Friday, July 24, 2009

Wheel Review: Sure Grip Sugar Wheels

Sure Grip Sugars 62mm/44mm 85A hybrid indoor-outdoor wheels for indoors
Exclusively at Sin City Skates, http://www.sincityskates.com/2nd/wheels/sg-sugar.html

Just a quick-and-dirty review of these wheels that I oh Oh OH for skating on the gym floor that Derby Lite skates on.

First, the stats:

  Sure Grip Aerobic Sure Grip Sugar Radar Flat-Out Radar Mojo
Diameter 62 mm 62 mm 62 mm 62 mm
Width 37 mm 44 mm 44 mm 37 mm
Durometer 85A 85A 88A 88A
Hub - nylon nylon aluminum

So Sugars have the durometer of a typical outdoor wheel, the better to grip with, and also have the width of a typical indoor track wheel, the better to grip with. By comparison Aerobics are soft, but narrow and rounded (more manueverability, less stability). Flat-Outs are not as soft —grip enough for a normal floor, but not enough for our floor for me— but are wide and squared for stability. Mojos, which I have most recently skated on, are the same softness as Flat-Outs, but are narrow (and squared) for manueverability. I really loved my Mojos, I did. When I get bored of shooting around the turn like a bat out of seventh grade, I will think about whether I have enough movearound to get through a pack.

How they feel:

Or how I feel skating in them: like God. Okay not quite God, but pretty damn mighty. I don't have to hold back my strokes. I can lean like a lunatic. It takes an insane effort to slide out on these wheels. (It can be done, though! Very fast, very tight crossovers around the key!) All of my skating goes into skating, instead of half-skating and half-skidding. Instead of tiring out from trying to keep myself from sliding out and then not being able to keep myself from sliding out, I tired myself out from skating all out.

These are pretty specialty wheels, they're probably too grippy for a normal surface and way too grippy for a grippy surface like Orbit. I'm skating on Atom D-Rods (95A) now at Orbit. But if you're worried about when Derby Lite gets its own space and sport court, these can become your outdoor wheels problem solved. scratch that, I have the Radar Pures now & I don't think that the Sugars are interchangeable for outdoor wheels. For now I will say that the Sugars are great for funky indoor surfaces, the Pures are awesome for outdoor, and I'm liking these D-Rods for proper rinks and skate court surfaces...