I learned a lot from these tests. While I’ve skied all these roller many times, I’ve never done this kind of back-to-back comparison. It produced some surprises & confirmed most impressions. So a HR monitor, stop watch, pad of paper & a fixed course can provide objective speed data. Descending speeds seem to track these results well.

First, virtually any classic roller ski will allow HR zone 1 overdistance training – I tested a V2 930 w/ their slowest wheels. Among the skate rollers, here’s how they grouped:
Fast: ProSki C2 w/ plastic wheels, V2 150XL & Swede Ski classics (w/ a soft rubber 70×60 mm wheel- go figure?)
Medium Fast: Marwe 610, V2 125XL, Pursuit w/ 1 fast #1 & 1 medium #2 wheel
Medium Slow: Pursuit w/ 1 medium #2 & 1 slow #3 wheel, V2 850
Slow: V2 830, Pursuit w/ 2 slow #3 wheels
Surprises were the speed of the old Swede ski & how fast the smooth feeling Marwe 610 & V2 125 were; they feel like they are a category slower than they are. I was also surprised that the slowest 100mm wheels are a little slower than the V2 W83 70mm wheel, V2’s slowest.

Near the test section of bike path is a badly worn strip of rough asphalt. I did a few runs on this section with 4 rollers – V2 125XL, Marwe 610, Pursuit w/ #2 & 3 wheels & V2 830. Again I was surprised. While the 100mm Pursuit & 105mm Marwe suffered a slightly smaller speed penalty than the 70mm V2 830, they were all miserable compared to the V2 125XLs. Pneumatic tires win on rough pavement and easily beat a composite shaft for vibration dampening.

The other advantage of pneumatic tires is a small ability to change resistance by about 5-10% using tire pressure. This is only an option if you are not a heavy skier on rough pavement where low pressure risks pinch flats or tire sidewall failure. This hasn’t happened for me (I’m 155 lbs.) but it has happened to some bigger guys I know.

Another interesting finding is that as roller ski resistance went up, the power demands on my body shifted to upper body & arms even though I could stay in Zone 1. While I could stay in Zone 1 on all of them (another surprise), the slow rollers were not much fun & require a cadence of about 60 to stay in Zone 1. Based on all of this my ideal skate roller ski would be something versatile like the V2 125 or 150XL w/ speed reducer or anything in the medium slow category.

Hope this adds to our understanding of roller ski selection!

I think it is easier to classify skis as “fast” or very “fast.” It is the slow side that is more challenging. This is because kids who need the faster skis to V2 on, probably don’t have the technique to balance on them. It is usually pretty obvious what a fast ski is.

So how do we standardize?

I like to recommend skis that kids will grow into – maybe a bit slow initially, but as they build strength and fitness, they will reach a point where they can use a full range of techniques at a reasonable effort. This means there will most likely be more V1 then is optimal early on, but trade offs are inevitable.

Another factor to be considered is the terrain available for training. One of the nice things about having a variety of skis around for testing is that I can pick a pair for a specific workout. If I am going to be on relatively gradual terrain, I can chose a slower pair. If I want to cover some ground in a distance workout, work on my stability, or keep up with a faster skier I can chose a faster pair. But now we are getting into the idea of having multiple pairs of roller skis – not a good thing to encourage for a sport that is already so gear intensive.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts on wheel wear, bearings, etc…

Four observations from my coaching have caused me to rethink my 30 years of roller ski experience however: HS kids too easily make the classic training mistake – going too hard on easy days & to easy on hard days. It is very difficult to develop complete weight transfer skills on skate roller skis & speed makes that development very much harder. It is surprisingly hard to stay in HR zone 1 while doing V2 but V2 develops the most complete weight transfer. Faster rollers discourage involvement in roller skiing because of fear. As a result, I’ve concluded this is a really important & practical issue not just a question for the geek in us.

Here’s a suggestion for a doable addition to your reviews that would be very helpful. Report in your tests if it is possible to V2 on skate or combie rollers and stay in HR zone 1. For classic rollers, report if you can stride in Zone 1 – I haven’t found a model where this isn’t true however unless the pavement is really rough. Any ski that is faster than requied to stay in Zone 1 should be consider ‘fast’ or ‘very fast’. Those that have too much resistance to allow Zone 1 training should be considered ’slow’ or ‘very slow’. Everything else is ‘medium speed’.

