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Ask Dad – Roller Skating Question Answered – 013

The Roller Skate Dad Answers Your Roller Skating Questions

On this week’s episode, we have our very first Ask Dad episode! Beginning in 2019, I started collecting roller skating questions from people visiting the Roller Skate Dad website. Anyone can submit a question simply by going to Ask Dad in the main menu of the website. Fill in a few fields, and your question is sent to me.

In today’s episode, I cover:

Show Notes

Here are links to the items I discussed during the show.

Episode 13 Transcript

Jeff [0:03]: Hey, everybody! Welcome to the Roller Skate. Dad Podcast! This is episode number 13. Let’s get started.

Announcer [0:17]: Welcome to the Roller Skate Dad Podcast. The show that covers everything and anything in the wonderful world of roller skating. Now here’s your host, The Roller Skate Dad himself, Jeff Stone.

Jeff [0:37]: Hey, everybody, I want to welcome you to the Roller Skate Dad Podcast.

Jeff [0:41]: In today’s episode, I’m going to be answering a lot of the questions that I’ve gotten from you guys out there in my audience.
So this is the first Ask Dad episode of the Roller Skate Dad Podcast.

Jeff [0:56]: A number of you have sent me in questions over these last few months, and I have answered you directly via email. But I wanted to spend some time here today on one of these podcast episodes and actually answer the questions for everyone here in the audience. So before we get started, I just want to thank everybody who has sent a question in. And if you have a question about roller skating or about roller skating gear or whatever it may be, you can easily submit a question to me by going to RollerSkateDad.com. And there is a link a the very top of the website that says, Ask Dad. And when you click on that link, it will pop open a form and you just fill out a few questions that are there on the form. And when you submit it it comes to me, and then I take that and I’ll respond to you, usually within a few days if I know the answer to the question that you posed me. And if I don’t, I usually respond in a few days and say, I don’t know the answer to that question. Let me get more information and I’ll get back to you. All right, enough of me ramblin’, let’s get started.

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Jeff [2:01]: Our first question comes from Kelli Shepherd in Florida. Kelly asks, “I just want to reach out to you to see if you have any advice on what type of four wheel skates I should use for outdoors. I’m 47 years old, and I’m just getting back into skating, not the best at it. But I realized that I can lose weight and have fun while doing it. Thanks a lot and have a great day.”

Jeff [2:23]: Thanks, Kelly. I appreciate the question, and thanks also for being a member of the Roller Skate Dad Club. You know, roller skating is such great exercise, and, you know, as I get older, I’m doing it myself a whole lot more trying to at least a few times a week to try to keep you know, the weight off and try to keep the pounds down. You know, and it seems like as I get older, you know I’m 44 now, it’s harder and harder to keep that weight off. And I just don’t really like to exercise unless it’s fun and roller skating’s fund. So it’s a great way to try to keep that extra weight off. You know, as far as skates go, it really depends on, you know, your budget and what you prefer. You know, for outdoor skating in quads, I feel like the most important thing on the skate are the wheels. You know, especially if you’re skating on things like asphalt or rough concrete, which most of us, at least here in the States that’s usually what we’re skating on if we’re skating outside. So I personally used the Atom Pulse wheels or the Sure Grip Motion wheels. These are both really good outdoor wheels that I use every week when I skate outdoors at my local park. So those are the two that I would recommend as far as wheels are concerned. You know, they’re both pretty soft, and they can go over pebbles and, you know, loose debris without much problem.

