Aggressive Skate Blog

XSJADO BASIC COMPLETE

By Alex Mason, aka LEXO36

Last month I decided it was time for new skates. I worked my butt off and got enough money for the newest addition to the Xsjado family, the Xsjado Basics.

I stayed home from school the day the skates were supposed to be delivered. When the Fedex guy finally delivered the skates I was so happy. My first impression of the skates was, “Wow! These are so much better looking than pictures on the internet!” The all black shell and soul plates are really fresh and also easy to customize with. The brown accents the black shell very well and looks nice. It is a color scheme you don’t see on other skates, and of course Xsjado is known for that.

First off I’ll talk about the souls, because that is what most everyone talks about on the Xsjados. Yes, the souls are HUGE, biggest souls on the market. The make it easy to lock in, but they don’t feel as big as they look when they are actually on your foot. They slid amazing right out of the box, but most souls do. After more than a month of skating them they still slide nice and don’t show any signs of slowing down. The backslide plate is my favorite part of the skate. It just gives you a really nice locked in feel, and you can get really low on your royales and full torques to make you have that steeze that everyone wants. The negatives are larger than a lot of other skates regular soul area. If you like negative tricks YOU WILL LOVE THESE SKATES. I do a lot more negative tricks now since it is a lot easier to lock in with them. Cess slides aren’t a problem either, they cess just as well as all my other skates, maybe even better.

Next topic is the foot wrap. The idea of the foot wrap is just amazing. It is so convenient if you need to go into the store to get a drink or just go somewhere you cant wear skates. They are really comfortable too. The first week of having my Xsjados I totally ignored my usual shoes and just wore the foot wraps everywhere. Yes it is true, Xsjados take longer to put on than other skates, but it really isn’t THAT long. The trade off is the comfort and stability you have in them.

Now we are onto what everyone asks about every skate, flex and support. The support in Xsjados is the best out of every skate I have tried while doing gaps. The cuff is high so you have more support for Perkett like gaps. They have a big shock absorber in the heel which is really good too. It gets the job done well. But the flex is totally up to you. You could loosen them at the top to give them the flex of Deshis or cuffless Remz, or you could tighten them so much they are stiff. Whatever you like, the top strap helps you out, while your foot stays in the skate because of the toe strap and the ankle binding.

Something new on the Basics is the monostrap at the top as opposed to the double straps on previous models. I have tried both and I don’t really prefer one over the other. They both do what they are supposed to do well. On the basics toe strap there is no rubber at the end so eventually they fray which isn’t that bad, you could just replace them once they are really bad with other Xsjado toestraps that have the rubber, or put rubber at the end yourself. The ankle binding works just like a snowboard binding. You just put the plastic strap in and pull up the metal piece and they get tighter and tighter to however you like it. They really keep your foot in well and there is virtually no heel lift. The cushion on cuff is really comfy and didn’t hurt my leg at all, unlike previous skates I have tried.

Even if you aren’t grinding or anything Xsjados are even just fun to cruise around the streets with. They just feel so cool under your feet. And when you land a trick they just feel really cool a different than other skates.

If your foot ever grows or if you just feel like you need a smaller size, NO WORRIES! The Xsjado skates all come in 2 shell sizes, small and large. You can just buy a new foot wrap in the exact size you want and adjust the cuff back and forth to new size. You have to unscrew the back frame bolt, take out the shock absorber, unscrew the gold thing and there you go, adjust away.

Overall, Xsjados are some of the most customizable skates out. There are a bunch of cuff colors, soul colors, backslide colors you could mix and match to make your Xsjados unique. They make night souls for them too which I have only heard good things about. And all the flex is up to you and how tight you want your skates to be.

If I had to rate them on a scale from 1-10, I would definitely give them at LEAST a 9. They are just the perfect skate and it is a great concept. They have everything you really need in a skate and just make rollerblading so much more fun. Definitely pick up a pair from Roller Warehouse!

This entry was posted on Friday, July 14th, 2006 at 1:33 pm and is filed under skating, xsjado, review, aggressive, rollerblade. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will appear immediately, but I reserve the right to delete innapropriate comments.