Seba brand, mostly associated with freestyle slalom and freeride skates, tried to change their portfolio to a broader one circa year 2013. While this ambition of becoming an inline skating powerhouse in all areas has not been realized, the result of company taking a step in this direction were several interesting skates.
One of them is Seba CJ, an aggressive skate made in association with Australian skater CJ Wellsmore. CJ is undoubtedly one of the most talented aggressive skaters on the planet, however he always had it a bit uphill because of the country he lives in (and we are not talking about lethal, venomous spiders and snakes over there) - Australia is separated from the rest of the rolling world, most importantly from the US, a birthplace of aggressive skating, and Europe, where the community around this sport is thriving these days. Thus, CJ had to wait for far too long for his signature skate. Finally, he struck a deal with Seba, resulting in Seba CJ skates, now coming in three varieties.
Seba CJ 2 Prime, the newest addition to the line-up, are based around earlier CJ2 skate, but drastically different in some ways. The integrated padding is gone - it was replaced by high quality Prime liner. No one tries to hide the fact that it was inspired by famous Intuition liners. Some may scratch their heads trying to understand the reason behind reworking a boot with integrated padding in to one with liner, yes. However, the practice of modding the CJ skates to accept liners has been popularized by Canadian skaters and became so widespread that it only made sense to offer this as stock option. As the shell was designed with integrated padding in mind and was already pretty slim, using a liner in the skate gives even tighter fit.
While CJ Carbon are made, as name suggests, with carbon fibre shell, CJ 2 and Prime variants both use a composite material equivalent. As a result, skate is a bit heavier than its more high end counterpart, but also a bit more flexible. This makes the skate feeling less rigid out of the box and will appeal to skaters who prefer a bit more ankle freedom as well as skates that bend more on tricks. It’s worth to note that while CJ 2 and CJ 2 Prime are still a nice boot for custom setups with big wheels, they won’t offer the same level of energy transfer efficiency as carbon made ones. If you are after a boot to attach your Wizard frames to - CJ Carbon are still the top choice. On the plus side - composite shell means that skate costs less overall.
The outer skin material have decent level of rigidity and is pretty resistant to damage. There are additional reinforcements, too - a rubber material strip protecting the toe area and replaceable slider on the outer side of the skate. The padding of the liner is comfortable, anatomically shaped and helps to secure the foot in place, providing a snug fit. As these are aggressive skates, their toe box is wide to prevent toes injuries. Underneath the foot resides a comfortable insole and shock-absorber.
You can lace the boot to the very top and this does a great job at keeping your foot in place. To eliminate the heel lift completely, skate comes with a 45 degree Velcro strap. The composite cuff closed with a buckle stabilizes the ankle without limiting front to back movement range. The liner itself can also be laced at the top.
The soulplates are made out of fast sliding material and are the same width for the whole length of the skate - which is important for many users and makes it easier to lock on a grind. Backslide groove is shallow but well shaped and will work perfect until you’ll work in the deeper groove on tricks. The boot is UFS compatible.
CJ 2 Prime come as boot only skates - you need to get frames, wheels and bearings separately.
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