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Yes
Me
Thanks bro
Get u some wheels my g, would be great to see some content of u learning, if you want any advice on what skates to get hollar at Ur boy, there's really only two major shops in the UK for rollerblades and that's Slik Willie's in London or loco skates in Brighton. Bless g, and hope to see u on wheels soon😁
Need to mention Rene Hulgreen when talking about inline in the 90s- coold video :)
I’ll never forget my disappointment as a kid when I asked for rollerblades and got a pair of roller skates instead.
😪
actually I was better at roller skates than rollerblades but I still asked for rollerblades cause it was a newer thing and more fashionable.
Quad skates are vastly superior to in-lines, I'll never understand how anyone who has tried both could opt for in-lines!
@@paladestar9758 Inlines are swifter than quads and better suited for tricks imo. But whatever floats you boat.
@@paladestar9758 I tried quads and found them way too clunky so I stick to inlines. I did learn ice skating first so that might be why
"rollerbladers were seen as kids that would get in the way" Scooter kids: "hold my juicebox"
the funny thing is it's the skateboarders that mess up all the actual street lines at parks by deciding to grind one little box that happens to cut across five lines
Scooters are even worse. Even when skateboarders and inline skaters trying to grind a quarter coping. The scooter kids have their scooter sticking out of the coping. ... Urghhh..
@@DistrictWitch ya well it’s called a skate park for a reason
@@aussiemoolay8589 I think it's important to remember we all started off as kids at some point, and probably got in the way... But there is a difference between kids who ride because their parents want them out the house and kids who actually put effort in and progress, I think that should be appreciated... But yes, I'm sitting here as a mid 20 yo scooter rider and saying, kids do very often get in the way... It's the dude that shows up with the RC car that boils my blood lmao. There is one thing that scooter riding has over skateboarding, nobody stays in the sport who joined to impress girls or try and be cool or edgy, litterally noone, because it's seen as just about the least cool thing you can do, so the people you meet do it for genuine passion, no posers, just genuine people...
@@mgproryh true
Used to be rollerblading a LOT as a kid. What killed it to me, is that you could not go anywhere inside. With a skate, you can always jump off, hop into the store, grab a drink in a bar, do whatever... with rollerblades you were barred from going anywhere but the street.
Maybe because it was gay too?
@@DJ_POOP_IT_OUT_FEAT_LIL_WiiWiinope not at all . Gay , straight and everything in between we all had fun ! 😬
NT deep shit @@DJ_POOP_IT_OUT_FEAT_LIL_WiiWiikeep on hating, WompWomp
Agreed!! A lot of stores in Seattle has allowed me since I ask before going inside the stores.. but hey, you can always carry a super light pair of shoes :)
So true! I remember being in a mall and I couldn't enter a single store
As someone who just bought a pair of rollerblades last week, I think everyone else's sentiment about "people are just doing what they like" fits me pretty good. Along with nostalgia
Same. I just bought a pair myself, and I'm about to turn 40
I just bought a pair myself!
@@Uppermost_1 Ditto! I used to blade tons when I was a teenager. Bought a pair last year and been skating again since - I turn 40 in August.
I've been skating around the neighborhood and having a great time my dudes 😎
@@wretchedknave5740i‘ll turn 40 next august, got my skates yesterday
I lived through the whole rollerblade thing. 80’s skating, 90’s rollerblade, then skating again. And TBH rollerblading was fun. The whole “rollerblades are gay” thing killed it for sure. But today, when all kids are gay, maybe rollerblades will return.
LOL
I tried rollerblading once on Venice Beach. Some girl yelled "look at the rental fruit boots". I promptly returned those fruit boots to the vendor and never touched them again.
What a comment hahahahaha
@@1scurtis Probably because your skates were those crappy plastic ones that vendors use to rent.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 Plus, it's NOT as fucked and socially stigmatized to be gay so that Outta help to. I don't know why he gave a Reactionary meme take about ppl having a aversion to it due to ppl associating it with being gay or femininity and their need to be a stereotypical "masculine" being. Absolutely a number of ppl are that stupid and HAVE to present themselves in the most extreme way or feel some type of way or shame. There are still ppl who feel they need to be the breadwinner, and some won't even date men who aren't.
As a skateboarder who goes to a lot of skateparks I can say that at least now in 2023 no skaters hate rollerbladers being at the park. rollerbladers are always so nice and cool!
