It will really depend on two things—how dedicated you are to learning slalom and your budget. You'll typically want 76-80mm wheels, a rockerable frame, and a light but supportive boot.

The Flying Eagle F5S is one of the better budget options you can get for learning. They're a fairly light hard shell with a rockerable frame.

The next tier up would be something like the the Seba Trix 2. It's more focused on slalom, but it's also $120 more at $300.

From there you have the two entry level carbon boots, which are the Flying Eagle Drift 2.0 Carbon and the FR Spin. These are in the $450-500 range.

After that, you have more speed slalom focused skates like the Powerslide Tau and HC Evo. You also have the more traditional slalom skate in the Seba Trix. These are in the $550-650 range.

The final tier includes the likes of the FR SL Freestyle Carbon, Igor, and Daria as well as the Seba Trix Pro. This is where skates start costing $800 and more. They're competition level skates.

For a beginner at slalom, I would probably go with either the F5S, F6S, or Trix 2. It's hard to justify any of the more premium skates unless plan on pushing both yourself and your skates extremely hard.

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Good luck! Those are fantastic skates and a collectable. If you find any of NLS01, AC1 or Axion T10's, they're going to be priced high. I've been looking for another set of AC1s in 9.5, but don't feel like paying 600plus for used skates

You can consistently check out sidelineswap or ebay to see if you get lucky with that one listing where they don't know wha they're selling, but I think 800 is still too much to throw on those even though they're listed well over that.

Where do you live? I found this one website that has some older skates like the AC's but they don't ship to US and never emailed me back.
https://www.jghockey.co.uk/products.asp?cat=Senior+Inline+Skates

If you are aiming to do slalom on par with inline skaters, the road is long.

Narrower, shorter, urethane or vanathane wheels would be ideal. I present some examples of slalom-style quad skating, 1) What I perceive as the normal limit for quad skaters doing slalom, 2) The upper limit of tech + speed if the skater optimizes everything possible.

The aim is to make your movements as tight as possible. If you can achieve tighter movements with softer wheels, go for it. If you can achieve tighter movements by sliding to the new position, use harder ones.

I want to do this to but keep ending up at the skatepark instead lol!

Yorely Muffin was the only quad slalom skater i can remember finding the last time I looked on YouTube. Maybe check out some of her videos and see if anything pops up? Here's one to get you started https://youtu.be/kWwzDctsHF8

Failing that, I think you would want something narrow and hard, with a curved edge for slip and maneuverability (like park wheels, actually).

God luck! And please post updates!

I use the indoor luminous wheels (97a) when I practice slalom

It's just based on price. 100 - 150 gets you entry level barebones. Good for learning how to skate. Comfortable.

200 - 300 gets you solid hardware with replaceable components. Good wheels, good frame. 3 or 4 wheels, different boot constructions, different wheel sizes.

300+ is more specific. You get higher end slalom, freestyle, speed, etc. This is for people who want a specific type of skate and for it to do that skating well.

All brands have models in each range. Within each range you really pick what fits your foot size and width the best, along with wheel dimensions, frame length, and boot type (hard boot, soft boot, etc.)

Maybe start here

https://shop-task.com/pages/the-right-skate

To be honest, it is all preference. Also it depends on what kind of Inline skating you are talking about, there are different kinds of inline skating, and each has skates geared towards that style. Your question is very general and even then, any answer is based on the supplier's personal preference based on their comfort, foot, and limited experience in the brands they lean towards.

Proper freestyle/slalom skates are it's own subcategory of inline skates with a semi-soft boot, integrated liner, stiff cuff and sometimes made of carbon fiber. Since they're a specialized, competitively used skates they're almost always rather expensive, going below $300 when on sale only. Cheaper models include Seba High Lights or Flying Eagle Drift.

That being said regular hardshell urban skates can be used for slalom, freestyle and dancy moves, especially if they have pre-rockered or rockerable frames. Cheaper options are Flying Eagle F5 or F6, FR3 80s and FR2 80s.

Edit: Another less expensive option would be buying entry level women's urban skates (Rollerblade RB Ws or FRWs), learning basics and then replacing the first and fourth wheel with smaller sized wheels achieving a so-called banana rocker setup: 76-80-80-76 mm (or 72-76-76-72 depending in foot size).

Roller skates or inline skates?

If you are looking for something affordable, Flying Eagle has skates with rockerable frames (F5 and up). FR Skates' latest acquisitions also have rockerable frames, but check the concrete skate just in case. Micro skates are very affordable, but don't have rockerable frames.

Powerslide has, in ascending order (regarding the prize) also models with rockerable 3-wheel-frames : Kaze, Tau, HC Evo; although the prize range is from € 300-520, what not be "affordable"

Yes. I have a pair and they are fantastic.

