Indoor roller hockey is a fun sport that is also an effective workout. Having the right kind of inline hockey wheels on your skates is important to ensure maximum performance. The key is choose wheels that have the right balance of grip and speed potential; this varies from person to person based upon your body weight and personal preference.
Hardness
The hardness of inline hockey wheels is measured using a grading scale called the durometer. Soft wheels feature lower numbers, such as 74A, while harder wheels fall on the higher end of the scale, such as 85A. The "A" signifies that material being used to make the wheel, which is usually urethane. The best indoor wheels will range between 74A for the lightest skaters, to 80A for the heaviest players. This will provide the ideal balance between grip and speed.
Size
The size, or diameter, of the wheels you use makes a huge impact on your top-speed potential. Larger wheels will allow you to skate faster, but it will also incrementally hurt your turning ability. So, the best way to go is to use a combination of wheel sizes to improve both speed and agility. Bauer and Mission inline skates utilize the popular Hi-Lo configuration where two 80 mm wheels are used in back and two 72 mm or 76 mm wheels are used in front.
Manufacturing Process
As of 2011, the latest innovation in inline wheel design uses a quad-pour manufacturing process to improve the performance of the wheels on indoor surfaces. There's also a dual-pour process. This simply means that the wheels are created using four, or two, different urethanes melted together. The result is a wheel that has various hardness ratings on the inside, side and other surfaces of the wheel. Quad-pour wheels are produced by all of the major inline wheel manufacturers.
Brands/Pricing
The most reputable and popular inline hockey wheel brands, according to HockeyGiant.com, include Labeda, Hyper, Red Star, Rink Rat and Kuzak. The prices, as of 2011, can vary from wheel-to-wheel based on its quality. For instance, the top-of-the-line Labeda Addiction XXX inline hockey wheel can cost as much as $14 per wheel, and the Kuzak Zone indoor wheels can be purchased for $2 per wheel.
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