Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Jukes!

When I heard Atom had a new mini wheel that was based on the custom wheels of the Olly girls, I "had" to buy them and try them. Right? Uh-huh.
So the Jukes come in both narrow and standard width and also in 88A, 93A, and 95A. I didn't want to vary too many factors when I tried them, so I went with standard width 93As. They took a little longer to break in than most Atom wheels (about 2/3 of a one hour practice as opposed to about 1/4, still pretty freaking good), and at first I didn't really notice much of a difference. Until we started doing weaving drills. And then, WOW. Whipping from side to side and doing little jumps was MUCH easier than before, and this was the first practice back after our winter break. During our scrimmage, I felt way more agile while jamming, and definitely had more pick up during starts. This is an awesome wheel for scrimmaging and agility drills!
BUT. With the smaller diameter you have to pump more to go the same distance, just like with bike wheels. I didn't realize that until endurance practice the next day. Ugh... Again, it's the beginning of the season, so I am not as in shape as I will be in a few months, but I touched base with the other two girls on my team who are skating on them and they admitted to all feeling unusually fatigued when trying to skate for long distances.
Soooooo, this is an awesome wheel for derby, but you may be sucking wind for a while during endurance training until you get used to the shorter wheel.