What brands do you recommend?

BRANDS WE LOVE

We only recommend brands that we have tested ourselves or that people close to us have tested. Being animal lovers we only wear/recommend vegan skates and luckily we have a lot of cruelty-free options to choose from! Moxi, Rookie, Rio and Chaya are the brands we’ve had the best experiences with. We generally recommend roller skates with heels and adjustable toe stops, because these are two things that can be very helpful, especially in the beginning. Skates with heels shift your weight to the front of the boot, making it harder to lose your balance and fall back. Adjustable toe stops are mostly made out of rubber, which is the best material for grip (most bolt on toe stops are made of harder plastics and can be very slippery). You can read more about our toe stop recommendations here. Keep scrolling to see our list of recommended models - we hope this helps you narrow down your search so you can find the pair that is right for you!

MOXI ROLLER SKATES

Beach Bunnies

Rainbow Riders

Moxi Ivy Jungle

Vegan Jack Boot

ROOKIE SKATES

Rookie Artistics

RIO ROLLERS

Rio Signatures

Rio Milkshakes

CHAYA SKATES

Melrose Elites

Melrose Deluxe

ON A BUDGET

For those on a budget we recommend looking on Willhaben. You never know, with a little luck you might just stumble upon a cheap pair of second hand skates in your size! Tip: you can always upgrade an old and/or cheap pair of skates
by switching out the wheels and laces for some nicer ones (check out our wheel recommendations here).

You want to start roller skating but don’t know if you’ll enjoy it and buying a new pair of skates feels like a big commitment? We understand it can be risky spending money on something you might not get much use out of and while we don’t have the resources to rent out skates yet, we do have a very supportive skate community here in Graz - many people are happy to help out new skaters by lending their own skates for a day or two. So feel free to reach out and we can try to arrange something. We can’t guarantee we’ll be able to find a pair in your size but hey, it’s worth a try!

ABOUT IMPALAS

We often get asked about Impala skates, since they’re always trending online and have such a broad selection of pretty colours and designs. Unfortunately, while they do look cute, we’ve come to the conclusion that we cannot in good conscience recommend this brand after many instances (both personal and that have been shared with us) of their skates falling apart after only a couple uses. It really is a shame, because the skates are visually appealing and have such a wide selection of designs, but when it comes to quality they are sadly lacking and not worth the price (we can recommend Impala padding though - check out our safety gear recommendations here).