I’ve found some racing rollers & the Jenex V2 150s are faster than needed to stay in Zone 1 while doing V2. Conversly, the softest #3 Rollerski.com 100mm wheels are so slow that I can’t get below HR zone 4 even using my slowest V1 on flat smooth pavement. What this demonstrates is we don’t need great precision of test data but rather some rough objective anchors for the meaning of speed because there is a very wide range of available product out there. I think we are going to find that there are important differences among the middle speed roller skis. But the only way we are going to know that is with more objective testing.

I don’t have a good suggestion for you on the issue several readers have raised about decending speed. We have approached that problem in 2 ways. The most important is selection of terrain. It really doesn’t take much of a hill to do good interval work. Even so, decending speed is the main reason we particularly favor the Jenex V2 rollers in our fleet because all of them have switchable speed reducers. The V2 150s in particular would be impractical even in gently rolling terrain w/o the speed reducer.

Hope this helps in the creation of a practical approach to this issue. Later, I’ve got lots of info to add about wheel wear, bearings & ski stability. And thanks again for your wonderful dedication to the sport!

But honestly, I don’t think it matters that much. I have trained on so many different skis over the years, and coached athletes on an even wider variety. While skis at either end of the speed spectrum can be problematic, I find that anything within the very large middle range works well. It is mainly a matter of personal preference and fitness level. I don’t see a need for precision measurements for selecting roller skis. The nerd in me would like to do it, but will it make people train better? One of the things that kept popping into my mind while testing roller skis was “They are just roller skis!” Yes there are many differences, and some are better than others, but at the end of the day they are merely a simple tool, and I could get an excellent workout on any pair (with the exception of the race skis).

Another major issue is that there are so many variables that are almost impossible to control. Temperature, road surface and ski age have a major impact on performance. I have old skis that were some of the slowest in the game when new – 15 years later they are crazy fast. Even one season of use can change the characteristics. It is very difficult to be specific about speed. So I don’t’ think anything other then general statements of speed are useful – “this is a fast ski” or “this ski is average.”

That said, I’ll give this some more thought. Again, it is a very interesting idea. I’m just not sure that A) this information will be useful, and B) even if the data is good, that it is really needed to improve training. But I am very open to discussing it further.

Thanks for your thoughts!

In my view, the ideal roller ski speed would be the slowest ski that allows you to do over-distance training (@ heart rate zone 1-2) using each of the ski techniques AND allow interval training (heart rate zones 4-5) on the terrain available. High intensity training will often mean using hills so the ideal roller ski should allow slow enough descents of those hills to remain safe.

Of course, the roller ski resistance required to meet these goals will vary with the skier’s power and ski techniques used. So different skiers will need different levels of resistance. There is virtually no information available to the consumer to help with this choice and that’s what I suggest Faster Skier aim to provide. How would a buyer choose among the 4 wheels & 3 bearings offered for the Shark?

From my experience, it is relatively easy to find a classic roller ski that will allow both HR zone 1-2 & zone 4-5 training on moderate hills. Finding a skate roller ski that allows zone 1-2 training while using V2 (or two-skate for you CXC folks) AND that isn’t screaming fast going down hills is more challenging. And that is the reason for my testing.

But even more challenging will be developing the data to help consumers identify the ski that matches their needs. Here is my suggestion: add a component to your blog that would allow other roller skiers to contribute data. Some RV user blogs have little databases that allow RV owners to contribute gas mileage data for different RVs. I suggest you create something similar (and enter data from your testing too) about roller ski speed. The info that might be collected would include – roller ski model, some kind of owner’s fitness measure, roller skiing experience, whether it is possible to ski in HR zone 1-2 while skating or striding and whether descending interval hills is easy-medium-hard. Some of these are subjective but still helpful. An objective measure of a roller skier’s fitness is a bit tough but even age & racing level would be a start. A race PR time would be another option. Use of a heart rate monitor would be helpful but not required.

Later this summer I will be able to provide data for high school roller skiers & some of the coaches for several commonly used models.

I have been testing the wooden roller skis. I didn’t get them until recently, but I will have a full review of them soon!