Few years back, Kyle Sola was all but famous and his name was known only to die-hard inline skating enthusiasts. Not from his skills or products, but from (rather silly looking) Warlock skate prototype designed in cooperation with Tom Hyser, a living legend working for Rollerblade.
Plenty of time has passed since then and Kyle has made some ripples on the inline skating lake. He is the designer behind Them 909 skates as well as stock frames of the brand. He participated in Rollerblade Solo rework process and helped to shape them into current RB Blank model. He is also the very first person to come up with an idea of “naked” aluminium frames with replaceable H-block part, for riding skatepark and bowl. His cooperation with Joe Atkinson has kickstarted a trend of using frames of this type and other companies like Ground Control, Kizer and IQON soon made their own.
Current Sola Equipment catalogue contains aggressive frames and for the first time, the freeskating ones. This is premium-class hardware, a testament of Kyle’s skills and a proof that he is industrial design visionary. Strong, bold lines and brutalism of designs make these one of the best looking frames available on the market. If not THE best looking frames, that is. They feel like a piece of art when you hold them in your hands. All Sola Equipment frames are made from a CNC-milled 6061-T6 aluminium extrusion profile, which is finally treated with a surface-hardening anodized finish.
Sola Street frames: a (small) revolution in aggressive inline skating
Joe Atkinson signeture frames were the first Sola Equipment product to hit the market. They came with slight rockering. Soon afterwards, the Sola Equipment Street (flat) frame was released. These are low-profile frames which fit up to 60 mm diameter wheels. They are super rigid and lightweight seeing that they are made out of aluminium.
Skating on them is super fast, as these qualities make energy transfer super efficient. If you add certain wheels, like aluminum-core UC Apex or Famus ones, you get almost laser-precision when it comes to control over your skates. If all you have ever skated were plastic composite frames, you’ll be amazed how much more responsive and dynamic are Sola UFS Street.
The frames come with an H-block made out of polymer which gives an excellent trade-off between speed and control on royale grinds. It is universal option, suitable for both street and park skating. H-block is shaped to minimize risk of wheelbite. There’s an option to purchase an aluminium made one, too! This one is made for park/vert/bowl skating, to give you that pleasant “metal on metal” feel while grinding copings.
If you prefer streetskating, you may want to protect your frames while skating rough ledges – this is why slider kit was made. Available separately, these covers for outer side of the frame are made out of nylon material reinforced with glass fibre. This makes them durable and fast on grinds.
Next level of quality in UFS freeskating frames world
New for season 2021 are freeskating frames. Kyle went upstream against the trend of making frames with natural rocker, Wizard-style wheel setup and instead made high quality flat setup frames. Which is good, as nowadays, there are more high end rockered options for UFS than there are flat ones!
There are two versions available: for 4x80 and 4x90 wheel setups.
The 4x80 frame ditches usual length of 243 mm for longe 250 mm wheel spacing. Why? This makes it a bit more stable without impacting manoeuvrability that much. Lets be honest here – no one will use UFS boots with freeskating frames for freestyle slalom. As such, making the frame as short as possible would be a mindless act and wouldn’t bring any significant benefit – it is better to offer something more tailored for urban skating and jumps.
The 4x90 model sticks to quite popular 275 mm length. Seeing that even shortest axle spacing for wheels of that size (273 mm) is already a super stable base for push, there was no good reason to make it longer. Anyone who skated 4x90 frames in the past probably knows that wheel size alone is not making as much difference as length does. It simply allows you to put way more strength into your push than it is possible on shorter, less stable setups.
Both options will do nicely in urban environment and the choice boils down to what you prefer: higher degree of agility and better acceleration on smaller wheels, or better stability an higher top speed on larger ones. It is worth to mention one interesting detail about these frames. Even though UFS was not designed to allow lateral frame adjustment at all, Kyle has found a way to introduce a little bit of room to play with. It’s only 2 mm to each side, but still better than nothing, especially considering that other frames do not come with such option at all!
Lastly, all Sola equipment frames come in two colour options: black and “raw”. The latter is of course not pure, raw aluminium, as the surface has been anodised to make it harder and better looking.
Below you can find links to all products mentioned in this article:
- Sola Freeride UFS 4x80mm Black
- Sola Freeride UFS 4x80mm Silver
- Sola Freeride UFS 4x90mm Black
- Sola Freeride UFS 4x90mm Silver
- Sola Street UFS 60mm Black
- Sola Street UFS 60mm Silver
- Sola Slider Kit
- Sola Aluminium H-Blocks V2
And, you can view all Sola products (including earlier versions of the Street frames) here.