Estilo: Performance and Functionality

Riding the skates for 2 months:

After riding the new Rollerblade Estilo for 2 months I have to say that they are very comfortable. The liners fit very well, and have absolutely no pressure points. I didn’t have any problems with blisters or sore feet well breaking them in. The laces, buckle, and Velcro strap do an amazing job to hold your foot in place. They work together to provide tons of support yet still allow for good flexibility. The buckle on the fore foot completely eliminates heel lift, giving you improved control while skating, jumping, and grinding. The Buckle is the traditional Crank style from Rollerblade, making it easy for you to control just how tight you want it. The Estilo provides a comfortable fit, which is easily adjustable, so you can set it up just the way you like it.

The first thing I noticed while riding the Estilo was the smooth fast ride. The large 72 mm wheels make a huge difference when rolling on any surface. Not only do they provide nearly un-matched speed in a park, they also make riding street twice as smooth, even on cobble stone. I had no problem with the wheels slipping on any surface, due to their size they have exceptional grip. So the larger wheels have a lot of advantages when it comes to speed and control, but they also have their disadvantages. As one can imagine, the wheels do get in the way while grinding on ledges. I only really got caught up with tricks like royals and savannahs. This really isn’t all that bad, but try to not to curse your wheels when you nearly die on a fast true front savannah on a small ledge because your wheels catch up. Other then than the few instances where my wheels got caught up on ledges there really isn’t anything else bad to say about them. They are fast, smooth, provide good control, and perform great on the skate.

When trying my first couple grinds on the Estilo I got a big surprise, they felt nothing like a Salomon skate!!!! The skates locked solid on soul tricks which made me very confident on them in a short period of time. Negative tricks became very easy with the Estilo because they have a nice wide negative soul plate, much like that of a Xsjado skate. I wasn’t sure on how topsides would be with such a tall frame and large wheels, but the large souls balance it all out and make topsides quite easy. Royale tricks provide a great lock, with the large h-block on the frame and a good groove on the soul plate. They make you really feel like your down on your boot. Royales on the Estilo skate feel nothing like they did on the Salomon wide bodies, which was a question I was asked very frequently while testing the skate. The wide souls work in perfect harmony with the tall frame to provide the perfect angle for royale tricks. The hard plastic, which makes up the souls and frames makes for a smooth, fast slide on almost any obstacle and stays fast after months of grinding. The Estilo performs very will for grinds, but still has some weak points. I sometimes had issues with keeping unities locked, because if you sit to low you lose the lock provided by the frame and only have the lock from the soul plate to balance on. This almost makes you feel like you are not locked on at all, which usually leads to a bail. I also had the same issue when jumping on higher rails with royales, because you sit so low when you first lock. It also affected my ability to spin into royales and mizous, because your none objective foot sometimes doesn’t lock properly and just slips off the obstacle. However this was the only downside I found while grinding with the Estilo, so even though it was sometimes annoying, it wasn’t that big of an issue because the tricks could still be done with a few extra attempts.

The Estilo skate was engineered to work perfectly as a stock unit. I tried riding it with after market parts, such as Ground Control frames and Jug liners, and they only made the skate worse. Performance wise, the Estilo is perfect as it comes out of the box. The buckles, laces, and straps provide great support. The boot and cuff give nice flexibility. The souls and frames provide and great lock and slide, and the wheels give you speed and control. The performance is unmatched for an out of the box setup.

- roger wilkinson

photos by Katie Demetrious