when I am crossing and in akward positions. It hurts me because when crossing, the front wheel of one skate catches into the back wheel of the other skate. So I have to get used to this spacing and move my legs further apart when doing close footwork.

Fatness
Fatness means that the skt100 skates are just fatter in general. They are heavier and fatter and just bigger all around. I can not get my feet as close together as I was able to with my hockey skates only because there’s more padding and plastic. I have to be aware of how close my feet are together when doing the tricks I know.

Laces
The skt100 skates have no laces. I took them out. The old skates have laces. I couldn’t take them out. I hate laces. So because there are two giant clips on the skt100 ones, there are no laces on them. Woo hoo!

Rockered
Holy crap! This changes everything. I can not believe how easy it is to turn my skate. Just skating backwards is so different. I also noticed that the rockering does not last very long. After just 20 minutes or so, I started to notice the wheels getting to be less rockered. Maybe there is a way of skating that I can do where it keeps the rockering. I’ll have to learn some toe and heel tricks to wear the outside wheels down.

Heel Height
This is a major difference. The height of my heel on my old skate was very high because the boot had a heel and because the skate has giant wheels in the back. The skt100 skate has virtually no heel on the boot and the huge wheels are in the middle. The would make one feel like they are always going to fall backwards. This isn’t the case with me tho. The wheels being spread apart further keeps me from that feeling. The combination of the lower heel height and the spread out wheels makes me feel very sticky to the ground. It also makes me lean on and trust the fronts of my skates more. It is easier to go up on my toes for some reason. This will take some getting used to.

Wheel Sizes
The new wheel sizes are good. I bought two sets of wheels: 88’s and 90’s, which isn’t a huge difference and doesn’t make them super rockered but it is a difference. To make me get used to the rockering. Because of the skt100 skates, I also don’t have to worry anymore about the giant wheels in the back and the small ones in the front. These skates standard have all the same size wheels. Another huge plus.

Tongues
The only downfall of the skt100 skates. I love them to pieces but the tongues suck. The sewing on them stinks. There is a giant piece of plastic on the front of the right tongue on the right side that presses into my leg and pinches badly. So what I did is roll a little piece of duct tape into a really skinny tube. Then I duct taped that little tube against the sharp part of the plastic that is sticking out. I tried them on in the house and it’s 100% better!

Conclusion
The skt100’s are just great. I will need to learn to skate all over again with new skates, new rockered, and new socks. (Yes I got new socks. They’re from EMS. I love them.) So it’s true… Before I learn more tricks, I will be learning to skate first, then learning the current tricks, then learning new tricks. The learning to skate first will go really quickly and the tricks will go as fast as I can schedule some personal practices.

I just modified the lower buckles on my Twisters. They used to hook around and into the shell of the boot, which caused them to protrude into my ankles and give me hot spots.

I used some speaker wire to attach them to a lower part of the boot. I’ll find out tomorrow if this does any good.

UPDATE: the new buckles I made are perfect. I skated all day today with the hotspot from yesterday and it didn’t bother me once!