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Inline skating: that’s

so what happened to inline skating?

During the late 1980s and 90s, inline skating became one of the fastest growing sports for many generations. Inline skating was, and still is, an activity that doesn’t require anything but a good sense of balance and motivation to practice. However, what could have been the start of an exciting form of sport became nothing but a fad. Inline skating forced itself into a corner where only serious professionals and daredevils, looking for a rush, would even bother picking up a pair of blades.

Inline skates first originated in Paris in 1819 but were overlooked as their more popular counterpart, quad roller skates, which seemed to be easier to ride and control, dominated. It wasn’t until Rollerblade Inc. made an appearance that inline skates gained traction. Rollerblade was founded by Scott and Brennan Olson in 1982. These brothers were both ice hockey players who were looking for a way to practise their sport off season. While ice hockey was more of a winter sport, this meant that very few ice rinks were open for use. It was because of this that the Olsen brothers fitted their hockey boots with wheels in a line. Around this time, shops and stores were selling inline skates but with extremely low sales and they stayed like this until the Olsons arrived. They soon started selling their skates and even offered a 5-day money back return for customers who may just be looking to try them out. With their effective entrepreneurial tactics, they soon had their town filled with hockey players wearing inline skates.

Then a new form of blading was introduced called aggressive skating. It was first invented in 1988 by Rollerblade. Their Lightning TRS were the first aggressive skates to be developed. These were designed with the intention of doing tricks. They look more like boots and have a large flat under-surface called a soulplate. This lets users grind and slide on obstacles such as rails and ledges. This is what many kids and teens of the 1990s adopted. Mini daredevils. The rush of jumping a flight of stairs, landing and catching it on camera became the epitome of the late 80s and 90s skate craze. Kids also began to create home movies filled with the best tips, tricks and fails. This again spiked the popularity of inline skating.

In 1995, ESPN released the new X Games. This TV show took extreme sports to the next level. It was something that encouraged deathdefying feats which left audiences hooked for every episode. It wasn’t just aggressive skating however, but also skateboarding, bungee jumping, mountain biking, sky surfing and street luging. It was a way to weed out the best of the best and stick them on the big screen. For inline skating though, it just brought more attention to the sport. For the next few years, aggressive skating dominated the X Games with more events than skateboard or bicycle competitions, and it hit its peak amongst the youth at the time in 1988 when tournaments consisted of four categories: vert, vert triplets, street and downhill.

While being one of the only reliable inline skate stores, Rollerblade was now looking at a bit of competition from Nike when they attempted to hop on the inline trend. In 1994 they acquired the world’s best hockey equipment supplier, Bauer, with intentions to take hockey off the ice and onto the streets. During this time, Rollerblade fell into the hands of Nordica, an Italian-based technica group, where it still remains today.

Crossing into the very early 2000s seemed to be the end for inline skating. As millennials got older and never fully recovered from their skate injuries, many decided it was time to stop. It also seemed that the new generation of kids and teens developed different tastes in sports, predominantly football and basketball slowly roller sports and extreme sports almost died out. X Games also ditched inline skating in 2005 due to a lack of sales and sponsors they were receiving each time they hosted an inline tournament. At this point, Nike also sold Bauer where Nike suffered a staggering £164 million loss from its first purchase in 1994. Inline skating was overtaken by skateboarding and even snowboarding as both extreme sports had made it into the Olympic Games. Participants hit extreme tricks and grinds, while inline went down the route of speed skating, which wasn’t the reason inline skating became popular in the first place.

In 2014, another new form of inline skating was created. The invention of the wizard frames allowed for users to perform new movement possibilities while looking flashy. They were created similarly in terms of ice skates with their ability to carve and cut turns. These wizard frames had unique wheel placement, which were designed to enhance the manoeuvrability of the skates. There are three types of frames:

1) Natural rocker the rocker is where the wheels are positioned in the frame. This uses four larger wheels which allows for speed preservation and better shock absorption compared to using smaller ones.

2) Progressive rocker this frame uses five smaller wheels which allow the user to have more balance over the skates and an increased turning radius compared to bigger wheels.

3) Advanced frames - this is designed with larger outer wheels (progressive rocker) and smaller inner wheels (natural rocker). These frames provide very good balance for toe and heel tricks and the three smaller wheels help maintain your centre of gravity and essentially better control of the skates.

In recent years, the 2020 pandemic caused a huge increase of new and returning inline skaters. This was because it was something people could go out and do on their own. This event caused an already ‘regrowing’ surge in the market and the demand for inline skates was the highest ever since 1990, and now, according to the Sports and Fitness Association, the revival of the sport is really gathering pace.

Journalist: Oscar Cardno

Designer Oscar Cardno

Photographer: Rebecca Walters