Jeff [3:39]: You know, the great part is, though, that you can easily change wheels out on any pair of skates pretty easily. So, like I have two pairs of skates that I primarily wear. And then I just changed the wheels out whenever I’m skating indoors versus outdoors. If you’re just getting back into skating after you know not skating for a long time, then you probably don’t have a pair of skates, and so maybe you need a complete skate package. And so a complete skate package is just what it sounds like. It’s the entire skate, so you’re going to get: you know, a boot with a plate and bearings and wheel and probably toast stops as well, and it’s all going to be, you know, nicely put together for you and shipped to you in a box, and you just put them on and you start skating. So if you’re just starting out, you know or just starting back to skating and you don’t have a pair of skates, then there’s a couple of different skate packages that you might look at. One of the nice ones that a lot of people are wearing, especially for outdoor skating, especially women are called Moxie Roller Skates. They’re made right here in the United States, and they’re a really nice skate. They kind of have that old school kind of style. There high top boots. They’re real colorful and, you know, they’re pretty nice skates and they cost less then about $300, which is really not too bad for a nice, you know, metal plate with a nice boot and nice wheels and bearings. So those are pretty…that’s a pretty good skate package. The one I personally wear and that I bought when I got back into skating were Vanilla speed and jam skates, And this was primarily just because of the cost. They were only about two hundred bucks when I bought him. They go by VNLA. But it’s Vanilla is the name of the company, and they’re pretty comfortable. You know, they’re not the most comfortable skates that I’ve ever owned. But you know, you can find any of those like Moxie or Vanilla or there’s, you know, Sure Grip as well as Riedell. All of those have skate packages that you can buy, and they’re all fairly decent skates. And you can find those on places like Amazon, and then there’s other roller skating retailers out there as well like RollerSkateNation.com and Devaskation and Inline Warehouse, you know, just to name a few. All right, thanks so much, Kelly, for that question. I hope that helped, and I hope you have a great time out there skating.

Jeff [6:03]: The next question comes from Byrd in Brooklyn, New York. Byrd’s looking at buying wheels for the first time to change out on his current skates. And so, he asked, “Will the new wheels come with the necessary tools and installation instructions for me to do this on my own?”
He also asked, “Do I need to buy wheels and bearings, or can I just buy the wheels and put them on the bearings that came with the skates?” Thanks for your question, Byrd.

Jeff [6:29]: So, sadly, most wheels don’t come with any kind of tools or installation instructions or anything like that on how to change them out. You’re going to need a wrench similar to the PowerDyne Y Tool which is what I use to get the axle nut off of your current skates. The axle nut is that little bitty nut that holds your wheel onto the axle of your skate. That’s why it’s called the axle nut. And you can also use a standard socket set if you have it or one of those, you know screwdrivers that actually fits over a nut to loosen it. You don’t have to have a PowerDyne Y tool to do that. I use that tool just because it has multiple things that allows you to easily loosen the axle nut, but then it also allows you because it has a wrench on the end of it. It allows you to loosen things like your skate plate and different things like that so you can actually adjust your trucks. These kind of tools, you know, are going to allow you to remove the axle nut from the skate and the nut that holds the wheel tight on the skate axle. You know, once you have the nut off, you can easily, you know, slide the wheel off of your skate.

Jeff [7:38]: And so from there you have two options. You can either buy new bearings or you can take the bearings out of your old wheels and put them into the new wheels. Regardless of whether I’m putting in new bearings into new set of wheels. Or if I’m taking old bearings out of my existing wheels and putting them into a new par of wheels, I use a tool called the Bones Bearing Press Puller. It’s a small no more than, you know, a foot tall device probably about ten inches tall, and it allows you to take this….it’s kind of like a screwdriver allows you to push it through the hole in the bearing. It has a little button on top of it, the device does, and you hold that down and you push the device through the bearing and then you let go of the button and that locks it in to the bearing and then you pull. And as you pull on it, the bearing pops out. So this makes it very easy to get bearings in and out of wheels. Most the time when you’re putting new bearings in a new wheel, it’s pretty easy because the bearing is slightly got a little bit of grease on it, and you can just kind of push down on the bearing. You make it to where the shield on the bearing, that’s the little plastic that goes around the bearing on the inside that protects the ball bearings. You want to make sure that’s facing out and you just use your thumbs and you push down on the bearing and that will actually pop it into the wheel. You can use the Bones Bearing Press Puller to actually push it into the wheel but I often find that just pushing it down in with my thumbs is best.

