Seba 2006 Slalom Skate Review

by Jerry Cooke

As a long time FSK user, I had some initial trepidation in buying these skates. To assuage my fears, I decided to do something that felt quite alien to me, actually try them on before buying, something that I haven’t done in 15 years of skating. Before I start, I just wanted to add that I felt that (although justifiable) the price tag of £220 was a little steep and I found myself wondering whether the elevated price (in comparison to its competition of Rollerblade and Salomon) is to cover the initial research and development. I would expect the price to drop in later models.

At first opening the box, I realised how much of an effort has been made to make these skates tailored to the experienced skater. Both the skates and the packaging give a feeling that money has been spent on quality and function. Instead of the many glossy pamphlets and posters that I’ve come to expect from FSKs, there was simply a photocopied sheet of folded A4, suggesting that money that could have been spent on ‘marketing’ has instead been spent on making a good product. As to the box contents (I’ll get to the skates themselves in a moment), it includes three bags. One contained two spare axle  bolts (which I expected) and two spare cuff bolts (which I didn’t). Another bag contained three sets of replacements pads for the HDS (Heel Dampening System), which come colour coded in black (extra hard) dark-grey (hard) light-grey (medium) and white (soft) and which can be attached by a Velcro pad to the heel of the liner. The last bag contained two decent Allen keys. This is due to the choice to use different slot sizes in the frame and axle  bolts. The keys are colour coded, red for the frame key and black for the axle  key.

Okay, so time for the skates themselves.

Boot

Though I’ve always liked the design of the FSK series of skates, I’ve also felt that they are designed to be more functional than flashy. From the first time I saw the Sebas, I loved the design style and seeing it in person reaffirmed this. The boot is very sleek and purposeful looking, with shades of grey and silver complimenting the boot’s overall black design. Though I love the design, I’ve got a couple of complaints about the way it’s been implemented. Firstly, the boot doesn’t breathe very well and I found me feet getting pretty warm. There are no vents on the toe of the boot and there are only a few small mesh vents on top to allow air in. The silver strips either side of the laces look as if they should admit air, but in fact, it looks to me as if this is just a design feature and the holes don’t go fully through the material. The second problem I had was with the cuff design, I found that the way the top of the cuff curved upwards caused rubbing on both out-facing sides. I managed to do a bit of modding to fix that, which I’ll come back to later. Though the boot itself seems to have a hard plastic base, it is covered in faux-leather and the result of this is that you'll find it to be less hard-wearing than other makes.

Wheels and Frame

The frame itself is a meaty, solid looking affair. For my feet size, the Sebas came with a 243mm frame (4mm shorter than the 247 EA-R on my FSKs), but for smaller feet sizes (I’m a 10) a 231 frame is available. One thing that surprised me was how manoeuvrable this frame was, straight out of the box with an 80mm flat setup. None of the axles are rockerable, so I added 4 x 76mm wheels to create a banana setup. The supplied 80mm wheels are made by Hyper and are pretty tough at 85A, so they should last pretty well. I supplemented the setup with some bog-standard Salomon 76mm 83A (I would have splashed out for some more expensive Hypers, but after shelling out £220 for the skates themselves, I wasn’t prepared to spend more than £20 on extra wheels. The frame holds the wheels very well, I haven’t noticed any wobbling at all and the frame appears to be machined in such a way that the bearings do not rub on the frame. Another useful feature is that the frame has two slots for bolts, so that, if you so desired, you could mount the frame further forward. This also increases the possibility of transferring the frame to other boots (I know that this frame has become popular for being paired with the Twister boot). The mounting points on the boot have no-less that 7 mounting holes, making it possibly to mount a large range of frames on the boot.

As has been commented on before, years of FSK use can result in a dependence on a slight angling of the frame in order to more easily find the outer edge and I did indeed start to notice a small amount of pronation. I countered this (as suggested) by moving the frame about a mm of the centre towards the instep. This seems to work very well.

