Converting inline skates into ice blades

My colleague Koen skates continuously through rain and wind thanks to his water-resistant bearings and grip-resistant wheels, but I am more of a good-weather skater.

Late autumn and early winter, basically the inline skate off-season, always is bit dependent on how bad the weather actually is, but this year (turn of year (2021-2022)) we weren't that lucky. But luckily, the major skate brands realise that skaters don't want to resort to skating indoors only. Which is why there are plenty of options to convert your favourite pair of inlines, into a set of ice skates. You heard me right: ice skates.

I live in Antwerp and there is a brand new skating rink there. I figured it would be a great idea to go test out the FR Ice Freestyle Frames!

From the first second, I noticed that the blades were not as sharp as I would like them to be. That is quite logical. The knives are pre-sharpened, but on the cautious side so that they are also suitable for beginners. And the thing is, they are easier to sharpen than to "unsharpen". 🤓

I skated on them for maybe 20 minutes until I realised I should get them sharpened a bit more. After sharpening them I felt much better on the ice, I could most things that I can do on skates on the ice as well (apart from slides, slides on ice are a whole different ballgame apparently; the technique for sliding is the "reverse" of that on wheels).

The FR Ice Freestyle Frames are freestyle frames for sure. The only way I had ice skated before was on figure ice skates, which have much flatter blade than the FR Ice.

So for speed skating, I wouldn't recommend them as they are fairly unstable at higher speeds because they have a curve that is typical for ice hockey skates.

Everyone else will absolutely love these blades! Because of the blade being integrated in the frame, you're much closer to the ground as you would be with your wheels. And opposed to loose blades that you install on your axles, the FR Ice Freestyle Frames actually make your skates feel like proper ice skates, very responsive and stable.

A hint: I did have to tighten the screws a bit to avoid the horrible clicking sound every time I put my foot to the ice.

There are several options to convert your inlines to ice skates, on the one hand there are Seba Ice Blades and Powerslide Sabre and the other ones are Powerslide Trident and FR Ice Freestyle Frames.

The first, and cheaper option, are metal blades that you install on the axles of your frames (there are 3 wheel and 4 wheel options) by removing the wheels and locking the blade with special spacers.

The second option, a bit more expensive, are the ice blades that are integrated in a whole new frame (so for Trinity mounts you want the Powerslide Trident and for standard 165mm mounts you want the FR Ice Freestyle Frames) which you place under your boot by removing the frame and mounting the ice blade frame.

The major difference between them being obviously the height, the Powerslide Trident and FR Ice Freestyle frames are lower to the floor, because you don't have to mount the blade under your axles; the blade sits much closer to the boot.

I absolutely loved going ice skating over the months where the weather wasn't good enough for me to go out skating in the streets, so if you were thinking about picking up some ice blades, I highly recommend it!

One of the big advantages is that you can go ice skating in a boot that you are already very familiar with.

Rolling greetings, Alex