Jeff [9:15]: And if you’re really looking at getting new bearings for your wheels, which is honestly what I recommend you do, it just makes the new wheel that much nicer when you have new bearings as well. I personally use the Bones Super Red bearings. You can get a set of sixteen for about $40-50 on Amazon, and they’re really great bearings. I use them in all my wheels and they do really well. So I hope that helps Byrd. I’m in the process right now of putting some skate videos together that will give, you know, some of these skate maintenance tips a little bit more picture. It’s a little bit hard sometimes to describe this just with audio, so that’ll be coming in the next couple of months. So stay tuned for that. And thanks again for your question.

Jeff [10:00]: Our next question comes from Rebecca in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It’s actually not really a question. It’s more of his suggestion. But Rebecca says, “I’m listening to your interview with the Skate Critic and you ask Ginger, her favorite roller skate jams. If you ask this question on most of your interviews, maybe you could create a Spotify playlist for everybody to enjoy. This could put all the great music together in one place for skaters to jam to.”

Jeff [10:29]: What a great suggestion. Rebecca. I love it. I definitely have been thinking about music a lot. You know, it’s the number one thing that I hear most people talk about when I’m at the rink is usually how much they dislike our rink’s music. And so almost everyone I skate with at my rink wears headphones, thes days, which I think hurts the overall skating experience because, you know, people don’t talk a CZ much and they don’t socialize as much because they got earbuds in the entire time. So I think this is a great idea, and I think having a guest playlist and a club member playlist would work really well. So this is just getting started. I just started this after Rebecca’s suggestion. But if you go to RollerSkateDad.com/jams (J-a-m-s) you can actually get to the Roller Skate Dad Jams playlist on Spotify.

Jeff [11:22]: So as I’ve said on the podcast before, I used to be a DJ back in my teenage years at my roller skating rink. And so I went through my iPhone and all the playlists I have, and I went through recommendations from Rebecca, as well as the three or four that I got from Ginger when she was on the show, as well as a few others of you out there and I created a Roller Skate Dad Jams playlist on Spotify, so go check it out. RollerSkateDad.com/jams will take you to it. And if you have ideas about what kind of music should be added to the playlist, send it to me. You can email me at jeff@rollerskatedad.com. Send me your favorite songs. Send me an entire playlist and I’ll add it.

Jeff [12:08]: And over time, we’re going to figure out some ways to make this even easier to use. You know, I imagine having different playlists for different genres as well as having you know playlists for things like Fast skate vs. slow skate / couples skate. And my hope is is that we can make it something eventually that will be very interactive that the entire Skate Club can own to where you guys can vote on which songs you like best and that will actually order the playlist and allow you to actually add your own songs to the playlist as well for others to see. So here, in the short term, it’s going to be very manual. If you take a look at the playlist, you think it’s cool. You’d like to add some of your own music. You’re just gonna have to email me and I’ll add those songs onto the playlist as well. So, anyways, thanks a lot, Rebecca. I appreciate the suggestion.

Jeff [13:01]: All right, so moving right along. Our next question is from Cristian Manzo in California and Cristian writes: “Where do you buy inline skates that are cheap? Also, I want them to be good quality.”

Jeff [13:15]: So thanks for your question, Cristian. First off, you know, cheap is often a very relative term, and it really can depend based on what type of inline skates you want to buy. You know are you talking about roller blades or aggressive inline skates?

Jeff [13:29]: You know, if you’re talking about roller blades, a good pair are going to set you back at least $100-$150 brand new, and that’s actually pretty cheap. You know, higher quality can easily set you back $250-$350 or more. Aggressive inline skates are going to start around $200 brand new for the cheapest, you know, beginner set that you can find. And these are the kind that have, you know, the really tall wheels. And they’re also very skinny. So these are the ones that are primarily used these days for competition speed skating. But they can go all the way up to a $1000 for a pair of skate or even more. There are a lot of folks that I know that have their own custom speed skating boots around these aggressive inlines. So, the price can get way up there. So, it really depends at what level you’re at.

