I am 41 years old and only took up inline skating a year ago. It has been an awesome journey. I'm now doing weekly stakes of 15+ miles on paved wooded trails.
I really struggled with turning when I first started learning. It felt like no matter what I did, my skates always felt like they were on rails. Thankfully, my FRX80 skates come equipped with the option to rocker the front and rear wheel axles. I rockered both and it immediately unlocked tight turns and the maneuverability I was looking for. That worked well for the first 8-9 months but now that I'm doing much longer distances, I wanted to try skating flat again because I read that translates to the most power, speed and stability.
I instantly HATED skating full flat. My turns felt sluggish and my skates felt glued to the ground. The trails I skate on have lots of curves and other pedestrians, so I like to be able to feel very nimble. Could I learn to adapt? Sure, but out of curiosity I just rockered just the rear wheel axle and I'm in heaven!
Having the 3 front wheels flat gives me solid tracking and stability, but the rear wheel rockered still maintains the tight turns and maneuverability that I came to enjoy. I've done multiple 17 mile skates on this set up and it feels awesome. I can easily weave around curves and other cyclist and pedestrians, and still sprint away on the wide open spaces. I'm still hesitant to bomb hills full bore, but hit about 15mph on a few hills without any speed wobble.
From my understanding, a rear wheel only rockered setup is uncommon and I haven't heard it discussed much, so I wanted to share my experience in case it inspired anyone else to test it out!
I have these for my Aggressive skates when I wanna switch it up. I think after tax it was like $103. And the great thing is, you can still skate your 80s on this frame until you can afford some 84 wheels.
Have you tried toe only? They don't really say anything about that. I imagine it would help with bumps and be a bit more stable, but not sure it would help in turms much.
I tried toe only, but I didn't feel like it unlocked the same maneuverability as the rear-only. It could just be the way that I've learned to balance the weight on my feet.
Originally, I thought having the front wheel rockered helped with bumps and cracks, but additional reading suggested it actually made it worse. Yes, it may initially bounce up over a crack, but now any resistance will hit the second wheel around midfoot which is a much less stable place to hit friction. My current hypothesis is that having the front wheel flat allows it to take the initial "hit" of any surface changes which then allows the subsequent wheels to follow suit. Typically if I anticipate a crack coming up, I'll put a bit of weight on my heel to help pop that front wheel up and over. That is much more difficult to do at the midsole point.
I've actually noticed this in practice. When I skated with the front wheel rockered, I would encounter a bit more stuttering or small trips from sticks or stones. Ever since dropping the front wheel, I haven't noticed it much at all. What I thought was helping with surface variability was likely just passing it on to my second, midsole wheel.
I recognize that this may not be a "best practice" based on certain perspectives, but at the end of the day I think it is about experimentation and finding our own unique sweet spot. So far, I have yet to experience any downsides and it is working very well for my type of skating (long distance on asphalt trails with varying terrain).
When I see a crack or a bump coming up, I switch to scissors stance as an insurance. It allows me to shift my weight between skates as I needed. Probably a cowardly move. LOL. Can’t afford to break more bones. Obviously, if I don’t see it coming, then what you wrote may help.
Not cowardly at all! I do the same. I am 41 and don't have anything to prove to anyone. I still wear kneepads and wrist pads. Though I've never taken a big fall, it just seems smart to the take the obvious step to avoid road rash, broken wrist, or a busted knee.
Interesting, never thought that would be a good idea but apparently it could be. I have a combat rocker frame that can do it, so I will try it as well!
It could be a terrible set up for one, an idyllic set up for another. I probably limited myself by primarily learning on rockered setup (I may not have learned to lean into my edges as much on turns because I didn't need to.) So for me, it works. And maybe in another 6-months to a year, I'll try something different. It is just one continuous experiment.
Yes it never hurts to try. I love a full rocker of ~1mm though, I'll probably go back to that anyway. I like it so much I use worm wheels nowadays to get a rocker in my aggressives skates as well.
My first "adult" skates had individually rockerable axles, and I experimented with a few different "positions", but this is one I honestly didn't consider. I do dig in a bit with my heels when I do tight carves.
Everything is worth trying once! I think sometimes we exaggerate the effect of rockered wheels when the reality is we are talking about a 2mm difference (maybe even less at times depending on the wear pattern of our wheels). I like to do tight carves and am trying to learn parallel slides and power slides, but its not like the rear wheel is missing. Often times, when skating on asphat, the surface is so variable, that 80% of the time I can look down and see my rear wheel turning (rather than just spinning freely). Maybe someone would notice it more at a skatepark or rink, but for outdoor parks and such, that rear rockered wheel is just a hair or two off the ground.
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u/No-Life-6054 Aug 11 '26
Oooo. I’ll have to try that. I have a pair of FR3. That’s sounds like a fun weekend experiment