DNN Watch Party Contest

Have you checked out Derby News Network lately. It looks like Hurt Reynolds and JFM have done it again. This idea is AMAZEBALLS...are you ready for it... It's a Watch Party Contest. You know Atom Wheels was there to support this AMAZING idea One of the winners will win a set of wheels for each person on their team (14 total sets). Send in the sickest videos that you have, everyone is going to be stoked to check them out.

Check out the link below for more information.

http://www.derbynewsnetwork.com/2010/06/contest_best_watch_party_photovideo

Shortbus

ECE 2010...Are you READY!!!

ECE 2010 is just a few days away and you know that Atom Wheels has been gearing up for 3 days of non stop derby action. Are we ready... HECK YA were ready! Unfortunately I do not have my bags packed OR anything ready and my plane leaves at 8:30am tomorrow YUCK! Cannot wait to see all the amazing teams play this weekend. Make sure you come by the Atom WHeels booth and say whats up. We will also have the highly sought ever POISON and PULSE wheels at the table BUT there will only be limited quantities so first come first serve. The ever so popular Juke will be in attendance as well, so if you want to be on the same playing field as everyone else you better stop by and grab them. If there is anything particular you need or just want to come by and talk feel free to stop by.

See everyone soon and good luck to all the amazing teams!

Shortbus

Varla Vendetta at the Brewhaha!

Check out the Newest Atom All Star had to say about her bout against Madison!

Shortbus

The Windy City Rollers All-Stars kicked off their 2010 season with our first public bout at Milwaukee's Brewhaha on May 23. Their track was like our home track, skatecourt, so I skated with my Juke 93A Slim. The Juke Slims handle beautifully on skatecourt. I'd started out the year with Juke 95A Slims, but found them a touch too slippery for my style of skating derby (though for speed training on wood rink floors, they were great). I've always been a fan of a grippier wheels. Though the 95As worked well when I jammed, I found myself sliding out when I took too large of a step to block. But the Juke 93A Slims are the perfect balance of speed and grip for both jamming and blocking on skate court. I'd never been able to successfully transition to the skinny wheels until I gave the Juke Slims a shot, but now I love the agility they offer. There's a big difference in the sharpness of cuts and direction change on them.

Varla Vendetta
Windy City Rollers
Atom Allstar

Magnum on his bout this past weekend!

Check out what Magnum had to say about his bout this past weekend.

Shortbus
Atom Derby

This past weekend was a big step for the St. Louis GateKeepers as we played our first public Intraleague bout. Dividing into two temporary teams, The Force (white) and The Dark Side (Dark Grey), the GateKeepers traveled to Evansville, Indiana to play a 40 minute demo bout prior to a Rollergirls of Southern Indiana (R.O.S.I.) local bout.

The game was filled with intense action and a brotherly competitive feeling between teams. It was the first public bout for many of the GateKeepers but aggressive play was not in short supply. A few costly jammer penalties to The Dark Side gave the lead to The Force in the first half. The second half was a relative stalemate as each team took turns scoring points. In the end, the first half lead of The Force was too much for The Dark Side to overcome resulting in a final score of 78-49. So just as in the movies, good prevailed. But with two more Intraleague bouts scheduled for the GateKeepers, The Dark Side has the opportunity to strike back.

I captained The Force while rocking Lowboy Slims. The surface was painted concrete. With the surface being fast and grippy, the Lowboys performed great while I split time blocking and jamming. My preference for harder wheels continues as my favorites to date are Atom Strokers and Lowboys. Go get you some.

Have derby, will travel.

Magnum, p.i.m.p.
StL GateKeepers
Atom Front Runner

JTP on the Magic City VS Harm City Bout

Check out what JTP from the Magic City Misfits had to say about their bout against the Harm City Homicide.

Shortbus
Atom Derby

What's up derby peeps. Just wanted to recap last weekend against Harm City Homicide. My team (Magic City Misfits) went to Hagerstown, MD to bout one of the best teams I have played against in my short derby career (Harm City Homicide). They were great host and great skaters.

The bout had a couple of delays due to EVAC being late so we were unable to start on time so Magic City Misfits put on a jamskating show for the crowd and everyone enjoyed it!

After all of the delays the bout got underway. Harm City came out strong the first jam forcing our jammer to get a major and starting a power jam. Granted we are a new team, we kept are cool. The next jam we took back control and never looked back. The score at half time was 114-25 Magic City. At the half we talked about all of the mistakes so in the second half we could come out stronger.

The second half started the same as the beginning of the game with Harm City causing our jammer to get a major and get sent to the box but we stayed focused and ran the second half just like the first half and the final score was 249-87 Magic City Misfits. It was a great win for me and my team.

For this bout I was wearing 95a Jukes. This floor was one of the best floors I've ever skated on and the Jukes were amazing. I was able to cut and stop on a dime. My starts off the line was super quick too. I was able to score 87 point by myself and get MVP jammer and blocker because of what I was rolling on. Only the best, Atom Wheels!


Just The Tip
Magic City Misfits

Poison write up from one of the best!

THis amazing write up on the Poison was done by none other than the FABULOUS DayGlo Divine. Check out what she had to say! She also has a bunch of other good write ups that you might be interested in!

http://www.facebook.com/notes.php?id=1022715644

Shortbus
Atom Derby

So last week, I got a spiffy new set of Atom Poison wheels to test. I had every intention of testing them out at last night's DC Rollergirls' practice at the DC Armory. That floor is notoriously slick, and during my tenure as a DCRG ref, I would regularly do eight-wheel slides and even wipe out on G-Rods. Last time I went, I jam reffed with Stinger pushers and G-Rod non-pushers and felt like I barely had any traction. So it would be a perfect test floor for new hybrid wheels. But last night, I found myself so exhausted from a weekend with a bridal shower sandwiched between back-to-back doubleheaders that my practice plans morphed into an 8:00 disco nap. As I was pondering a wheel swap on the skates I used to jam ref this weekend, it occurred to me that I didn't have to go anywhere to at least get a feel for the wheels. The laundry room in my building is about 20x30, with a grippy, painted concrete floor, and it is directly downstairs from me. So I took my Poisons and Sugars for a spin. Pun intended.

