LIKU Unisex Fitness Inline Skates

TL;DR: The LIKU skates are pretty good, I'd say they're about equivalent to the Rollerblade Zertablade. The Zertablades are pretty nice but you can't change the frames, but these are almost as nice and have a few unique feeling features for the price range. I'd say it's essentially a wash and you basically can't go wrong unless you *really* don't want to fiddle with screws.I'm just getting into skating, so this review is from my perspective as a beginner who has done a lot of research. I just bought the Rollerblade Zertablades, which ended up fitting my partner perfectly, so she inherited them. They seem like a good baseline to set this review up against. I've taken a few sub 3 mile trips on these so far.Let's start with the boots. In skate-terms the boot is a hard boot, which means that it has a hard outer shell with a soft inner liner that can be fully removed (to wash or swap or whatever you might want to do with it). The alternative is a soft boot, which means that it has fabric or soft parts integrated directly into the design of the boot, like having a sports shoe upper on your skate. Both seem fine, I don't see any problems with the design so far. The plastic seems hard and strong, but doesn't necessarily radiate quality, basically it seems fine. The closure system on the boot is pretty nice and keeps the foot snug in the skates when you're wearing them. I personally found these boots pretty comfortable, but they definitely run slightly snug in a few places. I'm a US size 7.5 men, so I got the size 8 after (measuring my foot and then) consulting the sizing chart and the right foot still runs just slightly snug on my foot. Not so much as to be particularly uncomfortable so far, but I can definitely feel the squeeze a bit already. The other squeeze is on my ankle, so I've ordered a gel ankle sleeve to help mitigate this a bit as I've seen people mentioning having this issue with inline skates in general. They run about $20 and we'll see how they end up working out when they come in. As you can probably infer, the pain isn't horrible, but it's bad enough that since I intend to wear them fairly regularly I'd rather figure out a way around it than just toughing it out. I didn't notice this issue on the Zertablades. Finally, the last nice feature about the boot is that it's not riveted to the frames (the frames that hold the wheels, aka the 'rollerblade' bit), it's screwed on so you can adjust it or swap the frame for a different one with different qualities. The Zertablade (and most other similarly priced skates on the market, sub ~$100) have fixed frames that can't be swapped, which makes this a pretty nice feature at the price range. It allows you to replace a damaged frame or swap to different feeling frame instead of buying whole new skates. Pretty slick if you ask me.Next, the frames and rolling parts. It's important to mention here that they send you a rockered skate setup. This means that instead of the wheels all being the same size and flat to the ground, the wheels are set up in a way that the front and back wheels are farther away from the ground than the middle two wheels are, allowing for a smoother transition back and forth on your skates and slightly more smooth and flowing motion in them. The way this setup does this is by your frames being flat across the axels and including 4 slightly smaller diameter wheels for your front and back two wheels. This is great because in my opinion the rocker is super fun to ride on, but I still have the option of buying 4 new 80mm (or 76mm if I have smaller feet) wheels to fix my setup so that it's not rockered anymore. The wheels and bearings seem to be of serviceable quality. I've ridden skateboards for a while so I know really nice bearings, and these are not those. But they're not awful, I can ride around without feeling sticky and they don't grind or anything, they're just the cheap metal shielded bearings that you get with cheapish setups where it isn't a selling point. It's really not a big deal, I roll fine and it all feels pretty good to skate on right out of the box. some of the bolts on the axels are a bit tight out of the box, so when you're putting on the frames loosen them all and then tighten them all down to just tight enough so that the wheels don't rattle side to side audibly and not too much tighter and you'll be much happier with their roll. Also ABEC means basically squat, it's an engineering term about tolerances so they're just saying it to sound smart, don't be fooled. If you wanted to replace them right out of the box go out and get a *16 pack* of Bones Reds and you basically can't go wrong, they're the standard in skating in general as far as I can tell. (2 bearings per wheel, 8 wheels -> get the 16 pack)Now for the general feel of the product I feel like these are a really nice way to get into skating. For a hundred bucks or so ($102.99 w/ prime @ time of purchase) you get a nice set of beginner skates with the capacity to expand upward with you, if you want. For me, the ability to tinker with frames and the inclusion of a nice rockered setup pushes this into pretty equal competition to the well name brand's option at this price point. The zertablade has a slightly nicer set of bearings and the plastic seems slightly higher quality, but in the end the difference is really like the difference between skating with a Mac and a PC, you're just using a different shaped mouse to click a different shaped icon to open the internet: in the end it's really mostly the same.Now to address other reviewer's issues with the product:*Size up and they are fairly comfortable, if not quite as much as the soft shoe zertablades (WHICH RUN NARROW)*I haven't had issues with the screws holding the frames to the boot, but I tightened it down fairly tight*I can't speak to the brake, as I haven't installed it. That said the hardware is all right there in the box.*I don't in gods name know how the fellow bought their ice blade, I don't know if that's still a thing. That said, you *can* absolutely buy the full rockered wheel set, which is kind of nice because the set of wheels is actually fairly cheap and I seemingly don't have an inline shop in town. $40 for 8 wheels, 90A*I did not have an issue with the hardware (@ back screw person) at all, aside from the tightness of the front and rear axels on the frames, which wasn't even that big of an issue. Make sure your hex wrenches are seated well and turn slowly and you won't strip screws so much. That said, they could have had faulty hardware, I just know I did not*The gold is super shiny painted on over plastic parts. It seems fairly clear in the pictures and it's not the absolute best execution of it in the world, but it's not an awful effect and they certainly don't look like trash. The color on the frames definitely isn't gold, but it's clear from the pictures that that's the case. The frames are yellow orange, like yellow gold without the luster or depth I guess. It's not a bad look in my opinion.*And once again, I got all the hardware and separate parts to properly assemble all of the bits*And finally the instructions are indeed basically trash, but it is also fairly intuitive to understand and if you really have that much issue with the instructions, the seller *starts the listing* with a YouTube video showing the instruction. It's not properly hyperlinked there, but it's there friends.

Like the color, the finishing. Wheels look quite good. Material used is ok, not what you would expect for the price. I could not fit the brakes second stew,gave up.

Ok, so you have to put the skates together yourself. Who cares?! These things are great!! I have a bad ankle (multiple bad sprains over the years) and I couldn't use any of the fancy name brand skates since they all have soft boot styles. This is a hard shell, single piece boot that gives me plenty of stability. The bearings and wheels are also really good: smooth ride and quick. You can also adjust the alignment of the wheels, which is also helpful (since everything I've read seems to point to wheel alignment as an issue for weak ankles.)Only negative: the brake is a harder material and doesn't work well the first couple of times you use it. But once you break it in, it's fine.HIGHLY recommend, especially for those with ankle issues/weakness.

Love these!! Was weary at first when installing the brake to the right foot, it wasn’t fitting right, but I emailed and they have quick customer service and they helped me figure it out and it was actually really simple to attach! I definitely was overthinking that installation. Very comfortable and easy to adjust the blades. Love the colors and the durability of skates! Have been skating all kinds with the kids with no problem. Even ordered the all black version for my husband so the whole family can skate. Thanks LIKU!

The skates fit pretty alright and they look cool af, but the brake isn't even for my model of skates. They were made for straight frames, not curved ones like these have, so when you go to install the brake, it's too small and the internally threaded screws/shafts are ever so slightly too large to fit the wheels.I checked Liku's actual website, and they have a different set of frames for these skates at ARE straight down the sides, but I'm not about to pay $60 to fix a mistake that wasn't mineI emailed LIKU a few days ago when I received my skates and still have not received a response