Fixtures and Fittings

The first thing that I noticed when going to put the skates on was the absence of laces (these were provided in the box, but not threaded onto the skates). At first I found this odd, but was pleasantly surprised to find that the skates hug the feet perfectly well without laces. In fact, I later did try putting the laces on and found it impossible to put my foot into the boot, so I decided to go without. The toe strap provided a noticeable hold which I found to make it easier to perform toe tricks. The ratchet strap pulls in quite snugly, but does have a slightly flimsy feel about it. I’ve got a bit of a prejudice against ratchet straps, as on my old K2 Mod GTs, the strap on both boots broke. Let’s hope that these ratchets are more hard wearing. The release mechanism (holding down two sides of the top piece) is easy enough once you work out how to use it (it took a few minutes for the shop assistant to work out how to do it). I found the top buckle to be quite hard to do up tight. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, the strap itself is too long and can catch on the inside; this is easily fixed with a pair of scissors (being careful not to cut too much off!). Secondly, there is a section of plastic that goes under the button side of the buckle, which I can only presume is to protect the liner from the screw on the base of the button. This bit of plastic has a curios crinkle in the middle and this bunches up against one side of the cuff, making it hard to close the buckle; I’m hoping that this will soften over time. Another problem with the buckle is that, although the end of the strap is intended to slide below the cuff, after a couple of days of use, it seemed to resist going inside the cuff and started going outside the cuff when inserted. I don’t know why this is, but it doesn’t seem to cause much harm. The cuff adjustment bolts on either side are quite complex affairs. The rotating plate itself is held in place by four prongs and the bolt itself sits on top of a washer and a ring (I’m presuming this is to prevent the bolt from slipping, but I’m not sure).

Performance

As you would expect from skates that are geared towards freestyle, they are very manoeuvrable! The first time I put them on; I was impressed my how smooth weight transfer is in these. I found a flat, 80mm setup in these skates to almost be comparable to a 76-80-80-76 banana setup in my old Crossmax 2s in terms of transition ease. Once I’d switched wheels over and put in a banana setup, they were even easier to move.

Slalom

As I had hoped, I found the skates to be very natural feeling through the cones. I found it far easier to transfer my weight in moves like crazy-sun and mabrouk and far more flexible when strolling. I also found that they are far more responsive when doing single foot moves. The only problem I found was that the curious piece of grey plastic I mentioned earlier prevents the cuff from being closed to a reasonable tightness, leaving me with a slightly loose feeling around the ankles. I managed to fix this and I’ll tell you how in a moment.

Street Skating

The design of the cuff on these skates makes it easy to skate comfortably at speed. In fact, the cuff design is extremely similar to my old K2 cross-training skates. About three hours after purchasing them, I went on a three hour bank-holiday street skate around London. I was extremely happy with the way in which they performed on the streets, even with the default ‘extra-hard’ HDS pad in; they offer a very smooth ride. Pavements and jumps were very easy on the feet, as were uneven surfaces. The only problem (which I brought up earlier) was the rubbing on the outer side of the cuff, which left my ankle feeling sore after three hours (curiously enough, I only noticed the pain as the skate was coming to an end. Must have been the adrenaline).

Trouble Shooting – Fixing the flaws…

1 – Outside edge ankle rubbing

This was a fairly simple modification. I simply removed a small section of the cuff on the outer edge of the top using some clippers. This left around a centimetre more liner uncovered about the top of the cuff and also removed the curvature on that side, which was what was rubbing (and/or pressing).

2 – Buckle tightness

As I remarked earlier, the odd piece of grey plastic that sits beneath the buckle is troublesome, since it compresses and folds when attempting to close the buckle, resulting in an inability to close the buckle to a satisfactory tightness. I don’t know how much of a problem this is for other users, maybe I’ve just got small ankles. The fix was, again, as simple as removing a piece of the plastic with the clippers. Just removing the grey piece would still result in the two halves pressing against each other, so I also clipped the plastic on the button side of the cuff back past the first rivet for the grey plastic, which means that the two sides of the buckle, when pulled together, now create a much more snug and secure hold.

Conclusion

These are skates that have been 100% geared towards the experienced freestyle skater and I’d recommend them for this! If you’re looking to do more street skating than slalom, I’d possibly recommend that you go with Salomon FSK range (though rumours hint that this might not be around much longer) or similar, as the Sebas boot design isn’t quite as forgiving as that of the FSK range. However, if you spend most of your time doing freestyle skating, these skates might be for you! One thing I’ll say though, is that you’ll need to be prepared to put in time and effort to break these skates in, especially it you are used to the tougher boot and higher, more supportive cuff of the FSK.

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