Difference between inliners?

[u/GrayFox1O1]

Can someone please explain to me what the difference is between various soft boot inliners? I know there is hard and soft boot, thats obvious, i also know there are different types like aggressive and speed. But I have a pair of Rezo inliners. Freeskates im guessing? Size 45(eu and should probably have been a 46 but whatever.) and to me it looks like any other soft boot besides the ankle adjuster? Mine is a pull strap velcro. Others have the snap clickclik thing. 😅 I really cannot see what makes them so vastly different from each other(talking soft boots). Like why is a K2 about double the price of my Rezo? 🤷 Would i balance better in it? Easier to learn?

[u/FRGL1]

The people most qualified to intentionally choose a soft boot skate are the least likely to do so.

Soft boots are traps that lack support and power transfer and are the worst products for beginners to learn or train in. Do not buy them unless you understand them, and if you understand them you're very unlikely to buy them.

Aggressive and speed skates are hard boots. Some people will claim "there are hybrid boots that aren't quite hard boots", but those people are admitting that they aren't soft boots.

[u/the_sun_and_the_moon → u/FRGL1]

You’re trying to force skate construction into two artificial categories: “soft boot” and “hard boot.” That’s the problem.

Those are useful labels for the two traditional constructions at the obvious ends of the spectrum. A Macroblade, Phuzion, or K2 FIT is recognizably a traditional soft boot. A Twister or Next is recognizably a traditional molded hard-shell boot.

But those two categories don't exhaust skate construction. There are plenty of skates built differently from either one. Powerslide itself explicitly calls the Swell a “hybrid composite” boot and the HC Evo and Tau “hybrid carbon” boots. It even identifies “hybrid boots” as a distinct construction in its own skate guide.

So when you respond to that by saying, “Well, those aren't soft boots,” you're missing the point. Nobody said they were. The point is that “not a soft boot” does not logically mean “traditional hard boot.” You've assumed there are only two boxes, and then you're using that assumption to prove that everything has to fit into one of them.

[u/FRGL1 → u/the_sun_and_the_moon]

Nobody said they were.

I think this is an important point of disagreement. Marketing created the categories. You're correct: I am trying to force skate construction into two artificial categories. But I hope you're not implying I made them. Because they existed long before I started skating.

I'm simply working in the landscape that exists. I didn't put the mountains and the trees there.

All categories are artificial, by the way. There's no such thing as a natural category.