Echo Freeskate

Hello, hello! Stephen Johnstone @whataspoon here.

So, for the last few weeks, I've been skating the Echo Freeskate founder's edition. The idea with this skate is that we should receive the skate, test the skate, give the feedback and improve the skate before they bring out the finished product. The skate does come with a little tag (QR code) on the side. Scan the QR code, go to the website, tell Echo exactly what you think about the skate and they'll use that information to create an even better skate in the future.

So, if you don't know who Echo Skates are check out this video:

I've been having a lot of fun with these skates. For a budget skate, they are amazing. The price of these skates is going to be somewhere around £180. That's not a lot of money for a good skate. It's a nice price for a beginner budget skate and that's what it's designed to be. If you are someone who wants to pick up a pair of skates and go skate in the park, these are the perfect skates for you. But, as someone who skates every single day, I skate full time, I teach, I'm in the skate park with these things,  I'm everywhere and I'm really enjoying it. I feel like they have a lot of good power transfer. I'm nice and low to the ground. They just have so many things I like about them. That makes me very confident that these will be a popular skate because the price is so good for what they are. 

So, let's dive in a little bit deeper and see what I like about the skates.

I know the first thing you guys probably want to know about is the mounting system. So, unlike normal 165mm skates, they don't just have two holes. These have a whole new system where the frame actually slots inside of the skate. The skate has two little slots and the frame slides in. I've shown you guys exactly how that works in the unboxing video. So, check it out if you want to see how you take the frame off and on. For now, let's just talk about how it performs. 

So, because the frame is inside the skate, you can get the second wheel so close to your foot, meaning everything's lower. I'm right on top of the wheels on these skates. So, extra control and extra stability. It's really nice when it comes to jumps and overall just a lot of control when using these skates. The frame is actually sitting inside the skate, it's not just two bolts holding it on. I feel like I can reach really high speeds really quickly using this skate, so I'm very happy about the performance there. One thing I didn't mention in the unboxing video, because I didn't know at the time, is you can actually move the frame left and right by two millimetres. I'm getting this information from Echo themselves. I haven't actually moved the frame. I hear that is possible. I'm not touching it. I want it to be exactly as it is, because I'm really enjoying it the way it is.

So, do I like the mountain system? Yes, I do. The problem with the mountain system is you can't put any other frames on these. At the moment, you can only use this frame, and I think they're bringing out a 3 x 100 frame and a 3 x 110 frame. So, it is going to be possible to get a tri-skate version of this skate, but other than that, unless this skate becomes popular, I can't imagine other frame companies will be making moulds specifically to be used on this skate. So, at the moment, that's a bit of a flaw, but this is what happens when you bring out a new mountain system. The same thing must have happened to PowerSlide when they brought out the Trinity mounting system. Personally, I'd be very happy to see this mounting used again. Maybe in the future companies like Endless will bring out frames that actually fit onto this skate, and that could be a game-changer. The nice thing about this mounting system is if you want to remove the frame, you don't need to take any wheels off. I can just remove one, two, three, four, five bolts. It doesn't take very long for these bolts to come out. They're quite small, perfectly secure, but they come out very quickly.

The next best thing about the skate is the liner. This liner is new and improved. It's not the same liner that you'll get in the Echo Verve aggressive skate. They probably will put this liner in the new Echo Verve skates when they come out, whenever they do. It's a really good liner. People are saying it looks very similar to an intuition liner up top and it looks very similar to a Second Skin MyFit liner on the side. It's going to look similar to other companies. Of course, it is. That's how you make a good skate, right? You take stuff that works and utilise it. The main reason it looks like the Second Skin liner is because of this anti slip feature on the back. This is removable, but it's nice. It holds my foot down nice and tight. I don't feel like I'm getting any heel lift. Of course, I do have a 45 degree strap on the outside and the skate does fit me really well, so I shouldn't be getting any heel lift anyway but it's nice to have that little thing there to hold my foot down.

I did have the little flaps that you can move around. I took them off because I don't have any pressure points. Sounds like those will be very useful if you have any pains in your foot. It's nice that they've got Velcro all over the whole side of the liner, so you can literally put those little patches anywhere you need.

This liner has come with some extra padding around the outside. It's just been really nice. It feels like a super high quality liner. And again, guys, this skate is only going to be like £180. The shock absorber is also really good by the way. I've not noticed any problems and I've done some high impact jumps. Never had a sore ankle, sore heel. Nothing.

To hold the frame on, we have the five screws that I mentioned earlier. They're locked on with a nice plate. The top one looks like a Y and the bottom one looks like the letter “I”. I've had no issues with them at all. I don't feel like I'm having any problems under the skate. My foot feels comfortable and nothing moves around. Everything feels really solid. There's no little parts that could get lost. It's these huge pieces of metal. So, a very nice system that they've got going on there. And, of course, just to emphasise how close you are to the wheels, you can see the wheel through the hole inside.

The bearings are also great. They're really strong and they're fast enough. It's the exact same bearings they're using for their aggressive skates. Anyway, it's a budget skate. It's for people to go out and just enjoy. It's not for speed skaters.

