Womens Salomon fitness skates... cant decide!

[lissette]

Hi,

I am looking for a pair of Salomon fitness skates.. but there are a couple that are close in price and I am unsure of which to go for. All my skating will be outdoor and fitness oriented.
I am looking at the Siam 8 '05, Siam 9 Ti fitness skate '05, or the Motion 8 ti '04.

What are the differences between them and what would you suggest?

[IW Staff]

Difference reside in bearings and wheels mainly. With some minor cosmetic , frame and boot differences.

The Siam 9Ti would be the quickest of the 3 using 84mm wheels. A bit faster and great if you are doing long skates or are looking for a quicker skate.

The other two are very similar. The Siam 8 has better bearings than the 8Ti, but the 8Ti can always be upgraded down the road. The 8Ti doesn't have bad bearings or anything, just not the ILQ's the Siam does.

You can't go wrong with any of them. You can save a ton of money getting the 8Ti as the price is incredible for that skate as it is on clearance. You can't put an 84mm wheel on there if you wanted to, but you can put any bearings you wanted to down the road. At 80mm, skates are plenty fast. They didn't start making skates with 84, 90 & 100mm wheels until just recently.

So if an experience skater that goes for long skates and is comfortable skating quick and like stretching out with good strides, go with the Siam 9. If wanting a high end skate that will mainly be used for trails, fitness and light training with 80mm wheels stocked ready to go, the Siam 8. If looking to get in cheap and have plenty of skate for the trails and light training, go with the Motion 8 Ti. You can get top of the line bearings (Bones Swiss for $60) at a later time. The stock bearings are good quality and wouldn't need any changes for quite some time.

Hope this helps.

Stan @ IW