Rollout: firm runs to keep up with demand for skate.

They're strange-looking skates with angled wheels and they're hot--almost too hot for their manufacturer, Pacific Palisades-based LandRoller Inc.

With coverage on CNN, ESPN and in Time magazine, plus a product-of-the-year recognition from the Sporting Goods Manufacturing Association, LandRollers have attracted so much attention that it's been tough keeping up with orders from retailers and distributors.

"We have far more demand than what we are able to supply. Much of what we have been doing is trying to address that," said Lance Stuart, LandRoller's chief operating officer. "We have a unique product with unique engineering issues."

Only 4,000 pairs have been shipped out, mostly to retail Web sites, with the next delivery of 12,000 pairs not expected until February or March. Production problems have held things up, and some retailers wonder whether the $249 skates, which have larger wheels than inline skates, will sustain a buzz once the initial positive press dies down.

"It is a test market situation," said Rich Lampmann, marketing manager of Henry Modeli & Co. Inc., which is stocking LandRollers at several of its Modell's Sporting Goods stores. "It is not a full rollout. They are a higher priced item, so we are going to see how they sell for now."

Small market

That retailers are even trying out a new skating product is a triumph for LandRoller. Inline skating has been slumping, with an estimated 17.3 million skaters last year, down from 32 million in the late 1990s, according to the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association.

"The skate market is too small," said Robert Burnson, editor of the publication Inline Planet, who noted that people don't replace inline skates because they tend to last.

Stuart believes that the market has languished at least in part because there's been little innovation. Companies are mostly just tinkering with the weight of skates, the composition of the boot and the laces.

There have been a few attempts at radically different products. Rollerblade USA Corp., a subsidiary of Italian company Tecnica S.p.A., came out with Coyotes, which are inline skates with three large wheels. But users found them hard to balance on because the center of gravity was so high.

"I don't think the general public is looking for anything different in skates," Burnson said. "You learn it slowly and sometimes painfully, and you don't want to suddenly be in a new skate."

He notes that LandRollers could attract consumers if it's true that they're easier to skate with. One early review, posted on LondonSkaters.com by Danny Reeves, a skater in Ann Arbor, Mich., said that the skates could be good for "beginners who are daunted by cracks and rocks in the road."

Series of problems

But production delays, including the shifting of wheel-making equipment from Italy to Bangkok, has slowed LandRoller's efforts to become a mass-market operation. The move was just one in a series of headaches that have bedeviled founder Bert Lovitt since he began working on the skate project 10 years ago.

Lovitt is admittedly an inventor--not a businessman. At first, he thought that he would have no problem selling the concept to a large skate company. But industry executives gave him the cold shoulder.

"Their attitude was, you go develop this. If it is good, we will buy your company," he said. "They rather spend $20 million to $30 million to buy a successful company than pay $3 million on something that is not proven."

Lovitt raised $500,000 from friends and family, including Brian Conners, who was then president of a Unocal Corp. subsidiary. They knew each other because their kids played together in Pacific Palisades.

Lovitt ran out of money before too long and wound up turning over the operation to Conners, who brought in Stuart. "When those guys started running the show, the company really started to happen," said Lovitt. "(They) brought a lot of new money and discipline and business know-how."

Stuart said he's helped raise $1.3 million, also from friends and family members, to get the production process kick-started. "Trying to raise money takes a heck of a lot longer than one ever wants, and often times you can die on the vine if you are trying to advance a company," he said. "Raising money is a fulltime job."

Early prototypes revealed three areas of concern: the skates' weight, cost and strength. One version couldn't sustain a person who weighed more than 180 to 200 pounds. When a heavy person tried to skate, the frame turned outward, and it was hard to skate in a straight line.

Eventually came the right mix of materials--the framing is aluminum and the tires are urethane. But the $249 price tag leaves some retailers skeptical.

Stuart insists that the latest stumbling blocks aren't going to slow the company from capitalizing on the publicity. "You have to be Lazarus," he said. "You have to be able to come back after it looks like you are going to die."