They're Bouting in Bordeaux

I can totally see this being fun.

Pivot: JE SUIS JUSTE EN CRIANT À CONFONDRE LES YANKEES! CRIER APRES MOI!
Blocker: OKAY! TU ES SUPER DANS LES CHAUSSETTES!

First off ... support your local retailers where you can / when they emerge.

But in the meantime:

- Find a store that will ship using the normal mail service (USPS), rather than one that will only use courier companies like UPS and FedEx. If there's not an obvious place to choose USPS, ASK them if they'll do it. Many, especially derby-owned businesses, will do so happily once you explain forlornly that you live a million kilometres away and there's no roller derby yet. This typically cuts your shipping rate by a fair bit, especially if the stuff is sent in the Priority flat rate boxes (which is what I normally ask people to use - it seems like it's an easy option for sellers compared to other methods of packaging, or at least makes them more likely to agree to my USPS requests).

- Buy bulk. Get together with a group of people to place one big order. You can fit a heap of wheels and tidbits in a large USPS flat rate box and that $65 charge isn't so steep when you divide it up amongst a dozen people. (You can also get much bigger boxes. The first bulk order I coordinated for my league turned up at my work and the mail guy refused to bring it up unless I went down to help carry it.) Lots of plates fit in those, too.

- Honestly ... I wouldn't bother too much about getting "proper skate boots". Skate boots are bulky and annoying to ship (can't squeeze many of those into those flat rate boxes!), and they're hard to size correctly over the Internet. My advice: try football cleats (soccer shoes). They actually make REALLY GOOD skate boots once you take the spikes off the bottom, because they have good, stiff soles - the stiffer the better for skating purposes. Athletic shoes, like sneakers, aren't as good - they flex around the plates, so they're inefficient and can be uncomfortable. As an added bonus, football cleats are REALLY ABUNDANT so you can try heaps of different sizes and styles to find one that fits your foot properly - wide, narrow, etc. And they can be really, really cheap. The best pair I ever tried on down here were $25. Keep in mind that skates shouldn't fit like shoes, they should be snug - no thumb-width at the end of the toes the way you'd want them in sneakers or boots. That might be the solution to your blister problem, too ... it was to mine.

- Unless you are a sucker for punishment, as I apparently am, get plates that have 8mm axles. That way you can buy bearings from your local skateboard / inline shop (since boards and inlines have 8mm axles), rather than importing 7mm ones from overseas (because 7mm ones are really only used on roller skates). But this is pretty easy advice to follow, as the vast majority of skate plates now have 8mm axles. You should be fine.

Good luck!

on Oktober 30th, Stockholm will have their first real bout in Hamburg... ahhhh... First offical real Swedish bout... I am so excited for them!

Haha, well we might be very far behind most major US citys and even stockholm is worse then Malmö. But for a small city the crime lvl has been bad, but I guess its all relative.

Malmö has only had a Roller Derby leauge for 4 months so we are still working on learning to stand on skates but we are allready more then 40 members. So look out for us next year!