Jeff [14:19]: You know, a simple Google search of, you know, cheap inline skates. I mean, it’ll bring up hundreds of places that you can go and buy inline skates. You know, anywhere from Amazon.com to Inline Warehouse as well as others. You know, and so I’m not sure what level you’re at currently. But if you’re just starting out, my favorite place to look for deals are eBay and, you know, buying used skates from other skaters I know at my local skating rink. You know, when you’re just starting out with a hobby, you know you can buy stuff used first. That allows you to try it out and see if you like it before you’re dropping hundreds or thousands of dollars on something brand new. Now finding the right size boot is going to be the biggest challenge with this technique. Both my kids actually have sold their skates to other skaters who are just starting and want to get into speed skating. So it’s a great way to kind of get started for less money. So I hope that helps Cristian. I want to thank you again for being a member of the club and for sending me your question.

Jeff [15:19]: Our next question comes from Sean in Erie, Pennsylvania. Sean writes, “After fifteen years of not skating, my six year old and I have been going, and she’s really enjoying it. I bought what I used to use, which was the Chicago brand, but I can’t remember the model number. I used to use a Bones wheel for jam skating. I’m looking to upgrade current wheels on my skates. Do you have any suggestions of size, hardness and brand. Being in my late forties, I think I still got it. But my wheels don’t glide. They’re sticky. Looking forward to your newsletters. Thanks for your time. Reliving the good old days.”

Jeff [15:56]: Well, first Sean, I’m happy to hear you and your daughter are skating. You know, it’s so much fun, especially when you’re skating with the kids when they’re young. I just went skating with my older daughter, Lily, who’s 17 now, and we had a blast. You know, I can remember when she was five or six and I was just teaching her how to skate for the first time. It was such good memories, You know, as far as wheels go, I really love my Roller Bones Elite. These are artistic wheels. They’re pretty narrow, and they’re very slippery because they’re hard. Roller Bones actually states that the’s are a 103A durometer, which, as I’ve mentioned in a previous podcast, 103A doesn’t actually exist. 100 is the top of the scale. But what Roller Bones is basically saying is that these wheels are so hard they can’t actually even be measured accurately on the A durometer. So they’re super hard. And because they’re super hard, they glide very nicely. They’re not sticky at all. So you know, I sometimes have a hard time controlling these wheels on really slippery surfaces because they’re that hard.

Jeff [17:04]: If you’re like me and you want a slippery wheel, I would highly recommend the Roller Bones Elite. They’re excellent, and I’ll put a link to them in the show notes for you.

Jeff [17:16]: If you’re more of a speed skater and you wanna have a little bit of slip in the wheel, then you can’t go wrong with the Hyper Cannibal speed skate wheel. This is a 97A wheel, so it’s also pretty hard, but it’s going to give you more grip. It’s also not as narrow as the Roller Bones Elite. It’s much wider. I would say it’s actually, it’s about two and a half times the width of the Roller Bones Elite wheel. And so you have a lot more surface area that’s actually touching the ground, and that gives you a whole lot more stability as well as more control. But with the wheel being harder, it is actually a little bit more slick and then a traditional wheel that probably came with your skates. So both are a hard wheel. Roller Bones is is the hardest that I’ve had so far. And the Hyper Cannibals is a nice kind of secondary one. I used the Hyper Cannibals, mainly for speed skating. Whereas I used the Roller Bones for most of my session skating. I hope that helps you out, Sean, and I hope you and your daughter enjoy skating.

Jeff [18:19]: Our next question comes from Ty in Delray Beach, Florida. Ty writes, “I’m looking into purchasing boot rhythm skates because they’re more ideal for the way that I skate. My dream skates are the Riedell OG skates. However, I’m a broke college student. What are some skates that you would recommend for me to look into? I’ve seen Chicago skates but don’t know anyone that has or have had them.”

Jeff [18:44]: Thanks Ty for reaching out. I appreciate your question. I understand being a broke college student. I’ve been there before. And you know, the Riedell OG skates, they’re really slick. I mean, they’re awesome. But at $500 plus, you know they’re also out of a lot of people’s price range. They’re super nice skates, but they’re also pretty expensive. You know, Chicago skates are pretty good, but they’re definitely not top of the line. They’re really more for the beginner. I personally tend to recommend those to parents who are just starting to get their kids skating for the very first time. You can buy the cheapest pair of those for, like $50, and they’re a great way to just give a kid a pair of skates and allow them to be able to skate outdoors in your garage, in the house wherever they want to skate.

