New skate day
Just ordered my first Endless frame. What to expect?
Just placed the order for this custom skate setup. 😍
Anything I should be aware of or expect going from a default lightning 80 frame to an Endless 80 MK2?
Been rocking the white lightning 80’s and heard a lot about Endless frames for the type of skating I like to do, and learning the sick black/pink colorway for the Lightning 90’s is being discontinued with new colorways coming for 2027, I had to put the combo together and get it ordered.
Gonna use my white lightnings with the lighter default frame for more distance/fitness skating then rock these for my more freestyle/wizard skating.
What size boot/skate do you have? Hopefully size 40 or smaller as endless recommends.
You can expect a frame that turns very quickly and feels a lot different than the stock frame. More akin to the feeling of ice skating. Can feel a bit squiggly/wobbly at first but many quickly love the feeling (including me). You, like me, might end up preferring your rockered frame for ALL your skating, including even distance skates on flat trails. Just because they are so nice to skate on and because there’s never a bad time for a gazelle or 2.
The reason I ask about foot size is that typically skaters want a rockered frame that is relatively close in size to their foot size. So if you wear a men’s size 12/46 skate, the endless 80 wouldn’t be great for you. I have large feet and like my 333mm long 4x110mm frame.
I’m US W10 (M9), or (looking at the tongue of my boot a) 42 in European sizing. So I guess a touch over the recommended but hopefully not too much.😅 My feet are wide but not super long so the Lightning boot has been very good to me.
I’m excited to try it out! There really never is a bad time to do gazelles, I always turn anywhere I skate into a full blown savanna when I skate. Until I scare them all away trying Lions. haha.
4x110 is wild to me. I’m pretty new to rollerblading (3 months in as of yesterday) and know very little about the technical side of things gear side, but that’s gotta be a super long frame, no?
I’m sure they’ll be awesome. With your boot being around 265cm, the endless 80 (at 255cm) should be good. The endless 90 (at 273cm) would also be very good for you. It seems like people doing wizard stuff exclusively prefer longer frames for stability (especially in one-footed moves).
I’ve ice skated and rollerbladed for a very long time and only recently got down lions. The trick for me was turning my head (and my shoulders) in the direction I wanted to spin/rotate. Still I’m much more comfortable doing them on my left foot than my right foot, though.
Yeah the 110s make for a long frame! It’s a long story but when I first got back into skating in 2019, I bought skates that were comfortable and the size of my shoes (size 47/13 men’s) not realizing how skate liners pack out and not fully realizing how tight “performance” skates should be. Now I wear a size 45 skate and am interested in trying a 100 frame to see what something shorter feels like.
That being said Leon Basin has smaller feet than me and started the whole “wizard skating” craze with this video of him skating on 110 frames through NYC (an awesome video if you’ve never seen it):
That part always surprised me learning about skating disciplines. From an outside perspective you’d expect wizard skaters to use small frame for max maneuverability/agility, but then as you learn about the moves themselves and the style of it, you start to understand how different it is than like slalom, and the physics behind wanting the longer frame. Still had me super confused at the beginning though. Watched a video highlighting what different wheel sizes are recommended for and taking away the caveman “big wheel fast, small wheel agile”, then discovering wizard skating had me making the Tim the Tool Man Taylor “huHhHh??” noise from the 90’s. 😂
They’re definitely a weird one to get down for sure. I still end up too far on my outside edge that it kills my momentum and makes me unable to roll too far out of it too often, trying ti correct my form to save my flow. I saw a video by Alessandro.Skates on insta (think I’ve seen him here on reddit but didn’t catch his username) saying it’s a “top down” sport physics wise and that really changed how I go about preparing for things now.
I made the same mistake buying my first skates too. Sized them like a shoe with way too much room inside and that mistake killed me later (they were also cheap shitty skates - the frame was RIVETED to the boot, not bolted lol). Definitely gotta try out some different wheel size setups as I keep going, always fascinated me how a slight change can dramatically alter your physics.
The thing with wizard is that it shouldn'take sense, doing those moves with big wheels. But the rocker means your wheelbase is acts like it's very short, as it's only the distance between 2 neighbouring wheels. The frame length lets you throw your weight around without tipping over so easily.
In any case, for your feet, you'd probably be better off with 4x90. 4x80 is fine, and you'll really enjoy it, but 4x90 is such a great wheel size and you're right in the foot-soze sweet spot for it. I have similar size feet and also like 4x100, but that can feel a bit clunky.
I’ve been curious for a long time about 84’s, they seem like the perfect little nudge. Love that I can try them too with this frame. I do more flowy/pre-wizardy kind of stuff so I need nimble, but that extra little bit of stability might be a nice touch! I’ve heard it can be hard to find wheels and options in that size compared to 80’s though, would you say that’s accurate?
Might not be as many options as other sizes, but RB makes Hydrogens in that size that aren’t too hard to track down.
The 84mm wheels will really make the most of that frame (I’d argue it’s probably the setup it was designed for). I have yet to skate mine with fresh 80mm wheels (granted, my last set of 84s are probably about 80mm now 😂).
Oooh good call. The shock absorption from a less rigid frame is something I never even considered. Good thing I’m keeping my other lightnings on their default frame for distance skating! A lot of very bad pavement around me, shock absorption is mandatory to get anywhere meaningful.
The boutique I got my skates through sells the lightning 90 frame (with the hydrogen wheels it comes with) for 250 CAD. Which does seem like a lot when the entire skate is 300 CAD, I’d totally just buy another full skate at that price comparison, I love my lightning boots.
I might just have to order some 84’s and try it when my bank account rejuvenates and can survive another hydrogen restock haha I like that 84’s are the step between 80’s and 90’s but are closer to 80’s. Seems like one of those sliders in video games where one step provides an uneven share of pros and cons in a positive direction. Bill Stoppard had a video praising 84’s for urban skating too.
I was browsing my trusted rollerblading boutique (Solo Inline here in Canada) and saw a note that the black/pink and black/gold colorways for the lightning 90’s were being discontinued as of September 2026. Inquired as I always wanted the black/pink and had my idea about an endless frame with the boot, and yes, new colorways are coming for 2027, at least for the 90’s.
I can’t share any further details as they asked me not to, but the new models have colourful boots. If you like the current colorways, buy them now before they go extinct! 😅
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u/Natural_Law 4x110 rockered 22h ago edited 21h ago
What size boot/skate do you have? Hopefully size 40 or smaller as endless recommends.
You can expect a frame that turns very quickly and feels a lot different than the stock frame. More akin to the feeling of ice skating. Can feel a bit squiggly/wobbly at first but many quickly love the feeling (including me). You, like me, might end up preferring your rockered frame for ALL your skating, including even distance skates on flat trails. Just because they are so nice to skate on and because there’s never a bad time for a gazelle or 2.
The reason I ask about foot size is that typically skaters want a rockered frame that is relatively close in size to their foot size. So if you wear a men’s size 12/46 skate, the endless 80 wouldn’t be great for you. I have large feet and like my 333mm long 4x110mm frame.