Vertical Rollerskating > Tim Altic's Rollerskates
Tim Altic's Rollerskates
Here are some pictures of the setup Tim Altic uses. He has taken the pictures in November 2002. He has written
an article on how to convert a pair of roller skates for vertical skating in 1977.
Tobi Reif has done an interview with Tim Altic
which also contains more pictures of these skates.
Tim also operates the skate park building company Alltec Skate Parks.
Tim used for his skates:
- Suregrip Super X roller skate plates
- Independent 101's
- jump bar floating in between the cushions
- plastic slider plates bolted to the jump bar.
He says: "I studied all the kids skates at this ramp in Leone, France and came back to America to build what
I thought was the best combination of all the ideas that I saw. I did grind the pivot of the truck down to lower
my center of gravity. They worked as/is without grinding but I wanted to lower the CG and it made the geometry
of the trucks fit the plate perfectly. I grind about a 1/4" off of the length of the pivot, and reduced the
diameter of the pivot to fit the hole and plastic cushion in the pivot hole so that I did not have to customize
the plate at all.
The slider plates are made with 2 layers of plastic so that the bolts are not
damaged by sliding on a rail. As you can see the first layer is drilled and
bolted through the center of the jump bar and the 2nd layer covers those
bolts and is drilled - bolted out in front of the wheels and a rail or
coping can not wear down those bolts. The 2nd layer can be replaced when
worn out from sliding."
