(Image links to video on YouTube)
My skates are “rockered” (banana setup), meaning, my wheels are not on the same plane. (as opposed to the standard “flat” setup)
The two inside wheels are lower than the front and rear wheels (by 2mm), meaning that at any given time during normal skating, only two wheels of each skate are in contact with the ground, which is good for hockey/slalom/freestyle skating. (The skating I enjoy)
But this comes at the expense of speed.
For me to keep up with, say, the skaters in a SkateBoston group skate, I have to work much harder to keep up with them (which I do, and enjoy very much!), and also, I must be very careful on high speed down hills, because above a certain speed, it takes very little to lose control.
There are many ways to configure skates to be rockered, including by using different size wheels, a very common method, which I still use today on certain frames.
This is me in my FR-1’s that came with a flat frame and 80mm wheels:
Here, I’m using different size wheels 76x80x80x76mm on that flat frame to achieve the same thing as using 4-80mm wheels on a full rockered frame.
(My Powerslide Harcore Evo’s are currently setup with 76x80x80x76mm wheels and it is my favorite setup for freestyle skating)
You can clearly see where my right foot only has 2 wheels contacting the ground-the middle two.
This setup makes turning/carving, freestyle/slalom skating much easier than all 4 wheels of each skate contacting the ground at once.
I tried to skate on a flat setup, but after a lifetime of nothing but rockered skating, I found it very uncomfortable, even dangerous at times (because of what I’m used to doing with my feet), so I’m sure if you’re used to nothing but a flat setup, skating rockered for you would be just as uncomfortable. (very unstable, at first)
That being said, I have met several people who are very interested in rockered skating, and wonder if they should make the switch.
In my opinion, the sooner a skater, even a new skater, who prefers more maneuverability, over speed, transitions to rockered skating, the better.
If this is you, practice is the word of the year, but you probably already know that. I can assure you, if any sort of artistic skating is on your mind, then rockered is the setup for you.
This article explains it nicely. (links to a different site)