Finally! My Sebas are here! Last year when we starting freestyle slalom, I bought the Roces SKT100s. I found a few different problems including non-working hinges, oddly placed frames, and the largest problem, bendy-plastic! When it gets hot out, or if they have been in the car for a few hours, the plastic boot of the skate bends in half at my ankle. I was planning on making a video of this, but then I think…

Who cares?!?! The Sebas have arrived! I got them from Momo Sports in Canada. Momo was super nice and speaks English and even took American dollars! The first time I called them, they said that they were going to get Sebas in about 2 weeks and to call back. I called back in two weeks and they said the same thing. I called back in a week and they had them! They said they had both red and black sized 40. I said hold a red size 40 for me. Then I called back to ask about pricing and address information and they said they had no red ones… I was like ummm… someone before said that they were holding a red pair for me. They were like.. yeah we don’t have any red ones… I said, ok ok… black is fine.

I sent the check and off it went into nowhere land. They originally said to send a check for 520.68 Canadian dollars. I looked up what it would take to do that and it would end up costing me like 40 bucks to do the conversion on a bank check. I called Momo back and asked them if they would take American dollars and told them about the problem with converting here and they said it was totally ok. I went to the bank, got a bank check, which cost 10 bucks, for 466.97 US dollars and sent it to:

Momo Sports
530 Jean Paul Perreault
Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada
J1L2Z2
Attn: Yan Josselin
1-800-914-3077

In about a week, they called me back and said they got my check and they were confirming my order of a red size 40!! I’m like… wait… you DO have red? They said, yup… we do! We’re holding them for you.

Just yesterday they came!! I have them on right now. If I were a good posting doo-bee I would have pictures and videos and MORE pictures… But I don’t. I just have skates on my feet. Yesterday I put them on right away and went out for 10 mintues for a quick jaunt around my condo complex. They were so smoothe and elegant and easy to manuver in! I tried cones but they didn’t come rockered so I was uneasy. The wheels are also super new of course so they stick!

I just came back from skating and I LOVE them. I heard a lot about how they make yer feet numb over and you have to keep taking them off and putting them back on again until you “break them in”. That’s kinda happening for me but not really. My feet only fall asleep if I just sit in them (which I’m doing right now). But if I’m skating in them, the bloods a flowin and my feet are mowin down those cones. So awesome.

Jeremy went to Paris and he said he’d bring me back some wheels. I thought I had told him that I wanted 76’s and 80’s cuz that’s what the old Roces took. I was bummed when I saw the new skates had a max size limit of 76. But then I asked Jeremy (because I was too lazy to look in my skate bag for them) about my wheels that he got for me. He said that he did get me 76’s and 72’s! woo hoo! Before I went skating tonite, I totally rockered them and I have to say… new wheels rockered are PERFECT. I love how they stick. Maybe it’s just the quality of the Seba brand wheel! Who knows.

My feet are now numb after sitting here in them typing for 10 minutes. I must go take them off and sigh as I longingly gaze into their eyes and sigh and smile with hearts all around them… Haha! Kidding! I wouldn’t do THAT… That’s just CRAZY…

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.

This was a very cool session. There are a few different topics that came up this time: cups, weather, location, tricks, wheels, skates, future skate sessions, and other sites.

Cups
Jeremy brought me a set of the cups he bought. They rock. They’re pretty colors of “baby” blue and “I’m wicked gay” pink. I love them.

Weather
It rained. Blah.

Location
The location was a situation because there were a few locations that were possible rain places but none of them were definite. Then Jeremy said on his way up that there was a parking lot on the way to my house down the street. When he described where it was, I knew immediately where it was and thought it was a great idea. It is basically the same sort of place Jeremy has in Philly where the entire space is covered by a highway. The only difference is that in my area, it is a parking lot. So we skated during the day and met a couple skateboarders and a little biker named Steve, or Jim… hmmm. wait. Nick… that’s it. I think it’s a pretty good location.

Sunday, we skated from morning until late afternoon in two different locations. The first location was the bball court across from my place. That is my favorite place to skate ever. It is so perfect for setting up cones and just goin nuts with tricks. There are lines to set up the cones and it’s a super smoothe surface. We skated there until lunch and then in the afternoon, we went back to the highway because it started raining again.

Tricks
This was a good trick session. Oh man, I learned or honed 3 different tricks: the crazy, the grapevine, and a modified grapevine we invented as we went. We may not be the first skaters to have invented this but it’s pretty neat. It has to have a name of some sort.

The crazy has gotten easier for me especially at the bball court. As I practiced it more, I got a little better at it. I also learned from Jeremy that transitioning between front cross and back cross is a spread eagle or inverse spread eagle, which is supposed to be the sideways movement.