The Twister Edge X are great for urban skating, less so for slalom. The term freestyle skating is a bit vague, people can be referring to anything from slalom-like moves to wizard to just freeskating around in a city. In some sense, freeskating just means skating around in open-space, not at a park or confined by cones.

​

I agree with Jim's comment. If you're learning how to skate, the Twister Edge is a great boot. If you're an intermediate skater looking for a specialized skate for slalom that can also be used for urban skating, you'll want a more flexible skate without a rigid plastic shell like the Twister Edge. Happy Skating!

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To start with, definitely Flying Eagle or FR-X or FR-3. Just make sure you get a model with rockerable frames. Though I would recommend changing the frames later on to a dedicated rockered frame because the rockerable frames are not perfect (but are good to start on).

Edit: I recommend a plastic shell because when starting out you might scrape up your skates a lot. The more expensive slalom skates typically are not very durable, so you can cause some massive damage to them while you learn.

>Recommended skates for a Slalom beginner please.
>
>Judging by the posts here, I'm sure you all understand that sensation of wanting to start skating, so I'll spare you the inspirational and soul felt monologue.
>
>Looking for something in the $200-$300 range that can help me get through the learning phase and ease me into the lifestyle of Slalom and Urban skating.

Are you able to stretch your budget a bit, or is $300 (presumably USD, rather than CAD, AUD, SGD, or any of the myriad other currencies that use the dollar name and symbol) a hard limit?

Even at the low end, purpose-built freestyle/slalom skates are going to be at or slightly above your stated budget (e.g. the all-plastic version of the Seba Trix2, going for ~$300 USD or ~$330 USD (see also, here), depending on the vendor). More commonly, you'd be looking at the ~$450 USD to ~$600 USD range for mid-grade, ~$750 USD to ~$850 for the higher grades, and even as much as ~$1200 USD at the extreme (see here and here).

For your stated budget, you'd generally be limited to freeride/urban skates with rockerable frames, like the Flying Eagle F5S Eclipse, F6S Falcon, and F7 Optimum, or the FR Skates FRX 80, FR3 80, and FR2 80.

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Welcome!

You’ve landed on a couple of very decent skates that will both work fine for everything you’re going for!

My 2c on the skates: The FR skates are hard shell skates that are hard to complain about with regards to skating street. They would be fine for starting slalom.

The Trix are a softer boot and have a unique ankle support (the wishbone). What I noticed immediately when I tried them on is that they are shorter/lower on the leg than most other skates. I have seen people use Trix for slalom, street, and distance with no issue.

Try them on, pick the one you want to wear more, and go to town!

Edit: Other recommended:

Rollerblade Metroblade GM - can get silly deals on these sometimes on account of their lowish base price.

Seba SX2 - the slightly less expensive version of the flagship SX, a great feeling and looking boot.

Thanks so much for the comments, I ended up buying the Trix 2, I loved the fit and they had a discount so even better.

trix are gonna be real flexy, FR's are more stiff

FR's can take tons of scraping across the ground, Trix cannot

Trix are low cut, FR's are medium/high

Trix hug the top of your foot, FR's don't

And yes, the trix2 is the budget version of the KSJ, which is literally a slalom skater's pro boot

Be open minded about brands of skates, if you can try different models on in a skate shop it might give more of an insight as to which fit you better.

A Freestyle skate with an integrated liner and stiff hybrid carbon shell would be best for slalom because it would allow better power transfer and can also be used for street skating.

A hard boot skate with a removable liner would be suitable for street skating and allow more options in so far as which liner you use and also be cheaper but would lose some feeling needed for slalom tricks.

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If you have smooth wooden floors, that's similar to what inline hockey uses. get some 74a or 76a wheels, softer wheels will give more grip on smooth surfaces.

Secondly, the Marsblade gimmick is that it has a built in rocker-like setup - the joint between the boot and chassis can rock back and forward kind of like a rocker but better in some ways.

if you used marsblades with a rockered wheel arrangement then you've got 2 things detracting from your stability. this will be a bad thing.

80a isn't meant for outdoors. It will wear out incredibly fast. It's actually better suited for smooth, indoor surfaces like wooden floor or smooth tiles.

You don’t size down for a rockered setup. You don’t want the rockered wheels to be like more than 2mm to 3mm difference. 3mm already is agressive. Rockered will make you incredibly agile but you will lose some stability. There are two ways to make a rockered setup. Use a special frame where your can drop the wheels at certain point to or break in the wheels and rotate them sensibly and once the diameter differs you can rotate to rockered setup.

Don’t buy special wheels for indoors. How big is your house? Does it have a rink in it? If so then yes sure buy something harder.

But for a bit of practice indoors before venturing out I’d say just use the 80a.

Edit: this is my go to rotation manual: https://skating.thierstein.net/Knowledge/Inline_Skating_Rollerblading_Information_Wheel_rotation.html