Test 1 -- Atom Poisons (new), VXB ABEC-7 Bearings, Riedell Carrera (old model)/Sure Grip Probe
Last week, I scored a pair of mint-condition Riedell Carreras off eBay. Not the shitty new ones, but the ones that look like -- and basically are -- slightly stripped-down 125s. I have plans for them. Big plans that involve a spare set of Reactors, which are currently on a pair of boots too flimsy for derby. But those plans have not happened because I need help in un-riveting the current plates from the boots. Having not skated in them before, I took them down to ye olde laundrye room. I felt like I had little control on them. Could T-stop and turn-stop just fine, but tight turns -- the only ones I can do down there -- were tough. Doing a crossover in them made me feel like I took a time machine back to 2006, when I first started skating again, and the wheels just seemed to roll and roll and roll. One look at those skates on my feet, and I knew why I was having issues: the plates were mounted improperly. The right plate is off-center and turns inward. Bad. Back upstairs.


Test 2 -- Sure-Grip Sugars (used for 9 bouts on unfinished concrete), VXB ABEC-7 Bearings, Riedell Targa/Sure Grip Probe

My Targas are my outdoor skates, such as it is. Ugly and comfy, with plates that are not ideal but mounted correctly and perfectly skateable with the addition of 79a Sure-Grip "super" cushions. I could skate a bout in them and not miss a beat. My Sugars were already on them, so I took them downstairs and did the same type of things. Tight turns with lots of lean and big crossovers, with T and turn stops thrown in for good measure. They felt sluggish. Not to the point where I couldn't skate on them indoors if I absolutely had to, but I'd have to work for it, because they would stop rolling if I started coasting. And I wasn't T-stopping on a dime like I usually do on grippy floors. They're really closer to true outdoor wheels than hybrids. Great for rebound on rough surfaces like asphalt and concrete floors with a lot of seams and cracks and gates, but not really what I'd use for uber-grip if ever I needed it.

Test 3 -- Atom Poisons (new), VXB ABEC-7 Bearings, Riedell Targa/Sure Grip Probe

After rolling around on the Sugars, I realized that Atom's claims about the Poisons are not the usual advertising hyperbole. They feel faster than the Sugars do, and are probably more suitable for how derby skaters typically use hybrids -- on slick indoor surfaces where they want or need extra grip. At the same time, despite having the same plates as my Targas, the Carreras handle so poorly that I felt like I wouldn't really have a true basis for comparison until I put the Poisons on a different pair of skates. So I put them on my Targas and went downstairs yet again. Did a few hard T-stops on both skates to eliminate mold-release slippage as a factor, and went to work. They held up to my initial impression. They skate a lot like my Stingers, which I regularly use as pushers on slick wood floors, but yet feel softer than my Sugars when I use my "calibrated feelers" on them (i.e., when I squeeze them). I will very likely put these through their paces at practice this week; we're at Putty Hill, which hasn't seen a fresh coat of Roll-On since about the time I started reffing. But so far, I am impressed.

I'll start this by saying I did not get a chance to do a side-by-side comparison with my Sugars at tonight's scrimmage. A double-booking on the rink's part meant we all had to stand in the parking lot for 90 minutes and wait around till some big party full of annoying kids left the building. This meant that practice was stripped down to the bare bones of what it needed to be -- enough time to assess a group of freshies and skaters returning from injury for bout readiness, and one big scrimmage with no break. Having said that...

Test 4
Gear: Atom Poisons (new), VXB ABEC-7 Bearings, Riedell 125/PowerDyne Reactor
Surface: standard-issue wooden rink floor that has not been resurfaced in 3 years and is pretty slick
Typical Wheels for Surface: Atom Stinger pushers with G-Rod non-pushers
Position: Head/Rear Inside Pack Referee

The fact that scrimmage was 2 hours shorter than usual meant we didn't switch teams or divide it up into periods with 5-minute breaks. That meant I couldn't switch between wheels. It also meant I was assigned to one position and stayed there for the duration of the scrimmage. I would have liked the chance to use these wheels for jammer reffing, where I prefer grippier wheels for control and agility, and especially outside pack, as that's where I feel it the most when my wheel configuration is too grippy for the floor. But inside pack is a good place to test slow wheels as well; since it involves a lot of slow, deliberate skating, wheels that are too grippy will tend to slow down or come to a stop pretty quickly. During my impromptu laundry-room test, that happened with the Sugars, but not the Poisons. It didn't happen with the Poisons tonight, either. They are softer than I really need on that floor; for that matter, so is the Stinger/G-Rod combo. But I didn't feel like they were holding me back. Everything I needed to do, I could do. When I wanted them to roll, they rolled. When I leaned hard into turns, they did not break loose, nor did I find that I had to push harder going into the straightaway. If I were blindfolded, I wouldn't have been able to tell them apart from my usual wheels on that floor. This is a good thing. Too often, people use grippy wheels to overcompensate for something they're doing wrong. I didn't feel like these changed my form in any way. I just went about my business as usual, and after a few jams, I wasn't even really thinking about my wheels. And when you're not second-guessing them or doubting whether they will be there for you if you push them, that's the sign of a really good wheel.

Next up: the great outdoors. Hoping I can make it to Lake Montebello or that sweet outdoor hockey rink at Overlook Park this weekend.

DayGlo Divine