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3 wheels or 4 wheels? What is better?
Let's begin with triskates.
They should have the best of both worlds, right?
- Large wheels for speed
- And short frame for maneuverability
Ordinary 4 wheel skates, however, cannot have both
Either you have large wheels for speed but then the frame has to be long just to fit all four wheels
Or you go for a short frame but then you need smaller wheels
Okay, this was quite basic theory but how do they compare in real life?
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First time on triskates I ended up with mixed feelings
They were maneuverabile and all that, which was great,
but the speed was not as promised
My new 110mm triskates felt basically like my old rollerblades with 84mm wheels ...
I've later experimented with different wheels and better bearings
and now my triskate setup is - yea - now it's really good
So what I did is I put extremely hard race wheels on my triskates
and the speed just beace insane
I believe the reason is that I were too heavy for the original wheels
You see, when you only have three wheels, your weight is divided by three wheels, so each wheels must carry a larger load
I am quite heavy, 84 kg - that's 185 pounds ... yea I'm big boned
and I believe the original wheels just gave in too much
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Apart from this there also are some other issues to keep in mind
Really big wheels are fast indeed but it takes some time to gain speed
This is especially true for 110 and 125mm
With small wheels like 80mm you have a lot more of this snappiness, aggressiveness,
and this is something I really like about my Rollerblade Twisters
Of course, you can always put small wheels on triskates too
I actually tried it and I really enjoyed it
A bonus with such small wheels is less weight, and that's a huge argument in favor of triskates
Unfortunately on the market there are not many small wheel trisaktes to choose from
You can do like me and replace the originals but still the frame is a bit too high then
But 100mm wheels are common and that's anyway a good tradeoff
110 I personally don't like that much - for the same reason - heavier and less snappy
but that's just my kind of skating
125 is another popular choice but I haven't tried it myself
What I've been told however is that they are excellent for maintaining speed
but your skating style must be a bit slower and more fluid
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It looks like speed skaters also prefer triskates more and more
Speed skates have big wheels, obviously, but also a long frame cause that makes them even faster
What's interesting is that on those long frames you could just as well fit four wheels but
as mentioned, they mostly prefer just three
What's the reason? I guess, less weight, but I'm not a speed skater
To any speed skaters watching this; it would be interesting to hear your thought in the comments below
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Finally I'd like to add that I don't really prefer one kind over the other.
It's easy to focus just on the differences, but really it's not that big a difference anyway
I actually had a lot of fun wearing a triskate on one foot and a regular 4-wheel skate on the other
.. and yea ... it doesn't feel as weird as it may look like
However, I do believe triskates is the future but the future is not quite here yet
As mentioned, my first triskates disappointed me a bit and I believe that's because I'm too heavy for three wheels
I'd really like the producers to address this concern, and at least debunk my claim if they think I'm wrong
But overall I don't really can go wrong by choosing one or the other
The differences are not that big after all
Alright, that's all. I'm JP Jay. Thanks for watching and subscribe for updates!