The grapevine is something Jeremy taught me on Saturday. I learned it pretty quick as it is similar to the crazy. It’s not really a trick that people do much on the cones. The only video I’ve heard about is one where one tiny part of the trick moves around a cone. Otherwise it is done beside the cones. I had trouble maintaining my momentum through this trick. I thought that if I can do it around the cones, I would be more likely to keep my momentum. So, I started to practice it on the cones. This gave birth to this 3rd trick that modifies the grapevine.

We initially called it the “insanity”. I think it is probably called something different already though. So this is where you do the grapevine in a compact way and less exaggerated backwards ‘S’, moving your crosses through the cones and doing the inverse spread eagle and spread eagle around the cones. I want to start practicing every day at the bball court.

Wheels
I ordered new wheels! Woo hoo! I will have rockered wheels very soon! Woo hoo!

Skates
I want new skates. Jeremy has recommended the Roces SKT 100 Slalom. These are the ones I will probably get when I purchase new ones.

Future Skate Sessions
Jeremy and I discussed going to the Big Apple Roll, which is a giant pile of city skates over 3 days. We’re going to go and have a blast. We’ll be there to get our skate on and blow people away with our beginner style slalom tricks. Awww yea!

Other Sites
I may be stealing Jeremy’s thunder but he found another slalom site. Looks pretty neat! American even! Woo hoo! I also registered at nycskaters.com. There are some great discussions/whining arguments on there. So great.

Conclusion
I think that we both learn way way way more when we’re skating together on one of our main skate sessions. I also think that solo sessions are really great for practicing what I’ve learned in a main session. I will be practicing these new tricks with my new wheels and new skates at the bball court every day after work (weather permitting). One last… Woo hoo!

I just got back from the basketball court across the street. When I go out for these solo sessions, I aim to learn something I didn’t know before about slalom. Here is what I learned tonite in about 30 minutes of learning the new trick Jeremy learned:

1. 80cm is a good width apart for this trick. It might be easier at 40cm.

2. Six cups stacked, of the cups we bought at Walmart, is a good enough stack of cups to withstand a pretty heavy gust of wind.

3. Thirteen cups in a line, or an odd amount, is good for going back and forth over the cones without stopping. I started out with a forward cross on the first cone, down the line forward crossing. At the last cone, I did the last of the forward crosses, then did the cool stop and go thing of the crazy to reverse direction. Then did backwards cross down the line to the last cone which was a cross, then did the cool stop and go thing of the crazy to reverse direction. Then did more forward crosses, and so on and so forth and so hence forth on and forth, fifth and sixth.

4. Doing the Crazy, I haven’t figured out the best angle to start with. I don’t know if it’s easier to do back and forth straight then diagonal, or do all diagonals. But I learned that the angle at which one starts with matters.

5. Doing the Crazy, I haven’t figured out how far out to go. But I learned the distance one goes out from each cone matters.

6. The laces around my ankles need to be tightened for more support from my skates.

7. Doing the Crazy, going from backwards to forwards is harder than the opposite.

8. I want to rocker my wheels as soon as possible.

So, I suppose you could say I learned enough for about eight sessions. It was a good 30 minutes.

Last time Jeremy was here, I bent one of the metal lace loops. I fixed it with some pliers. Good stuff.

Yesterday I started practicing at work at lunch. I didn’t think it would get too bad with sweat and tiredness because I wouldn’t really push myself too hard and I only have a 45 minute break. So I set up some cones 80cm apart and did backwards cross and forwards cross. For some reason my shins started hurting pretty badly. I have been thinking about rockering my wheels quite a bit since Jeremy did it and said it was lots easier to do. What I think I want to do is buy new skates and rocker those wheels. Then I can use my existing hockey skates with no rocker to practice in. That will work out my muscles for training. Then when I’ll practice a little bit with the new rockered skates to get used to the rockering. This way I’ll be able to work out my muscles and practice rocker skates all in one session. I may even rotate sessions rockered/non-rockered, every other day. We’ll see. First task is to get new skates and wheels. Off I go!

Just finished a sunday city skate, and surprisingly there wasn’t a huge difference like i suspected (due to the rockered wheels).

If any of you out there are interested in getting together in Philly, PA or Springfield, MA area, just email “list at theslalom dot com”

Also found a new site with a great tutorial on the Crazy which is what i wanna learn next. http://www.skatefreestyle.com/

So i just got back from the art museum. First time with the new cones, but more importantly, first time rockered. I used 7472mm 88a wheels in the front, and left my slightly worn 76mm 80a wheels in the middle. Not rockered very much, but i think the hardness also contributed to the effect.

So doing the cones was way easier, and i was even able to do stuff i couldn’t do before, like one foot. However, skating around just to skate was very awkward. Oh well, i guess i need to learn to skate again. I’m sure there will be lots of falling when i go skating in the city, cause i’m not going to rocker and unrocker my wheels all the time.

Conclusion: rockered wheels is a must for slalom. Unfortunately i’m going to be shaky doing any other kind of skating…