Appreciate the contributions.
That skates great outta the box is one of those fucking horrible tropes, laziest shit, best dude out, style for miles, type of comment. Feels like I read those type of comments from tws for fucking ever. (Whew).
But yeah, it’s like the shoe already sucks when they ‘blah blah blah fresh outta the box’.
I dunno what changed, but I get heel bruises less often, and forefoot pain always. For that reason only the 868 was, although still great, not the end of my quest. The ave shoe is kinda like this as well, super stable, skates great, but I’m def getting hot soles from my feet slapping the ground. I’m closer to 50, than ya’ll, and feel like Air Force 1s would be a reasonable option (they aren’t really, I’ve tried, I’m just saying I’ll try stilts or bricks or whatever the fuck).
After forefoot pain there’s a bunch of other joint pain. Biggest obstacle to me skating regularly. I’ve tried some ‘out of the box....’ ideas: Harden’s first shoe. Af-1s, several times, and looked at tons of other sports shoes. I’m sure I’m a small part of the skate purchasing world (super old person), but as more of us try and skate into the 50s (and beyond I hope, like at least roll push, maybe ollie a curb) some solutions would be nice. Not the right thread, at all, and I’m sorry for that and this nonsense, but I’m definitely down for weird ideas. The Lebron soldiers looked ....not really skateable. But close. Maybe Jordan 11 low. But Jesus. Anyways.
Nb has made some really well crafted shoes. Some high quality materials. It’ll be cool to see where they take it.