I was thinking about this the other day…skateboards are flexible, bike tires are bouncy. Why aren’t there “performance” skates with shocks? Wouldn’t that be better for your knees?
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If you had shocks there would be less power transfer. That’s why hockey skates and better inline skates are made out of carbon fiber. Maximum power transfer
Those shock absorbers are called knees and hip.
How would you jump from the ground if you had shock absorbers on skates?
There are off-road ones that has had “shocks” that I remember since way back. Think the model was Roces Big Cat SAS where the old version had some sort of dampeners. Don’t think it ever took off as none of the competition has it and they’ve since redesigned it with rigid frame.
Those would be Moon Shoes with wheels.
You’d have to push extra hard to vet forward momentum, as those shocks would be absorbing a huge amount of the force
There are different hardnesses of wheels. The softer wheels will be slower and require more effort to get or keep moving but will absorb more shock. You could also get gel insoles I suppose.
Ever try to pedal a full suspension (front and rear) mountain bike on flat ground or god forbid uphill? The shocks (especially the rear one) absorb like 50% of your pedal energy making it way more effort to move the bike.
The same thing would happen with roller skates, and your knees just act like shock absorbers anyways.
Skating is incredibly hard on the knees. Most hockey players have bad knees.
That said as others have pointed out. Needing to compress a spring to push off results in loss of power due to system compliance.
You have padding around your foot but you generally want a tight connection between foot and ground in power applications.
Basketball shoes are pretty cushioned because it’s a jumping game and not intense sprinting usually. Hockey on the other hand is super high speed and any loss of power would make it significantly slower.
Slick road bike tires that are pumped to close to maximum pressure are not ‘bouncy’ in that sense and you can feel everything underneath you.
100x more so when you are on a low rider recumbent bike with said tires.
From an engineering POV They would be expensive, need to be calibrated to the individual and would be almost entirely unessecary. Your body already has shocks built in, they are called legs.
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