Ultra Wheels Sabotage 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.

If Sabotage skates remind you Rollerblade Tarmac CE, that’s a correct first impression. The looks may be a bit different, but this boot is based around similar, slim cast and template. These skates are interesting model from the era, as they represent a point in which companies started to tinker with their products to make them better suited to aggressive inline, but UFS was still far off. Thus, these come with features which make them mode “modern” in feel, but do not have a replaceable frame.

When it comes to boot, these are truly old-school aggressive skates, so they come with a high cuff – remember, first plastic mould skates were created after functionality of hockey skates, which have tendon guard at the back. Just below the cuff edge, you’ll find a small appendix which prevents the skate from flexing too much to the back.

The top buckle is really solid and well protected. Furthermore, the excess ratchet strap goes inside the cuff. All of this in skates from the 90’s, which is pretty impressive  considering that these things couldn’t be taken for granted 10 years ago.

Mid-strap is a very interesting piece. It is attached by screw to the heel of the boot, goes inside the shell via two holes on each side, wraps around the liner and finally, exist via another set of holes, so you can finally tighten it and close. This is a rather unusual solution and we dare to say, one of a kind in history of inline skating but ...it works. There’s no heel lift, feet are tightly secured in place.

The liner is well made, although it is clearly “from the era”. It is high cut, just like the shell (wouldn’t make sense otherwise), have reinforced tongue and is covered in artificial canvas. Basic, but not bad option.

Okay, but that about what resides beneath the boot? Forget about UFS – these skates came out at point when no one was even thinking about creating any unified frame mounting standard. Skate use something we would now call an unibody. The frame and soulplates are single piece and riveted to the shell. Frames themselves are much closer to what current ones offer in terms of shape and features – a big improvement over earlier Sabotage models. They have a real H-block (and replaceable one, too. Good luck looking for a spare one, though!), which greatly increases frame longevity. The groove is very sensible for riding flat – pretty shallow, so there won’t be any wheel bite if you’ll lean onto trick properly (seriously, bend those knees!). The frame offers a decent amount of axles’ heads protection for soul tricks. On the opposite side of the frame you’ll find a metal grindplate, which again, serves to reduce a possibility of wheelbite.

Even the wheels choice is surprisingly smart. They have 56mm diameter and 88A hardness. This is basically a golden standard of riding flat in aggressive skating.

The skate does have soulplates – they look a lot like modern ones at a first glance, but are narrower. Again, you must lean onto trick properly and shift your weight above the obstacle. No “lazy” grinds on those! Many may see this as a plus, seeing that it positively effects skating style of the user. The soulplate does have even surface to grind on and even nicely pre-shaped backslide groove! When it comes to inside plate, things are not as good – you still get the same solution as on previous Sabotage models and many other skates from the 90’s – to put it simply, there is no dedicated inside plate. You simply grind on the underside of the boot. Well, at least the rivets are properly protected from damage.

Sabotage are a transitional form between first skates used for aggressive inline and more modern ones, clearly designed with this style in mind. They come with a lot of interesting ideas and in some areas are surprisingly well-thought for something which was released in mid-90’s, even though the are not as advanced as last pre-UFS skates and those which came after them, obviously. Still, Sabotage are an interesting piece of history and if you are a true skate-head, it is worth to pick them up. If you want to skate them though? Why not, you’ll be able to learn a lot of grinds without feeling massively disadvantaged. For 80 Euros, it’s not a bad choice at all!