Razor Sole Skate

I've been using the Sole Skate at my college campus in So. California that has a lot of hills and flat areas, concrete and asphalt roads. Overall, I love using the Sole Skate, but you do have to be very careful riding this thing.Pros:+Super convenient. It is very light to carry around and put under a desk, against the wall in the classroom, etc. Its portability is unbeatable. When i was younger, i used to ride a Razor scooter around, and even though it folded up, the Sole Skate still beats it in lightness and compactness.+Fun to ride. It really is quite a lot of fun to ride around campus. It is not the most stable thing (more on that later), but it's really good carving around corners once you get the gist of how to ride it well. I do have trouble carving back and forth to control my speed down a hill like longboarders do though and i'm not sure if it's because of my own skill level or not. I find the design of the Sole Skate easy to prepare yourself up for a long corner, but hard to shift your weight around quick enough to carve back and forth quickly (i guess that was a con).+"What the heck is that?" reactions: I have never gotten a negative reaction from riding around this thing. People stare at it all the time whether i carry it or ride it. Many people have stopped me just to ask what it is or where i bought it from. Others want to try riding it. If you like some social attention once in a while or a conversation starter, this can help, haha.+Speed. It depends on what kind of bearings you have with this Sole Skate. I always thought that it was quite easy to push and went quite quickly down a hill (maybe too fast!) When one of my friends was too rough with it (dropping it all over and wiping out on it repeatedly), the back bearing was all messed up. Since he was paying, I replaced the bearings with Bones Reds. That got me into trouble; this thing is way too fast for me now, haha! Just make sure to control your speed via foot-braking. More on that in the cons section.Cons/Warnings:-Speed wobble. Longboards are susceptible to it. This thing is a "midgetboard." Get any decent speed going on it, and this thing speed wobbles pretty bad. The truck is sorta "floating," so there isn't much to dampen the wobbles when going fast. Like i mentioned above, i put in Bones Reds bearings and it's SUPER easy to get going too fast. I have personally ate the pavement twice because i did not control my speed going downhill. I know that there are better riders out there than me, but this is just a general warning: it's a lot easier to keep yourself from going too fast by foot-braking and other methods, but where you are already going too fast, it's a bit too late.-Inability to ride on surfaces that are not smooth. Avoid rough asphalt with cracks, sticks, rocks,etc. Like other reviewers have said, you can only ride this well on smooth concrete, like on sidewalks. Some smoother asphalt surfaces are do-able, but hit a moderate crack in the road or anything else, and it will stop your board while you go flying. I flew off the Sole Skate at jogging speed today by being preoccupied and failing to see a little 1cm stick on the parking lot. Kinda frustrating sometimes, because then you have to pick it up and walk over some rough surfaces.-Learning curve. I personally had never ridden a skateboard before riding this thing and it took about a week for me to feel comfortable in riding it to get somewhere without being able to turn very well at any speed very quickly. This is probably just a general time that i needed to learn how to ride on a skateboard like thing. It has taken me just over a month to learn its unique quirks that you'll only have to deal with on this Sole Skate. For one, you stand mainly on your dominant foot (for me- right foot) while you rest your back foot on the back. When turning, it i found it super awkward and straining to try to shift my weight to either side to turn using just the dominant foot which is pointing forward (instead of sideways like on a skateboard). I found that you need to shift some weight to the back foot and use it to lean into the turns. Don't shift too much weight back, or else you'll be leaning back and might lose balance backwards. Shift your weight forward onto the ball and toes of your dominant foot and you'll gain more stability, but it's tire your ankle/calf out because you're basically riding a skateboard with one leg standing. You have to try and distribute your weight onto your back foot to help with turning and forward to the ball of your foot to keep yourself stable at speed. This all equals kind of strained feet/muscles, but it works out well and you can carve very nicely with a good form/weight distribution on this tiny thing.Overall ridability: With the Sole Skate, you sacrifice ridability for convenience and portability. You can take it pretty much anywhere, and it's a heck of a lot faster than walking, but you have to be careful how you ride it (where, how fast, maneuvering, etc.). While a longboard is bigger, heavier, and less convenient to carry around with you, you can ride it pretty much anywhere where there's a road in any way you like. The Sole Skate and longboard are pretty much physical and functional opposites, both having their advantages and disadvantages.I love the Sole Skate, but if you're serious into skating/riding around, i would go for a longboard. If portability and convenience or the most important to you and you are willing to sacrifice some versatility, go for the Sole skate!

Due to the price I wasn't expected an amazing product, but I still hoped for a good ride when I got this maybe a couple of months ago. I was both pleasantly surprised and a tad disappointed after some time trying out the sole skate. Here's why:Pros:- Arrived quickly in a sturdy box with no defects.- The sole skate is easy to learn to ride, even for complete beginners like me.- It is small and light, which makes it great to carry.Cons:- It doesn't go very fast.- Wheels get stuck in sidewalk cracks, small sticks, etc. which makes the sole skate fun to ride only on smooth surfaces, like asphalt.- Very easy to face-plant on the ground. I did it a couple times and didn't see 'em coming. You need to have Good Balance to ride this (of course, you need to have good balance to ride any sort of skateboard, but let me emphasize it with the sole skate.)I got my sole skate for kicks; I had never ridden a skateboard before but I wanted to try something new. Plus I wanted something smaller than an actual skateboard. I like it... but the sole skate isn't perfect. I started out learning how to ride it on a flat sidewalk and fell off about once every five seconds. Ouch. It took me a week to learn how to ride it properly and then it was more fun. But I still wish I could go faster. The wheels are smaller than I'd expected and they tend to get stuck in things.Another thing: balancing on this while carrying anything on your back (i.e a backpack) is a bad idea. Don't do it.I've decided to invest in a penny board for my next adventure; I have a friend with one and I tried his out. A penny board is definitely faster and more stable than a sole skate. But my sole skate is still fun. If you're going to get one, get it for fun and don't expect to actually use it to ride distances. I mostly ride mine around the park.

Decent skateboard. It's rather small for people who aren't used to that. And you're mainly riding/steering with your front foot. I decided to take the brake out as I found if I leaned to far forward the brake would activate and the board would stop instantly (On a side note the brake is amazing). It can go over fairly large cracks (as apposed to what I've seen in reviews), although when going over them it is very loud. Not something you would want to ride when sneaking out of the house.

Pros:-very compact, about size of large textbook-light, maybe less than 5lbs-decently turn radius, about 5ft-can go over most cracks, I've ridden on sidewalks and alleyways no problemCons:-loud, people will definitely know that your coming-unstable at high speeds-experienced riders will probably only enjoyComments:-remove brake, it is unecessary and reduces precise handling of board-im experienced, so I can ride with stuff in hand and backpack others probably will not be able to balanceRecommend? Yes for more experienced riders

This thing is an insane death trap. I had hoped to be able to scoot around my neighborhood on this, but since my neighborhood is not a pro skate park with immaculately clean and smooth ground surfaces, I found this thing constantly trying to end me.Overall it's a pretty cool (and inexpensive) device - it's fun when you're on a super smooth surface, but the moment you venture onto cracked asphalt streets and uneven sidewalks you find that this thing magnifies the danger factor of a skateboard tenfold since it stops when you hit small bumps, just like a skateboard, but is much shorter so provides even less leverage to push onward.With a lifetime of skateboarding, snowboarding, and rollerblading behind me, and extreme caution, I managed to get around on this for about a month with only one semi-painful fall, but then I took a tumble that left me banged up enough that I'll be passing this on to someone else (and wish them luck!).