American brand in-line skates K2 famous by their comfortable fitness skates. In year 2016 was expansion of the range and skates K2 from collection Lifestyle came up. Not by chance, in America is long-term trend growing demand after solid and movable skates for ride in the city. And collection Lifestyle is tuned up in meeting this trend. It is a hybrid between skates fitness, therefore skates dedicated to recreational skating on cyclo path and skates freeskate, therefore stabile and good mobile skates for ride in the city. Model Midtown takes something from all and in result we have totally new model which keeps solid shoe with sensitive control and and perfect holding of leg, also can be proud with textile comfortable construction and short frame with brake, which all begginers will appreciate or fitness skater requiring better stability and security.
Review of skates K2 Midtown
Skates after putting on, present good comfort and mainly perfect holding of leg. Right after you stand up, right away you know that you didn´t put on Grandfather´s slippers, but skates, which offer perfect support, thanks to model Midtown became very popular by begginers, who most appreciate stabile ankle and quality support. The feeling of stability is from wide belt through instep and tie up with wide laces, which come to upper part of shoe over the ankles, person has a feeling that is putting on real skate, which will support him. At the same time the shoe keeps comfort and is not too solid, after all the predator for pure freeride in the city looks different, however our model doesn´t target here. Skelet of the shoe comes out of legendary model Fatty Pro, cuff with low put knuckle and strengthened shell underlines stability of whole skate.
Frame of shoe is from strengthened plastic composite, which is o.k. for more predator fitness ride also, or basic freeride through the city including jumping over the barriers. Frame with its features thanks to monoconstructional fixture easily wins over any aluminium frame on normal branded fitnessových skates (article how to choose frame of skates you will find here). The advantage is, that thanks to holding UFS is possible on frame hang frame aggressive or frame on larger wheels.
Wheels are size 80 mm, which underline great movement and controlling of skates, thanks to bigger hardness 85A also with correct solid shoe will allow even relative fast ride, of course the lovers of adrenaline speed will choose larger wheels. Hardness of wheels 85A is universal and is great on cyclo path, or for ride to the city, wheels are of course more solid, hardness 85A is normally used hardness practically at all freeskate skates and also at many fast sport models.
Bearings K2 ABEC 5 are good base offering great mix of resistance and good enough speed. Bearings are from chrome steel and are lubricated with vaseline. Bearings are firmly encased, can´t be cleaned and lubricated, thanks to contact covers and big amount of vaseline are very resistant.
In openings of the frame for arbors there are rockering inserts allowing setting the wheel height, it is possible to set rocker for hockey or slalom.
And the overall impression. Skates are refflecting the trend of city, good manageable skates coming from USA, also are very good for skaters riding on cyclo paths, in our country there is majority of them. Skates are great mainly for beginners, to whom they offer perfect support, stability and manoeuvrability, excellent and we can say almost ideal entering model. They are great for the city, good choice for travelling to school, to work or lets say for walks through the city jungle. They are also good as toys, fitness skaters requiring stability and manoeuvrability of hockey skates, beginners in freeride or even for experienced fitness prioritizing stabile and manageable skates. Probably they will not be as good for freestyle skaters, they will probably choose higher level of model with more solid frame and lovers of high speed, who will choose higher level of model with larger wheels.
We, in Inline Centrum tested the skates honestly in our Test of skates K2 in Ladronka (report from event here), so you have evalution from the first hand.
- Recommendation: in-line beginners, urban, fitness
- Size of wheels: 80mm
- Hardness of wheels: 85A
- Bearings: ABEC 5
- Tie: Traditional - classical shoelace + 2 buckles
- Cuff (skelet): Aggressive Cuff
- Frame: Free 268, fit UFS
