ROCKIN' 572 and ROCKIN' H-blocks
Jevgenijs Sumskis
Hello, bladies and bladers! We hope you are all doing well and have some time on your hands because this post is going to be long. Grab some snacks, make yourself comfortable, and we will talk about upcoming projects, changes, and other things. This post even has videos (both high and low quality)! Our main topics for today are: the ROCKIN' 572 frame and ROCKIN' H-blocks.
How we came up with the 572 and H-blocks
We got the idea of making the H-blocks a while ago because of our interest in aggressive skating. Other projects have kept us busy though (hopefully you have heard about some of them): big wheel rockered UFS frames, actual big wheels, and bearings. They have been completed now, and having released a certain number of products, we now have the time and funds, and as ever the desire to start working on the H-blocks.
The idea came into existence during our (Anastasia and Jevgeny's) skating sessions. They usually go like this: we skate for about 15 minutes through the suburbs, and get to our local skatepark. We warm up and do some skatepark activities like stalls, pumping and jumping on quarters, halfpipe, and so on. Once we get a bit tired, we skate further on and after another 10 minutes we arrive at a large area that is great for flatland skating. We practice some wizardskating and flatland skills, and then it's just a 6km tour to finish the session and get home.
Having spent some time at the skate park I thought: how much more freedom would it give me if I had some H-blocks to put onto my frames! To tell you the truth, when I got that idea I hadn't even tried grinding. I was only hoping to try it someday.
I got even more excited when I thought to myself: what if I had a frame that could do both flatland and aggressive skating elements? Like a 70/30 mix of flatland and aggressive, maybe?
I talked to several people about my idea. This is how I came to talk with Justin Thursday for the first time after having followed his work for quite a while. Sometime later we made our first H-block prototypes that were specially designed to fit the upcoming frame prototype, ROCKIN' 572. The frames were expected to arrive in 3-4 weeks. I couldn't wait that long and mounted the H-blocks onto the ROCKIN' 576 for their first test. I could not grind back then, but I could stall and skate. Which I promptly did and as one can imagine, I was very impressed. It was exactly what I had dreamt of. I even made several attempts at a soulgrind and to my surprise, I managed to do my very first one that day.
We were off to a great start and 3 weeks later we received the prototypes of the 572 frames. 4 pairs were sent to skaters of varying skill levels for testing and research. Soon enough, the feedback started coming in.
Reports from our testers
Ulf
The first video report we got was from Ulf Wolf (YouTube Channel, Instagram: @momix.61).
Onno
Onno Kael (Instagram: @onnokael) contacted me after several testing sessions, and here is what he said:
Marco
We got most information and input from the awesome skater Marco Grandotto (Instagram: @marcograndotto) and here's the edit Marco came up with after frame testing:
Here is what Marco thinks about this whole project:
When I first got the 572 frames I didn't know what to expect. I was in for a surprise!
My personal experience and thoughts about these 2 projects
Now back to my story, let's pick up when I actually got my hands (feet) on the 572 frames and mounted the H-blocks onto them.
It's very clear how good of an aggressive skater I am in this video. Basically, it's me skating this frame for the first time and trying to do a soulgrind.
I was pretty happy after this very short session. Every new thing is hard when we're just beginning to learn it. In my second session I started landing my feet where they needed to be and at the end of it I already started getting some grinds.
The 3rd session is where it really became fun and the fear of falling or sliding out was gone.
Then I saw that I was able to make more attempts in one session and actually got the feel for grinds.
The 4th session was the most fun back then as I was able to get some speed and wasn't afraid to miss the P-Rail anymore. Practice is everything.
Sometime around 4 weeks later I started practicing in skateparks and in a mini ramp. Nothing spectacular still, but I started trying frontsides and soulstalls as well.
2 weeks and ~10 sessions later is basically where I am now. My soulgrinds on low ledges have become quite stable and they actually feel good. The longest souldgrind I got so far was about 3.5 meters long and was really fun. The stalls I do in the mini ramp have gotten much better and I am kind of happy with my current results.
Conclusions and changes based on testing
We realized the frame had some great potential, but several things needed changing:
More detailed specifics of ROCKIN' 572 and ROCKIN' H-blocks
We have also decided to make the H-blocks compatible with as many products on the market as possible. A solution was found that will allow them to fit all the 5-wheeled ROCKIN' Frames, as well as other 5-wheeled frames. We have tested them on some third-party frames and they work well. We will not be providing the list of compatible products until we confirm some details with other companies. The H-Blocks will be made of glass-filled-nylon and they will come in color black with some minor hardware.
Packaging of a default ROCKIN' 572 will contain:
ROCKIN' Adapters will most probably not be included with the ROCKIN' 572 frames. Let us know if you think that they should be.
The default colors of the ROCKIN' 572 Frames will be black (as always) and silver.
Release dates
We have finally come to a point where we can name the release dates (approximately): late November / early December 2022.
Okay guys, that's it.
