First Time on Inline Skates

[Robert]

I remember my first time on inline skates.

It was in 1993 ... a Saturday. A group of us from work rented skates and protective gear at a local sporting goods store. The protective gear consisted of knee and elbow pads and wrist guards. No helmets.

We tried on the skates (they were all plastic) at the store to make sure they fit. Then we drove over to a trail nearby, where we put the skates back on and started skating.

I did all right. I found I could stand and stride and I even remembered how to skate backwards, which I had learned on ice as a kid.

Everyone in our group was able to skate, after a fashion.

Then we came to a long downhill.

I was the first down. I remember picking up speed and not being able to slow down and feeling like I was going to fast. (I didn't know how to use the heel brake.) I was lucky to get down the hill in one piece.

The next person down was not so lucky.

I got down just in time to look back and see her falling on her backside. Ouch!

Fortunately, she didn't break anything, although she was bruised and had trouble sitting down for the next week.

That was the end of our skate. It probably would have been better if we had started out with a group skate lesson.

I bought my first pair of inline skates (Rollerblade Lightnings) a week later.

[Tahiti girl]

At the urging of my, now husband, I attended a Saturday morning "learn to skate" class at Bill Jacksons shop for adventure store in Pinellas Park, Florida. It was mostly guys but there was one gal. She had a tatoo of an old man with a long beard,sticking out his long tongue, that covered her entire leg. I wondered what to heck I was getting myself into. The store's parking lot was flat. I didn't fall as I slowly skated my way around the cones and was pleased to find that I could stop while skating 3 MPH
Full of confidence that I woudn't kill myself, I bought my first pair of Rollerblades ...the Lightning TRS, helmet, and all protective gear right after the class.

Skating in my neighborhood was a very differnt story.I quickly found out that those skates were fast, even on a small incline! I was skating along on a tree shaded street when almost instantly, I became one with the road. I hate street moss to this day. There was a pool party the next day and everyone laughed at my bruised, eggplant colored hip. Despite friends and family's well intentioned advice to" give it up", I was hooked. A skating addict Inline provides more fun then one person has a right to and I am unanimous in that

[cnvanr]

It was May of 2002 that I put on my skates for the first time.
it was K2 fitness skates. I went out to Han river park bike path .
Under the DongJak bridge ,one of the han river bridges, I changed into my skates for the first time and went to the BanPo bridge, another han river bridge. The distance between the two bridge is about 1.2 km. But it took me more than an hour to finish the trip. I took rest serverl times during the trip. It was very hard ,but felt rewarding as I felt I had improved a lot each time I took the rest.
I learned that day Inline skating was that easy to learn.
So ,I often say to the people who waver. "Don't hesitate to skate, just go out and keep on rolling, and then you will find yourself very much improved sooner than you think."

[hokie]

My first time on skates was in the fall of 1999. A friend who was new in town was looking for someone to skate with. I had not skated since the rollerskating rink in fifth grade and wasn't particularly interested in something I thought I would be lousy at. I wasn't very good at rollerskating and am generally not that coordinated.

She persisted, and to make her happy, we went shopping for skates. I tried on a pair of Rollerblades (don't remember the model), and I was amazed when I stood up and didn't fall right over!

I did fall often as I learned to skate and T-stop on an outdoor basketball court and in a few weeks started skating on streets and trails. Soon I was skating more than my friend!

Years later, she and I aren't really friends anymore, but I'm still skating!

[King of Avondale]

My first time skates was when I was seven.(late 1997) I just skated around the driveway of our apartment complex and jumped off and on a few curbs. I first skated on a trail when I was about 9. I still to this day have never really fitness/speed skated, but I didn't know I was going to a trail. I was told to get my skates and get in the car. Me, my mom, and my sis chose to skate this trail while my step-dad just leaned up against the car and did nothing.(He didn't have any skates, besides it was fun to see my mom try. I don't think she's put her foot into a skate since that day)Anyway, About 1/4-1/2 a mile down the trail, it split. You could either go right and turn around or you could go left and follow a complex trail. I didn't know the trail was so long or so complex so I asked my mom if I could try it and she said Yes because she knows how much I love to skate. So I went left at the fork. DANG!! For a while I thought it would never end! But then there was this really steep slope for the bikers. I got to the top of that thing and was panting so hard!(I didn't skate up the slope, I took the stairs along the side. lol) I finally got to the end and the sun was setting. It had taken me somewhere around half and hour to forty-five minutes to get all the way through that thing. I haven't skated a trail since....

