Seba High Light Carbon 80 - Black Inline Skates

Seba High were the first skates designed for freestyle slalom from the ground up and for a good while, THE SKATES to have if someone wanted to compete at high level. It stayed that way up to about year 2010, when carbon revolution hit the market and soon, skates like Seba Igor and Powerslide Hardcore Evo took the top spot. Before elite of freestyle slalom made the jump to lightweight skates with integrated padding, a carbon-based version of standard High skate came out – with replaceable liner, being halfway between the older style skates and what was about to come shortly. High Carbon weren’t around for long and ultimately, their shell served as a base for Igor skate. After several years another skate came out, built on foundation of these skates – the High Light Carbons.

High Light Carbons are made to this day, in two different flavours. There’s a more affordable “80” version and more expensive “Pro” one – but truth is, both skates are different enough from each other that it is only fair to take them as separate models. If you are reading this, that means you’ve ended up on High Light Carbon 80 page in our store – the more freeskating/urban skating oriented of the two.

The shell used in “80” version is exactly the same as in the more expensive sibling as well as the old style Seba Igors, however it is not entirely made out of carbon – instead, it is a carbon and glass fibre composite. Skates end up slightly heavier but doesn’t negatively impact the rigidity and drives down the cost. The metal plates embedded in frame mounting points serve as a reinforcement of boot-frame connection, greatly increasing the solidity of a whole skate. They also offer 7 threaded holes for mounting screw, allowing for a wide range of frame positioning options as well as good compatibility with 165mm mounting standard frames.

The integrated padding is anatomically shaped to lock the heel as good as possible and provide excellent responsiveness. The level of control in these skates is truly great and will satisfy most demanding skaters. Underneath the foot resides an insole with arch support. The boot is also equipped with shock absorber, increasing comfort of skating over uneven pavements and landing jumps.

Outer skin of the skate is made out of resistant material and have some degree of rigidity to it – it wouldn’t be fair to call these skates “softboots”, really. To make the skate more durable, Seba put a replaceable slider on the side of the boot and a plastic composite (rubber-like material) cover on toe area – these parts prevent damage during falls, slides or slalom tricks like toe footgun. High Light Carbon 80 boots are up to the task no matter if you prefer urban skating, downhill, inline alpine or freestyle slalom.
Lacing holds the foot in place well on its own, especially if lace the boot to the very top. The skate comes with additional Velcro in toe area, giving more snug fit and better control on front wheeling tricks. 45 degree micro metric buckle lock the heel in place and adds a bit to the overall boot rigidity. A solid, high quality traditional buckle with receiver ends the matter of closure.

Cuff is made from rigid PU material and have the same shape as one used in Pro version (or indeed, older Igor models). That’s one of the key differences – cheaper skate doesn’t benefit from super stiff carbon cuff. Having say that, the skates are far from being unsupportive – quite the opposite, in fact. Simply do not expect that you’ll be able to skate with unbuckled cuff, like it is possible in Pro version, and still have solid support to the sides.

One of the upsides of having a composite cuff is the canting system it comes with – the most advanced one found in skates, in fact. It allows for 16 different settings: you can compensate for pronation, put the cuff higher to have more support or move it a bit away from the back of the skate to have more room for forward-back movement.

The frame used in High Light Carbon 80 should be well known to any seasoned freeskater – it’s Deluxe V2 frame, one of the best designs available when it comes down to freestyle and freeskating frames. Although the upper shelf skates made by Seba younger sibling, the FR Skates, come with Deluxe V3 frames (which are more delicate design), the V2 is still a great piece of aluminium and performs well in both urban environment and between the cones. As High Light Carbon 80 are more of all-rounders than pure specialized slalom skates, they come with flat setup frame – four wheels on the same level. If you want to skate between cones, you probably want to go for old school style rockering achieved by replacing the outer wheels with 4mm smaller ones. All sizes of the skate come with 243mm long frame which can fit 80mm diameter wheels. This is yet another flag pointing to the fact that this version should be viewed more as an high end urban skate rather than freestyle slalom one.

What about wheels, though? We could say just two words and it would be enough for many skaters: Hyper Concrete. For everyone else – Hyper Concrete were one of the best freeskating wheels, if not the single best freeskating wheels on the market in early 2000’s. A lot of urethane been left on the ground since then and now we have plenty of great options for all skating styles, but the good old Hyper Concretes are still very good option. These wheels have wider, more round profile which rolls a bit slower than “bullet” profile but gives better grip and stability. The freeride fans should be pleased with this selection, but what about slalom skaters? Well, there’s no hiding the fact that HCs aren’t ideal option for this style of skating, but they are not bad either and we can imagine plenty of much, much worse options to have as stock wheels.

The bearings used in High Light Carbon 80 are the world-famous Twincam ILQ9 Pro. As far as steel, 608 size bearings go, these are one of the best on the market. They make wheels rolling smoothly and will last for a long time.

If you need any more reasons to add High Light to your basket, know that these are compatible with Seba High custom kits in variety of colours. Yes, you can put a more robust, classic Seba High cuff on them if you want to.

Should you buy these skates?

Well, it depends on what you are looking for of course! There’s no hiding from the fact that these aren’t slalom skates right out of the box – but they can serve as a good base for custom setup. Especially if you are a seasoned skater who have rockered frames already, maybe even carbon cuff coming from an old pair of Igors, it makes a lot of sense to get cheaper version of Seba High Carbon for this purpose. Especially people who don’t like the changes FR Skates introduced to current Igor skates should be happy with High Light Carbon 80 boot, as it is almost identical to old style pro-model of Mr. Cheremetieff.

Freestyle slalom is not the main focus of the skate and selling these only as surrogate for Igors wouldn’t be fair. High Light Carbon 80 are designed to slicing through streets with laser precision. Excellent energy transfer, high quality parts, great fit and decent customization options make these a real treat for all freeride fans. Triskates and big wheels took over, one may say – but 4x80 setup remains a highly versatile and agile option that is as relevant now as it was 15 years ago, when first Seba skates came out. Looking at these skates through this point of view – there is not much on the market that can compete with them.