Practice English Speaking&Listening with: 2014 K2 VO2 100 X Boa Inline Skate Overview by INLINESKATES.COM

Hi, welcome to the Daily Spin. I'm

Steve, the owner of inlineskates.com. With us is... Mike Powell from

K2 Skates. And he is the skate guru and we are about to talk about the top-of-the-line

of the fitness training line from K2. This is the K2

VO2 100 X Boa. Nailed it. I was going to go over

the features and let you explain it. We've got Boa, we've got upper ratchet buckle, we've got

Powerstrap, we've got ventilation, we've got Vortech, we've got aluminum frame,

we've got Hi-Lo, we've got ILQ9 bearings and we've got

100mm wheels and 90 in the front. Did I miss anything?

I don't think you did. All right, let's explain each of those. That's a whole lot of features right there.

It's all up to you now. Okay, we're going to start out, I'll go through the closure systems. You've got your Powerstrap

here - that's really going to keep your heel in the heel pocket where you want to be skating. And you've got your

ratcheting buckle system here. That really engages the cuff and gives you the support that you need to

be a good skater. But the most important closure system here is this Boa closure system.

You ever use the Boa, Steve? I have Boa on my snowboard boots. I love it. Nice.

It's without a doubt the most ingenious closure system for any piece of sports

equipment that I've seen. Okay. I couldn't agree with you more and I'm proud that

K2 is the only inline skate manufacturer using Boa so that means we have the best closure in the entire

world but, to see how to use Boa, you see this dial here.

All I do is pull out on the Boa dial, I pull the tongue forward and that's how I get my

foot into the skate. It's that easy. And then, when it's time to close the skate up,

you just cinch the tongue where you need to be, ya push the dial in like I just did,

and you twist this Boa dial and pretty much it's pulling the cable

from down here in the front of the laces all the way through and locking it up in here. What that's doing is

creating an even fit all the way throughout the foot, a fit you can't get with a... Even

as the part that's really important here, is it tightens the skate universally the

same, as opposed to just the upper part with the lace it gets tighter and the lower part tends to stay looser.

Totally. So, it's not a zonal thing, like you say, it's a full closure

that's uniform throughout the skate and it gives you the best fit out there so

that's your Boa closure. Okay, let's talk about ventilation. Yeah, another thing we did was

we wanted to incorporate the best ventilation of any inline skate into a skate and we did that by

creating the Vortech ventilation system. I think I said ventilation about 8 times right there and

I'm gonna say it 8 more. So, with this Vortech Ventilation system, we've got 2 ports in the front

where air is forced through while you're skating. We've got a series of channels and

vents that go throughout the inside of the skate with some exhaust ports in the back. What does that

do? It keeps your foot cool and dry. As the faster you skate, the more air that's being

pushed through, the cooler and dryer your foot is. Because this is for the customer who is probably going to be skating

for a while, right? Yeah. They're not going to go out for 10 minutes. They're going to be out there skating for an hour,2 hours, 3

hours and then when their feet get sweaty, that makes it no fun. Exactly. I mean this

is the serious skater. They've been through the K2 fitness line, they know what they want out of

a skate and they want speed and that's what we give them here. And, you know, talking about

speed, you can see on the bottom here, the wheels that we're working with here, we've got 2

100mm wheels in the back, 2 90mm in the front. Now, why do you use

different sized wheels? Well, it's something that we call performance Hi-Lo and you pretty much get the best

of both worlds. With the bigger wheels in the back, you still get that glide of

a bigger wheel that's going to roll over just about anything and it's going to get you higher speeds.

The smaller wheels in front create maneuverability so you're going to be able initiate turns,

and it just makes the skate a little bit more versatile. Then you put it all on this

performance Hi-Lo frame that's really long and stable and you've got

a skate that's going to go super fast on the trail but still has a lot of

support because you've got this nice high cuff. So, it's not a race or a training

skate because it has the support of the cuff... It's not that super low boot

that racers use. Yeah, and I mean, you could take this and run a race in it because

you've got the frame, the wheels, the ILQ9 Classic Plus bearings

and then you've also got this ultra-supportive cuff. No, this is the skate for me. I don't like

skating in a lower cuff, I like feeling the full support and, you know,

it's to each his own. It's an amazing skate that goes fast and you can

pass just about anybody on the trail. So, the model before this which did not have the Boa

we call the Ferarri, right? This one is sort of the Ferarri with the Cadillac

because it's got the Boa on it, right? It's a little bit of both. Yeah, if you put a Ferarri

on steroids, you'd have this skate. There you go. So, there you have it. There's the K2

VO2 100 X Boa.

Thanks, Mike, for joining us today. You're welcome. Thanks for having me. And thank you at home for joining us on the

Daily Spin.