Oh boy. This is my favorite wheel of 2025.
Specs
- Diameter: 76mm
- Contact patch: 65mm
- Durometer: 76A (SP1 formula)
- Shape: Square lip, thin lip profile
- Core: Centerset, near-symmetrical lips
- Price: $79 USD / ~68€
The Brand
La Paulade is a French brand, owned by a guy named Paul, and he’s a really good skater. He was a good skater before the company. I think a company this cool only happens when the owner skates really well. The PolYmers are clearly a product of someone who has opinions about good wheels.
This is their second wheel. The PolYmers are a more casually race-oriented offering, built around a proprietary pour formula they call SP1.
One thing they do that almost nobody else does is batch IDs. Every set is stamped with a batch number. My set is 117604 — that batch is sold out now, currently shipping 117605. Something that La Paulade understands is that batch consistency matters for square-lip wheels, because any variance in the pour quality, core concentricity, or lip geometry is going to be felt. It’s quite cool that they’re doing this explicitly, and in a format that’s easier to understand than the way other companies in the space are doing this (looking at you Venom!).
The Skin
Most square-lip race wheels come from factory with a shiny release layer — that smooth, glassy first skin that is grippier than the deeper urethane meat of the wheel. I, and many other skaters, find that this first layer of the wheel can be difficult.
Some square lips are quite violent and intense right out of the package. If you’re not a heavier skater or not as good at pressing hard into the wheel in a slide, you’ll find that the wheel can hop and honk.
The PolYmer, pleasantly, is not this way. The grip is real and the braking is strong as with any other fresh square lip, but the onset is much more predictable and friendly than other square lips I’ve skated before. I was scrubbing speed confidently on these. Very pleasantly surprised!
The skin doesn’t last as long as a Magnum’s. I’d call it roughly half the runs before you’re into the meat. If you’re doing full open-road races and expecting the skin to hold through multiple heats, I would probably manage expectations a little bit.
What impressed me more was the transition. Wearing through the skin on some wheels creates a window of inconsistency — one edge worn faster than the other, grip going patchy, the slide feel shifting mid-run in ways that are hard to predict. I didn’t get much of that with the PolYmers. The skin came off gradually and evenly. It was a very enjoyable couple of heats of having the skin wear off.
The Urethane Body
Into the meat: high rebound. That’s the mechanical explanation for what you feel underfoot, which is a chalky, sugary slide rather than a greasy or creamy one. Low-rebound formulas — the 88 Wheelco Mavericks, the Powell Peralta Kevin Reimer 72mm — feel forgiving and buttery, especially once the lips have worn down a bit and lost definition. That’s a good trait for a beginner intermediate wheel. It is also why, with significant wear, those wheels start to feel like you’re buttering over the pavement rather than reading it. The feedback disappears in a big way. Depending on your preferences, this might not be something that you want. Personally, I don’t love a wheel that feels greasy like that- and I’ve always been into sugary-feeling wheels over the alternative.
That being said, these don’t feel hard like some other textbook sugary wheels like a RAD James Kelly. The urethane is still 76A, quite soft for a skate wheel, so they do still feel moderately in-the-pave and you can put on the brakes if you wanted.
I also notice that they are incredibly predictable character-wise across a range of temperatures. Some wheels change in fundamental character when you skate them cold or hot; these just dial up the slide the hotter they get. The slide feel is still fundamentally very similar from cold to hot.
These wear really nicely, and slowly. They’re very durable. Six millimeters into the urethane depth, they still feel like a square-lip wheel. The lips are still well-defined. To be honest, the core is a generic core that’s been used in a host of wheels in the past (Orangatang Kegel, Ahmyo Akasha, 88 Wheel Co Mavericks), so you can expect good lip support out of this core. Anyway, the feedback is still there. I’m at 70mm right now after seven or eight months of skating — two to three sessions a week, fine Canadian asphalt — and the character of the wheel hasn’t changed in any meaningful way since that first skin came off.
I can’t say anything about flatspots because I’ve never flatspotted a wheel (flex).
76mm new, 70mm now, and I’m expecting another six or seven months out of them before the urethane depth gets too shallow to be as enjoyable as I still find them now. I don’t notice any coning or uneven wear, and these are not swirled. Really consistent pour.
Roll speed is great. At 76mm and with the rebound in this formula, they feel as fast underfoot as the Kevin Reimer 72mm did, and I remember being wowed at how fast those were a couple years ago, too. La Paulade’s team did race on these when they first came into the market, so I don’t doubt that they made sure they were quick enough to be competitive.
The Verdict
These are $79CAD. Venom Cannibals are $109.99CAD. That is really, really cheap. La Paulade offers free shipping over $120 to Canada, so it’s a really good deal to get a set of these and a set of the Plumes, maybe.
I probably wouldn’t tell you the PolYmers are a super duper serious race wheel. For actual competition, I think a serious racer would want a more resilient skin they could count on surviving a full long run. La Paulade just made and released the FTWs for that conversation.
What they are is the best everyday square-lip wheel I’ve skated so far. Approachable enough to build confidence on, giving enough feedback to be satisfying once you’re past that stage, durable enough to last through a real season. The slide feel is the highlight — shear-ish and sugary and consistent in a way that makes easy work of a variety of pavements. They’re pink and teal and have anime graphics and I’ve been asked about them a whole lot. Clout.
I really like them. I’d recommend them.