Jeff [19:30]: Now they do have a Deluxe skate that has a high top that’s a lot like the Riedell Og. That’s a little bit higher quality than the $50 pair I was talking about. And those cost about $99 on Amazon. You know, they’re nowhere near as nice as the Riedell OG, though. So you know, please don’t quote me here as saying that the Chicago skates are anywhere in comparison to the Riedells. You know, if you really like the Riedells and you like that brand, which I do, then they have a couple of other models you might want to look at. They have 2: one’s called the Riedell Boost – it’s about $129, and there’s also the Riedell Raven, which is about $250. Now. I’ve never used the two that I just mentioned, but the skate parts that go into the skates look really good. I’ve used the Riedell boots a lot in my artistic skating when I was growing up, and almost every Riedell boot that I’ve ever worn has been pretty comfortable. Again, these aren’t the OG skate. The OG skate is really nice, but both of these options are also way cheaper.
I hope that helps, and I want to thank you so much for your question.

Jeff [20:38]: All right, everybody, I think we got through five questions today. That’s pretty good.
Hopefully, you got some good, useful information out of this episode. If you’d like to get a transcript of this episode, or if you want to get any of the links that I mentioned in this podcast episode, be sure to check out the show notes. You can get to the show notes for this episode by going to RollerSkateDad.com/13.

Jeff [21:02]: If you’ve been listening to the Roller Skate Dad Podcast, you know here at the end, I always ask you for a rating and a review on your favorite podcasting platform. Downloads, ratings and reviews are how podcast get ranked on many of the platforms. So if you’d like to help the Roller Skate Dad Podcast out, I’d really appreciate a rating and a review wherever you listen. And, thank you.

Jeff [21:24]: If you’re not a member of the Roller Skate Dad club, you’re going to want to join. Sign up is fast and easy. All it takes is your name and your e-mail address and you’re in. The Roller Skate Dad Club is a great way to stay in touch with me, stay up to date on what’s going on with the show, as well as, the RollerSkateDad.com website. Plus, you get easy access into every monthly contest where I give away free roller skating gear. Head on over to RollerSkateDad.com to join the skate club today.

Jeff [21:54]: All right, everybody. That’s another episode in the books. I want to thank you guys so much for being here. And until next week, get on out there and skate.

Announcer [22:04]: Thank you for listening to the Roller Skate Dad broadcast at www.rollerskatedad.com. If you like what you heard today, please be sure to subscribe, rate and review the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google or wherever you’re listening. ‘s your host, The Roller Skate Dad himself, Jeff Stone.

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Wrapping Up

Thanks again for rollin’ by. If you have a question about the podcast or just want to leave me a note, please comment below.

I hope you will join me every week for a new episode of The Roller Skate Dad podcast.

Please subscribe to the podcast on whichever podcasting platform you listen on. And, don’t forget to join the Roller Skate Dad Club. You can do that easily with just your first name and email address from any page on this website.

Did you like what you heard? Do you want to hear more? Check out these additional episodes:

Want to Learn More About Skating?

Want more reviews on roller skates? Check out my Best Roller Skates page for a list of all of the quad roller skates I recommend. I also have pages for roller skates for menroller skates for women and roller skates for kids where I recommend the best skates on the market today. Or, check out my roller skates for beginners if you are completely new to roller skating.

Or, if rollerblades or inline skates are more your style, then check out my rollerblades for menrollerblades for women or rollerblades for kids pages. Or, if you are completely new, check out my rollerblades for beginners page.

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Jeff Stone

Jeff Stone started the website RollerSkateDad.com back in 2015. The site specializes in roller skate reviews and advice about skates and all things roller skating. When Jeff isn't skating with his two daughters Lily and Violet, he enjoys writing code, cooking, watching movies and hanging out with his wife Claire and their german shepherd, Electra.

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