Xenan 100/80/100/100mm bolt-on frame

My Xenan 100/80/100/100mm bolt-on frame setup arrived today. I gave them the first test, and I can say that they are definitely faster than 5x80mm. I skated a local 3.35 mile loop in 11.5 minutes (where I usually take 12.5 minutes). So this would take approximately 2 minutes off my 10k time (as Andy at Xenan had claimed to me in a previous email). Impressive!!

Image from www.xenan.com

A few observations

It's definitely a different feeling w/ these skates under your feet. It feels like something more "substantial" is under your feet, and it is much more difficult to turn quickly. It takes noticeably greater muscle control and effort from the lower legs (ie: muscles that stabilize the ankle - both on the front and sides of the ankle). Actually this will help me gain more strength in my leg muscles.

Although the frame itself is 13.0" long, the total length of the frame with wheels installed is 1" longer than the total length of a 12.8 frame with 80mm wheels installed. But this didn't affect my crossovers - I was still able to comfortably do them.

Sprinting - well I would say that you can "accelerate" with these, but not "sprint". They seem to take almost 2x the amount of time to get up to speed when I'm attempting an all-out sprint. Hills - well there was only one very slight upgrade - it didn't seem that much different though.

Although there are some disadvantages noted above, my preliminary observations are that this frame would NOT be something that will be replacing 5x80mm setups in elite/pro racing...however, I could see the benefit of this setup for very long races like A2A, or for faster skate touring (keeping up w/ bikers easier too). Overall I'm VERY pleased w/ the product.

I'll write a follow-up after more skating with it.

Brad Charbonneau

Further references:

www.swatskates.com

www.xenan.com

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