I just wanted to see why does no one mess with the 101 f4s? I once got a pair of the radial slims and they ruled, fast af and slid pretty close to the 99s, it seems that these days they are almost out of circulation apart from some conical fulls. Also another thing that spitfire does is that they don't produce all of their shapes equally, for me the best all round shape was the radial slims and they are never in circulation it seems they only produce the ridiculously fat shapes these days like conical fulls and radial fulls, plus the classics that are super skinny, whatever happened to the classics full shape? that was pretty good... at the end of the day these full shapes cost more urethane lol. I don't know maybe its a marketing move or something...
Said it before but the 99 has always been a good constant and solid feeling wheel to ride, of which I have never had any issues in how they perform for me.
The 101 by comparison has often been hit and miss, sometimes very hard and slippery, sometimes no where near the 99 in how they slide and other factors, which is a funny one, but also been said by a number of people on here and in other conversations I have had.
This is not going into flatspots, warranty problems or product issues, of which I have seen with any and EVERY brand wheel I have ever skated, coming from a shop perspective.
As far as certain shapes and things, they do have almost too many options, so it does make it hard to keep up with almost ten semi regular shapes, most with half a dozen sizes or more, the classic 99 formula, Formula Four 99 and 101 (and 97 now too) plus the 80HD wheels, then natural vs coloured or mixed swirl colouring, all with limiting factors coming into play as well, with manufacturing issues, shortages of materials and whatever else is going on from 2020, through 2021 and now seemingly also into 2022.
I guess too it comes down to what is the most popular wheel to make, which is often not the favourite wheel of any one person, being Classic or Conical Full for a while now, but right now increasingly bigger wider wheels, more so than slim variations.
The Tablet shape seems like it has all but replaced the Radial Slim in that market share, which I know makes some people unhappy, but the Conical (not Conical Full) is also fairly close too, which I recommend anyone try who wanted Radial Slims.
The normal Radial is coming out with more options again too for those who liked that shape.
As said, the Classic and Conical Full wheels are pretty much the main stock that moves, with others like OG Classics also selling fairly well overall too and all three take a majority share of the Spitfire market sales, from what I have seen. That is not to say that if all I had were one certain shape, they wouldn't be the main seller either, but when people want a specific shape before even setting foot in a store, there is often no need to change their minds to try anything else.