Landroller Review: First Impressions
I initially purchased the Landrollers because I thought they might be pretty cool to try out and replace my CCM PF6’s as my recreational skates. Sure, there was a lot of hype on the Landroller.com web site and not much in the way of real reviews, but I went for it anyways. I think I may have just wasted $250.
I’ll start off with the good. The boots are very comfortable and supportive. And the out-of-line wheels do provide added stability when standing or skating in a straight line. The wheels also seem pretty durable. Finally, you get lots of looks and attention when wearing them. I skated past one group of people and one of the girls jumped and yelled “What the hell are those?!” I just kept skating.
And that’s about it. The stability from the out-of-line wheels seems to hinder agility. I can’t make turns like I want to. I also don’t get the freedom to easily drift back and forth with my feet inline. The wheels or the axles or maybe the lack of bearings seem to really hinder speed. I’m talking like a 50% reduction in speed on downhill or flat rolls. It is also 150% harder to try to gain speed when skating. The skates are also heavier than my hockey skates. Much heavier. And when you pick your foot up off the ground, you can feel the weight of the wheels on either side of your feet. Crossovers are much more difficult as the wheels are large and extend beyond the front and back of the skates. I almost took a dive when my back right wheel clipped my front left. Fortunately, once I got the skate planted back on the concrete, I was able to stay upright. I haven’t tried any off-road or rugged skating, but with bumps and cracks in the concrete on the River Walk, there doesn’t seem to be much improvement for a smoother ride. There is a noticable different, but just barely. Finally, I don’t know if it’s just me, but they somehow seem to work a different set of muscles. I can do 10 miles on regular inlines with no problems. With the Landrollers, the front of my calves were really burning. It’s not a bad thing to work those extra muscles, but it just seemed very weird to me.
In all, I’m not very impressed with the performance of the skates. I’ve only gone about 5 miles on them and will probably give them another couple of tries before making my final decision. For now, though, the outlook isn’t very good for these skates. I’m definitely going back to my inline hockey skates for tomorrow, just because I miss them so much after suffering through the Landrollers.
For those of you who haven’t seen them, here’s what a set of Landroller skates looks like:
