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Law on Tuesday January 15th, 2008 said:: Pretty. Any idea when they'll be ready?

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jomu on Wednesday January 16th, 2008 said:: yeah they look good, i'm pleased to see they have the 'latimer' instep pad. The thin neoprene isn't kind on my high instep!

The colour really reminds me of the prototype stockwells. This is a good thing!

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Jeff on Wednesday January 16th, 2008 said:: Great looking! I think I'll have to get a pair of these as soon as they're available. I've never owned a pair and I don't think I gave them enough time to really judge them well enough when I tried out a pair from a friend.

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markv on Wednesday January 16th, 2008 said:: Not sure where these came from, but they are just samples, not final production. Notice the wrong strap with the dual strap receptor.

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markv on Wednesday January 16th, 2008 said:: oh yeah, latest ship date from the factory is Jan. 25th

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memento on Thursday January 17th, 2008 said:: What's the deal with the grey? They should make those in dark purple instead. Farmer's pro pants have purple stitcthing. Farmer dyed his skates purple when he filmed for the Vibralux TNS edit. Its obvious the dude likes purple.

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memento on Thursday January 17th, 2008 said:: Still, let's keep the bitching to a minimum. Good thing the comments section in this website isn't messed up unlike OTHER sites. *coughcoughrollernewscoughcough*

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aldolega on Thursday January 17th, 2008 said:: just because purple seems to be the new trend in rollerblading fashion, i think it'd be dumb to produce a purple skate, it would hurt their (already meager) sales. rollerblading is too small right now to cater to niche aesthetic tastes... it'll be done when (if) we get back to selling 50,000 pairs of each model of skates, not a thousand or two.

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memento on Friday January 18th, 2008 said:: Umm.... I only pointed out the color purple since Farmer dabbles in it. Don't look at me like some pubescent, fad-following idiot. It's in his pro pants. It's in his wheel graphics. For God's sake he even dyed his old skates purple. Every pro model should be designed with input from the pro himself. Even if Chris Farmer did want his skates grey, I can't believe this industry still pretends to be stuck in some underground culture 'cage' along with 4 color schemes and decade-old boot molds. Jeez people. Reach out for the sky and be optimistic! If rolleblading really is underneath the poverty/participation line, then why does Nimh exist?

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Law on Friday January 18th, 2008 said:: Heh, well I gotta agree with @aldolega on this one. As a company owner, of a company that's seen the rise and fall and rise and fall, we're definitely on "safe color" territory right now. Remember when we made frames in every color imaginable? Yellow, Lime, Royal, you name it. Hell, grindplates too. Right now we make white, black and gray. Maybe a little Red but less Red than any other color, and they didn't sell.

Not to say that @memento isn't right, we need to listen to our pros, and we do. But we're only starting to dig ourselves out of this hole. Nimh is a great indication of that, as was Mindgame 7 years ago, and FR 7 years before that. Give it another year and you'll see more colors and more risks.

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Law on Friday January 18th, 2008 said:: btw: notice how the comment indents itself a bit more when the comment number reaches double digits. I did that!

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aldolega on Saturday January 19th, 2008 said:: Memento, I wasn't trying to imply anything about you, just stating how it is. The issue isn't if Chris likes purple or not, as you've pointed out that's clearly true. Chris probably would have liked to have seen his skate be purple or purple-accented, but either he or his superiors at Xsjado knew that it wouldn't sell.

If I were in his shoes, making as little as he does from skating, I'd probably approve a pro skate that was red and yellow with puffy tongues, triple laces and four-inch-wide souls if it'd make my royalty checks big enough that I could actually pay any one monthly bill with them.

I'm not sure what you mean by the culture cage, but the limited color schemes and old boot molds are entirely a financial restriction, as Law and I have explained. Manufacturers have minimum orders for everything and most companies are barely selling enough pieces to meet the minimums for one, MAYBE two colors of anything at a time, let alone the ten or so you'd have to do to supply all the "weird" colors people'd want. Avoiding financial suicide for your company is not pessimistic, it's realistic.

I'd say Nimh exists because Jon and Brian wanted to do it no matter the financial outcome. Obviously they'll be happy if it makes them a bunch of money, but I think that they'd be doing it even if it was only breaking even.

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timparker on Saturday January 19th, 2008 said:: Thanks for clearing that up Mark! I found this picture on Be-mag from some Asian website. I noticed the old strap so thought it might not be final - but just seeing this is a nice little teaser for what is to come!

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