Let's talk about the wheels next. The wheels are perfectly good for the price. These are standard stock wheels. They're 80mm. I have gone through the wheels a little bit quicker than what I would go through a really high quality wheel, which is pretty normal. So if you're looking for a really high quality set of wheels, these are not the ones for you. But to get started and like I said, for the price, these are pretty damn good. There are a couple of slits in these wheels from when I've been going over bumps and cracks. I've really tried to use these skates in all the terrains. They're almost falling apart. It's definitely time for me to change my wheels. I've turned these wheels round three or four times since I got them just to keep the shape. They slide nicely, they're quite fast and have never had any problems. And the good news is I never broke any. Normally, when a wheel is not made in the US, I typically break it within two weeks. These wheels survived. So pretty good. Well done, Echo.

I'm saying this because I come from aggressive skating. Like I said, this skate is not designed for someone who's aggressive skating. This skate is designed for someone who wants to learn how to skate or just go for street skating, urban style street skating. I've been treating it like an aggressive skater would. I'm doing tricks in the skate park. I'm doing jumps. I'm doing heavy landings. I'm scraping the skates off the floor, doing slides and they've lasted pretty well. Since we're talking about that, quickly moving on from the wheels, the only thing I have broken is the 45 degree strap. It's very likely that it's just been overworked or maybe I've tightened it wrongly. But it's reasonably easy to get a replacement for a 45 degree strap. All I need to do is get any 45 degree strap from any brand. It's just two screws on the side. You can speak to us in store to see if you can get a new one if you do break them. I also would like them to make them a bit shorter. When I put the skates on, I do have a lot of strap sticking out of the side. I have asked them to make the next ones a little bit shorter, at least on the smaller sizes.

The top buckle is really good. It feels great. No problems at all. It's well protected, which is a good thing about this skate. It's not an aggressive skate, but they're using the cuff from the Verve aggressive skate. So that's got a nice protector for the buckle. The buckle's never going to get damaged. It looks brand new. It's hardly got any damage on it at all. I've been using it legitimately every single day since I got the skate. No problems at all. What's quite cool is it's very hard to actually get your finger in to remove this buckle. So I've been taking the whole strap, pushing it in the opposite way so that it pops out and it makes it much easier for me to get the buckle out. I like that personally because it means it's literally impossible for you to break this little clip. Again, it looks brand new.

We can also move the cuff up and down. When I got these skates, I moved the cuff up straight away. I like the cuff to be nice and high personally. It just gives me a little bit more support on the ankle, so I've been using it with the cuff up nice and high. No issues there. Just be careful when you're moving the cuff up and down. You don't want to round these bolts. Use a good Allen key and don't over-tighten it too much. Maybe make sure you've got some Loctite on the cuff bolts as well, just to make sure they don't come off. I'm pretty sure they come with Loctite on there anyway when you receive them.
This skate is quite flexible. I'm going to test it soon with the Intuition Liner. The liner comes up a little bit higher, and I have got the cuff raised really high to try and combat that. If you put the cuff really low and use a low liner, you'll be able to get a bigger edge. It's something I'm used to, coming from aggressive skating, but if you're more of a speed skater, then maybe you might not like that, and you would want to have a really high liner to compensate for that.

I don’t have too much damage on the slider, but of course it's removable. It's replaceable. So that means this skate will last a lot longer than it would if that piece was not there.

Let's talk about the fit then. So, as I said, these fit me amazingly. My feet, personally. Me. Maybe not you, but me. My feet are really wide. The freeskate fits just like the Echo Verve, and every time someone tries that skate on, they love it. It's super comfortable and fits just about everyone. But if you have very long, narrow feet, maybe it won't fit you. It might not. It might, but it might not.

The laces are nice. The liner did come with two sets of laces. I removed the set of laces in the liner, and I just put the laces from the skates all the way up and through. Laces are not such a big deal on this skate because of the 45 degree strap so I’m not too fussed, but the laces have been great. No complaints there at all.

The frame axles are rockerable. That's why you need to use two allen keys to take them off. At first, that sounds annoying, but when you realise that they're rockerable bolts, it makes sense. So, you can take them out, and in the frame, like I mentioned in the unboxing video, you can adjust the height of the axles within the frame to give you a 2mm rocker. I haven't actually tried it. I've been skating them flat the whole time, so maybe that's something I can do in the future. If they didn't have the rockering option, I'm sure they would have gone for normal speed axles then one allen key would have been enough.

I'm really looking forward to seeing what Echo does with this mounting system. Who knows where it's going to go next. They're really looking for your feedback, so if you want to get this skate, be sure to give them a piece of your mind. They'll be very happy to listen to you. Those guys are great.

I tried my best not to be biased. I know it sounds like I just absolutely love these skates, but I'm telling the truth. I really, really do enjoy these skates. They're great. I need a skate to perform well because of the type of skating that I'm doing every single day. If it doesn't, then I just can't wear the skate. So yeah, you'll just need to trust me on that one.

Full Review Video: