Landrollers Review

September 2005

The coolness factor could be reason enough to get a pair of Landrollers. Everyone you meet as you're skating down the street will gawk, point, smile, and comment. But will you like to skate in them? Will they be faster?

First the bad news: they are not faster, at least not when it counts.

They are a bit heavier than most recreational skates, but that's not why they're slow. The problem is the two wheels per skate. Two points of contact with the road is not enough when you're pushing hard, like in a sprint. The skates slip slightly at the end of your stroke. Not enough to throw you off balance or be dangerous, but hard acceleration just doesn't work. This is based only on my own experience, though. I'm 70 kg and skate at 30+ km/h typically, on my 4x100 speedskates. My sprint is maybe in the upper 40s.
But even without trying to sprint, I'm definitively slower on Landrollers than on my speedskates. They may generally beat my plastic recreational skates, though they wouldn't beat even those in a short sprint.

On to the good news. The up side of the two points of contact is that it's easier on Landrollers than on inlines to do the inimitably cool front T-stop. If you can front T-stop in the rain on inlines you can probably front T-stop on dry pavement in Landrollers.

And whether or not you're into that, the heel brake also works very well. By positioning the brake much closer to the heel than is possible on speedskates, you can get plenty of leverage on the brake, similar to plastic rec skates or the Gatorback Skate system. Unfortunately, I've worn through most of my brake after about 20 miles of city skating with hard braking. Rather than replace the brake so soon, I've switched to T-stopping and the wheels seem to be holding up to that fine.

I think the biggest selling point of these skates is for beginners who are daunted by cracks and rocks in the road. The big wheels address that very well. The company claims that they are also more stable because the two wheels are not quite in line. I don't notice this, but perhaps a beginner would.

This brings me to the most frequently asked question (from skaters, that is; from others that would be "What are those and where did you get them?"). Namely, what does it feel like to skate in them and does it take much getting used to? Surprisingly, the answer is that if you don't look down, they don't really feel different. Despite the strange angle of the wheels, the points of contact are still under your foot so your basic stroke does not change. The double push is still possible, as are crossovers, slalom turns, you name it.

Finally, the quality, durability, fit, and comfort all seem quite good to me. The fit is similar to K2s or Salomons. I don't believe the frame position is adjustable. Never having had pronation or supination problems, I can't say whether that's less likely to be a problem with Landrollers, but they're generally solid and supportive. I bought my pair because I wanted to support this kind of innovation in the skating world. When they come out with their speedskate model, I will likely try that too.

Danny Reeves

Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA

Ann Arbor Inline website

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