FR UFR Street Inline Skates

After Seba and FR Skates split happened, the latter was left with a rather visible gap in their catalogue. Not long before both brands were taken in different directions, Seba has invested into creation of their own aggressive skates. The Seba CJ were high end, carbon shell based boots, although sometime later a second version with plastic shell has been released as cheaper alternative. The CJ model is being made under Seba banner to this day. But what about FR Skates?

The rumours about upcoming aggressive inline skate from FR Skates has been up in the air for some time now. Antony Pottier, one of the most creative skaters these days, have remained faithful to FR Skates, even though there was no aggressive skate made by them yet. People were fully expect a new skate to drop soon and have his signature on it. Well, the wait wasn’t that long – and with release of UFR line of skates, two different versions of Antony’s pro model have hit the market.

What are UFR skates? People who are around in skating for longer (about a decade at least) may remember the very first attempt at creating a Seba skate which allows the user to grind obstacles – the FR-A. UFR are kind of the same concept, but done in a bit different way. The frame mounting of the boot has been altered and instead of 165 mm raised heel one, you get UFS-compatible boot. FR Skates have used a very simple solution to raised heel “problem” – there’s a thick block under it. Solved! Both mounting points are on the same level now.

This allows UFS frames to be mounted directly onto the boot, but this alone wouldn't cut it for aggressive inline skates. The brand has also created all new soulplates for their creation - they are some of the fastest ones in industry. Sure, the skates may look as a standard FR model with soulplates slapped on as an afterthought - but rolling in them is incredibly fun and tricks aren't harder to pull off than in your regular aggressive skates.

UFR are also a very sensible choice if you are looking for a plastic boot compatible with Wizard-style UFS frames. You can take soulplates off just like in case of Seba CJ, which is go-for carbon based boot for this style of skating and mount frames directly to shell. This results in sleeker and lighter skates.