Roller Derby Skates

Video Transcript

"In this clip we'll talk about how to choose a Roller Derby skate. A lot of people are familiar with the standard roller skate. This is called an "Artistic Boot". You'll notice it has a rather high heel. It has a nice tall boot that comes up above your ankle and it's really pretty, whatever. This is a Roller Derby skate. Roller Derby skates has a very low heel. This is so you can get nice and low in the proper derby form, you're not up on your tiptoes, cause who skates in high heels. So, the Roller Derby boot is going to have a lower ankle, this allows for more flexibility with your feet and the distance between the wheels is going to be a little bit wider to give you a little bit more of firm stance and little more area to skate up. The derby skate, in order to maintain it, you're going to need some tools to go along with this. You're going to need a good skate board tool set. The skate board tool set is going to have a tool to pop out your toe stop and it's going to have a wrench that will fit the nuts on the wheels as well as the nuts on the tracks and the axles. You're going to need a good speed cream. This is to keep the bearings of the wheels nice and lubricated so you're going really, really fast. You're also going to want a round toe stop. The difference between a round toe stop and a square toe stop, most skates come with square toe stops, the problem is, the surface area of that toe stop, you can only stop at a certain angle. With a round toe stop, you'll notice that no matter how the toe stop turns, it always has the same surface area on it. So you don't have to worry about stopping on a corner or stopping on a funny angle. So definitely hang on to those toe stops, get the round ones. And finally, no derby girl is complete without duct tape or fancy tape to tape up the toe of the boot because you're doing an awful lot of skidding and sliding and you're going to wear down the toes really quickly if you don't cover them up. So make sure you keep lots of tape on hand to cover up those toes and also to tape down the edges of your laces because another thing that happens is when you're doing a lot of slides, you actually wear off the laces right here and then you have to buy another pair of laces. Taping them down will protect them."