REMEDY OS Review
As the proprietor of a skate shop and also, as it happens the most picky, pedantic and fussy person in rollerblading when it comes to choosing skates it might come as no surprise that I have had 6 pairs of skates in as many months. Brushing aside my fears of single-handedly being responsible for the demise of LocoSkates as a result of my £200-a-month skate habit I figured it would be rude not to take myself a set of the new Remz OS to try out. I skated Remz a couple of years back and gave them up after realising they were slow and non-responsive on the roll. See, how fast a skate is isn’t entirely to do with your wheels and bearings. I’m not gonna bore you with too many intricacies but a big factor in determining the speed of your skates is how well the energy (speed) is transferred through the boot. Well Remz have really stepped up their game with the new one-piece soul kits that have appeared on the last two or three models. They hold the whole chassis of the skate rigid and also wrap around the side of the skate meaning you get minimal energy loss and boom…suddenly your Remz skate feel fast and responsive on the roll! Another factor that may also be the reason they feel so responsive is that they are considerably lighter than previous Remz models (around 300g per skate). Using the ‘Open Shell’ (OS) concept, (born in the form of the Remz Frankie Morales skate from last year) means that they have eliminated much of the leather / Kevlar material that covered the top of your foot and was stitched into the shell. When you think about it all this material is just unnecessary extra weight as you already have a liner covering your foot, good move Remz! Naturally the OS has a v-cut cuff which as it happens is newly designed since the last Remz model. To compliment this cuff the OS comes with a Jug V-cut liner as standard. These liners are comfortable and don’t come with the silly ankle-wrap flappy, unnecessary bit that came with the last Jug liner. I noticed the liner digs into your ankle when you bone over the skate…but then, when you are boning over the skate you are in the middle of a trick and therefore don’t notice it (of course you have more important things to think about if you are in the middle of a grind).
The skates are fantastic on the grind, I had to skate an unwaxed curb pretty hard to get the royale / backslide to a point where I didn’t just slip out but now they are worn it if feels controlled. These skates are also immense for torque slides…and I’m not even a big torque-slider! The souls are massive so you can only blame yourself when you slip out of a topside.
The most noticeable improvement to this skate is the price tag. A pair of Remz for £150-£160 wow! Of course they managed to achieve this price by putting Remz stock wheels and frames on the skate (previous models have come with Ground Control frames). These components are by no means rubbish though. The frames are almost identical to the old Ground Control Gen 2 frames and the wheels were probably spun in the same factory as almost every other wheel on the market! Of course you can pick them up a bit cheaper boot-only if you don’t want to bother with wheels, grind wheels, frames, bearings and spacers.
I think that these could well be the best skate on the market. Even if they weren’t there is no doubt that they are the best ‘value-for-money’ skate available. Remedy really have…err… remedied any problems with previous models, even down to inserting two rivets to firmly attach the toecap to the rear end of the boot where it used to come away on the Frankie skates. My only real concern with these is the Velcro straps that hold your foot / liner into the open shell as they don’t seem to be replaceable and therefore if they were to snap or loose there ‘velcro-icity’ you would be a bit buggered. Mind you, I don’t know why I’m worried about that…I will have gone through about 7 pairs of skates by the time that happens!
Jake Eley