Ultra Wheels Gretzky Inline Skates

Here at Bladeville we have one golden rule: we sell only good skates. We do not plan to abandon it, ever. This causes a bit of a problem, as many people willing to try skating do not want to spend the kind of money needed for purchase of even entry-level skates made by one of core, professional brands. They simply worry that it will be unnecessary expense if they won’t like the sport. In such cases, we recommend renting a pair, but there are not that many places where you can rent skates around. Thus, it is quite often the case that newcomers drop the idea of buying gear in specialised shop and goes for skates which can be described only as toys, not sports equipment. Low quality, unsupportive boots are the major problem with those and experience of skating them can actually make people dropping the sport pretty soon.

Bearing that in mind, we have been thinking about a solution to bring more affordable skates into our shop. The most obvious one is buying second-hand ones, “refurbishing” them by cleaning, replacing broken parts and giving them fresh set of bearings and wheels (lower budget ones, of course). But there’s an issue – it would be insanely time-consuming and in the end, the price would not be that low, considering how much manual work and resources (new parts!) we would have to put into such project. Life brought us a different, unexpected opportunity.

We have received an offer to buy old stock from one of Swedish general sports shops which is closing business. Problem is, the skates and rest of the gear is over 20 years old. You can imagine our first reaction. But upon taking a closer look, it turned out that there are some skates worth picking up, ones which we’ll be able to sell at very low prices.

The skates in question are made by Ultra Wheels. This brand, founded in USA, no longer exists. They were active during 90’s, a golden era of inline skating . Like many companies focused on this sport, Ultra Wheels has fallen a victim to harsh decline of rollerblading’s popularity in late 90’s and early 2000’s. Apart from fitness skates (we’ll save you a sight of these, they weren’t the most stylish designs out there), they were making hockey ones – even signed some deals with NHL players and made skates named after them. They were also dipping their toes into aggressive skating and made some decent (by standards of the era) skates. They have never gained a market share similar to K2, Roces, Rollerblade or USD, though – so when market has shrunk, they went out of business.

Let’ get something right out of the gate – the Ultra Wheels skates in our shop are true oldschool gear, for better or worse. You won’t find latest, advanced tech here.

There’s one reason why we got into this. We’ve picked only skates that provide a good amount of ankle support, superior to what low quality skates can offer. Thanks to it, they will be safe to take first steps into the world of inline skating on. Of course, if you want to start playing in-line hockey and are on a tight budget – these are very attractive, too.

These are functional, “fully featured” skates which will allow you to start having fun at low cost. In our opinion, the old, but decent gear is million times better than new, but weak one. Of course, the fact that Ultra Wheels does not exist any more, does not mean that if something breaks, you do not have rights to submit a complaint – the law states that you can do it within 2 year from purchase. It’s our responsibility, don’t worry: you are still buying a pair of skates from a shop, not some random guy from the Internet.

Considering their age, it may turn out that skates will have some minor aesthetic flaws, like decolourizations, scratches or won’t come with original packaging, but these do not impact their function. These are technically sound.

Ultra Wheels Gretzky are made for inline hockey. These skates are signed with a name of Wayne Gretzky, a man considered to be the best hockey player in history. Gretzky, in his prime, was like a demigod of hockey – he was so good that NHL has restricted use of his number, 99, only for him, in a whole league. This means that to this day, no other player is allowed to use number 99 in the league and unless this restriction will be lifted (slim chances, considering that hockey community considers it as an important part of the sport’s history) won’t ever be. This is the only such case in all of NHL’s history.

The skates come with a composite frame, equipped with a brake on one skate. This makes them a good starting point for newcomers to inline skating who want to develop their skill towards amateur hockey play in the future. The frame is equipped with a very gentle rockering and allows for rockering front wheel event further for better manoeuvrability. Skates come with 72 mm wheels in 80A hardness. They provide a good level of grip on concrete and asphalt. The boot is a hockey classic: high lacing, reinforced felt tongue, Achilles tendon protector – it’s all there.

Even considering their age, these are decent hockey skates and ones which you can grab for cheap, too.