The Hardest Part About Rollerblading

Ridiculed and ostracized, rollerbladers hit new strides

“As a middle-school-age skateboarder growing up in the late ’90s, I was conditioned to hate rollerbladers. According to doctrine laid down by skateboarding magazines, this relatively new sport looked goofy, didn’t involve as much risk and, hence, was totally “gay.” (It usually went unmentioned that rollerblading also posed an economic threat to the skateboard industry.)

When a rollerblader moved into my apartment complex, however, I learned the joys of “aggressive” inline skating, which involves doing tricks and stunts. Thinking back, some of my fondest memories of those otherwise dreadful adolescent years involve me slapping on a pair of scratched-up blades, rigging a metal rail against a shopping cart and whiling away the hours doing soul grinds—one of the more basic tricks—over and over again.” - Peter Holslin