[Glenn K]

I think it must have been in the mid-1980’s in the east San Francisco Bay Area. I had been skating outdoors on quad skates; Jogger plates mounted on soft suede tennis shoes and soft urethane wheels. Lots of fun, but you really had to look out for cracks in the pavement and gravel. Being an old ice hockey player, I was interested in a new outdoor skate by Bauer, the ice hockey boot manufacturer. They introduced a four wheel frame on a hockey boot. The wheels were narrow and tapered and, most important, were in line like an ice skate.

I took to these with great ease and pleasure. I loved being able to carve turns. For the first time outdoors, I could now spend time enjoying my surroundings rather than looking at the pavement in front of me. My favorite place to try out these new skates was a little used tennis court at the local high school. Later on I started to get out on a local bicycle trail and soon learned how to take longer strides and increase my speed. I then also began to learn about hills, a concept not easily grasped by a life-long rink skater. It seemed that for quite a while I did not see anyone else on inline skates and lots of people stopped to take a look. Also, for quite a while, they were not permitted in skating rinks.
When asked to describe the difference between quad and inline skates I would say that it was like getting out of your Honda Accord and onto a Kawasaki Ninja.

My first race was a 50-K event sponsored by the now legendary Godfather of Skating, David Miles held out on the Great Highway in San Francisco. There I first saw low cut boots with five wheel frames and larger wheels. From that point, I have not looked back, skating in distance races, mostly in California, but also Athens-to-Atlanta three times. I plan on skating A-2-A one more time in 2006 when I turn 60.

Glenn Kirby
Hayward California

[Mr. T]

Nothing too fancy. I got into skates in 2002 to complement my skiing during the off months. It was not a promising beginning: the only
skill I proved to master solidly was the art of making spectacular falls. However, never one to surrender easily, I recycled my old football gear, wearing a girdle with hip pads upside down to protect my "bumper". At that point falling was not so bad anymore as I was well padded. Once my "behind" was safe, I mastered running on grass. I was probably one of the fastest skaters in the world to ever hit the grass and run on it on skates. Too bad it is not an Olympic event. Once it took me 50 yards to stop. I was getting tired of running. 2002 went by with me just doing 1-2 sessions a week during the Summer. I would not develop a true passion for skating until 2004.

[Cloe_rose]

My first experience with skating was back at Cheep skate roller rink in
Hopkins MN ( about 1980).

In 1982 a couple of classmates and I played hooky from school and rented skates to skate around lake Calhoun ( outdoor trail skating on quads) needless to say I was awful and the loop took more than an hour but fun great fun was had by all. I didn’t touch skates for the next 11 years.

In 1993 i purchased my first inline skates a pair of Rollerblade Aeroblades I loved those skates and skated many a lap around Como lake in St Paul..
a great workout and it was a lot of fun with one hill.
It took a good friend to really get my back into skating (summer of 2003). He was an aggressive skater and was itching to get back out on his skates..I tagged along in my Aeros even though their original wheels and bearings were long over due for replacement. He told me about this marathon in Duluth and convinced me to race in the 2003 Northshore marathon. I upgraded after a couple of weeks of training to a decent pair of Salomon skates...

I'm now on my fourth pair of skates Powerslide C4’s with a 3x100 1x84 Mohema frame and love them.

On the bouncing off of the ground front I was either lucky..or just terrified of going down so my first crash was no until Aug of 2003.
I was confronted with the option of oncoming bike handlebars or the dirt while training on a trail ( kids didn’t know how to yield rather than go one way or the other they took up the whole trail just as I approached. I was decending a decent hill at the time)
A postive is that I developed a pretty good formula for dealing with road rash after much experimintation (Tegaderm by 3M is great stuff)
I raced in Duluth for the first time four weeks later to the amazement of my friend who thought I would quite skating after that crash, I wound up beating him by an hour.
I was hooked on the sport and love racing marathons, my daughter is now racing with me also.

Races so far
2003 North shore
2003 Cactus Classic
2004 Big Granite
2004 St Paul
2004 North shore
2004 Cactus Classic
2005 Metra Dome marathon
2005 Big Granite

Pending
2005 St Paul
2005 Montreal Marathon
2005 North shore

See you on the trails

[Dev Gnoll]

First Time:

Well, I did it the slow way.
I read a heap of internet stuff about how to skate, how to stop, and how to choose skates.

Bought a set of clearance skates... K2 Cadances. Hit the nieghborhood.

Actually was able to get moving. Kinda surprized that the stuff from that skatecentral.com web site sort-of worked.

Went up to the cull-de sac and around, then practiced going up a little driveway hill and down riding the heelbrake.

When I though I had that down, I looked at the roll home. I didn't realize I had climbed THAT far.

Well, I rolled back using the "tuck and Pray" method, eventually slowed down enough to heelbrake, and get turned around. It was a little exciting at the time, but nowadays I blast though that area at 12-16 mph and don't even blink.


Got back to my driveway, and fell over. I had tripped over a pebble.

The main lession I learned was never to go slow. Its much more fun at speed, and you don't fall as often.

Dev Gnoll,

[Melon]

My first time:

Actually pretty uneventful!

I started inline skating after a couple buddies suggested that it was a good way to stay in shape post hockey season.

Rollerblading is different enough than ice skating, on ice you slide, well till you hit the boards at the end of the rink. So I started off carefully, going only a total of 3 blocks the first day!

Since then I think I have figured it out?

Participated three times in the Ameythist Marathon 11km race supporting Cancer Research, 21km @ the ING in Ottawa and twice completed the 42 km Northshore Inline Marathon in Duluth, MN.

See you @ the Northshore in September ?

Keep your wheels on the road!

[InlineFitnessMag]

My first time was in March this year. I bought the top of the line skate that the Ft. Collins Gart Sports had, got my 5 year old daughter a pair of quads, we bought pads, grabbed our helmets and headed out to roll. I had prior ice skating experience - in fact we had just been ice skating the previous weekend, so I'm thinking - this is a no brainer!

We got to our big empty parking lot, found the bench, got out our gear and laced up. I had just put my elbow and knee pads on and remembered that I left my wrist guards in the car...

"Now honey, I just need to go get my wrist guards, so you sit right here and watch Daddy..." *WHAMMO* right on my butt! I laughed it off, got up, got my wrist guards, put em on and proceeded to skate care free for the next 2 hours. Wasn't till we were done and when I was taking my wrist guards off that I realized that something was seriously wrong with my wrist - as it proceeded to swell to twice its size! When I fell, I instinctively slapped my hands to break my fall (something I just do due to my Karate training). And since I immediately splinted my wrist with the wrist guards, I didn't notice anything being wrong. But man - did I notice afterward. That must have hurt for a good 2 weeks!

Before I strapped the skates on again, I found several good sources of information on "the basics", took it slow, and now I'm entered to roll in Duluth next month and I'm starting a magazine! (I've also lost 35 lbs. but that's a story for another day!)

Moral of the story - get the basics before you get on em, even if you've skated before.

[crystal_learns_2_skate]

Hi Everyone,
Sounds like everyone has a nice story to tell about their first time on rollerblades. I am a real beginner, I have to start with the grass, I have a fear of falling on pavement so I am not skating properly at all. I am going to take the info from in line planet and put them to use. If you have any tips for me, please feel free to share them with me ! I have no idea how to skate, apparently I dont have even have the bending knees down good either.
Lots of practice looks like what I will be doing.

Bye Ya'll
Just wanted to share my beginner's experience