in the mid 90's it's true, the skateboarders HATED us, but it was often a street skaters thing. Us ramp skaters/riders of all kinds got along really well. Inline and BMX got along pretty well too. Then scooters came along and everyone hated them. Now scooters seem to run the place. Weird seeing a full grown adult doing scooter tricks, but its been around that long now the kids aged up
Not just the 90s as someone who does both I can say from my point of view I saw a lot of hate from the skate community to anything that wasn’t a skateboard basically, it got more toxic than that even people would complain abt kids at parks like go skate the fckn street dude the parks here so the kid can learn in a safe environment not so u can bs 200 instagram clips in a single day
In the 90's, the hatred was real. Skateboarding had a history, there were older guys in their 30s, who'd skated since the 70s, or even 60s... But rollerbladers just popped up out of nowhere. They were little kids, who had no idea about etiquette, not snaking or dropping in on someone else's run. My buddy broke his arm, after some rollerblader dropped in on him, despite being told not too. Looking back, I guess it was probably insecurity/projection, too- We saw rollerbladers, the same way as the rest of the world saw US- Annoying little kids following a pointless fad, who were always getting underfoot, and wore weird, gimmicky clothes. Even before the rollerblader thing (which was pretty open hatred), there was a milder rivalry between skaters vs BMXers, that would sometimes flare up into fights and stuff (altho mostly those two groups got along Ok). But that just seems to be the way with youth subcultures- You always have some nearly-identical group, who you hate with a passion; punks vs skinheads, punks vs skaters. Goth vs emo, emo vs scene kid. Kind of like how the worst religious hatred isn't one religion vs a totally seperate religion; it's Catholic vs Protestant, or Sunni vs Shi-ite.
yeah, met one the other day. he was fucking insane doing all these tricks, looked almost like he was dancing. got chatting, told him i found it cool how he was so amazing at such a difficult sport to which he replied that skateboarding is harder cus you have to balance something under your feet. he was definitely being humble, haha. saw him waxing the edges of a block and was like W T F! respect rollerbladers, some of the shit you pull off is insane to me
The scooter took the hate
Rollerblading did not decline because it fell out of favour with teen skateboarders. The industry failed to pitch to the broader audience who were actually not even aware of aggressive skating at the time. The millions of people skating, were doing it on the streets and trails, not parks.
There were no parks where I lived in the 90s.
as a kid it was s o easy to get robbed with blades on lol
No teen wanted to be called a fruit booter at the skate park, devastating nickname.
I was mostly doing it on malls for the smooth surface. Escaping the security guards was a blast 😂
First, it's a mistake to call it skating or street skating because skateboarding is on a whole different level when it comes to difficulty. Trying to use the same vernage opens up bladers to ridicule. Secondly, most people would rather be Goodall a really hard activity like skating or surfing vs being great at much more easy activity like blading. Blading should've never left the boardwalks.
The 90s was the best time to be a kid. It was just so dope. We didnt know what we had till it was gone😢
When I see a really insane roller skate or skate board stunt I’m just amazed how they survived long enough practicing that trick to actually do it.
Back and front flips off BMX ramps as high as a six-story building.
Not hard actually it’s called balance
@@blueazure9658 not hard? we get it bro you’re cool or whatever
@@blueazure9658Oh.
@@blueazure9658you’re not cool
What killed in-line skating for me, was shops, schools, busses etc. banning them. They were a hassle to put on and take off, and I didn't want to carry shoes in a bag everywhere I went.
good point... if dogs can now enter virtually every establishment, certainly skates can.
Son, by your logic downhill racing would be a dead sport. You can’t do it without a van full of gear and £10k worth of equipment. Carrying a bag is a hassle? I have a bag for my helmet bag.
@@darkwetntight910 It was never a sport for me, it was a way to make mundane things like shopping or going to a friends house cooler and more fun.
Agreed: they were too much hassle to put on and take off. For me it was compounded by there not being much smooth pavement or concrete to skate on (in my neighborhood) and it chewed the heck out of both wheels and bearings while shaking my fillings loose. Too inconvenient and too expensive.
@@ambrogi1982 service dogs only.
Flow Skate and Bill Stoppard got me into skating. They ain't about doing the gnarliest tricks, they are about cruising the cityscapes through the trickiest routes without breaking the flow and it looks magical. It's my third year on skates and I love it. Doesn't matter to me that it's not 'in'.
flow skate is teaching me all the fundamentals i never had as a kid, but the stuttering skater is actually the channel that made me pull the trigger lol
right skating or wrong skating?
Yep just started rollerblading this week due to their videos. It just looks fun and so far, between falls, im having a blast. It’s nice having a fun goal and being out of breath achieving it
It’s 2024 and I’m 31 and just started rollerblading again. Haven’t done it since 2004.
When sports "die" they often just become a lot more core, the passionate riders stay and the trend-followers leave. Lots of respect for the riders still doing it
I feel as if the word rider doesnt work here at all.
Big respect man, peace from Barcelona
Fruit Booters
That's the truth. I'm still amazed at what's going on in rollerblading today. I always check in from time to time to see what's up. The 90s were a weird time with rollerbladers and skateboarders. I remember all the skateboarders giving rollerbladers a hard time at the skatepark. Then all of us on rollerblades would put our shoes on and be just as good on a skateboard.
@@louiecmancuzo2903 Very wierd time. You were made fun of hardcore for rollerblading. If you weren't cool you were made fun of. Very competitive times. We did just that, Stopped the acid and farfegnugen grinding, put on shoes and became good at skateboarding in order to fit in. My friends and I would still blade when we could but eventually stopped all together. Paul Rodriguez, Mikey Taylor, "Justin Case who was better than all of them but also the biggest asshole, which made him even cooler at the time" Matt Taylor, Spanky, Van Wastell all frequented our local park(Newbury Park/ Thousand Oaks) and if you weren't skateboarding you were getting in the way, made fun of and or kicked out.
All I remember about roller blading in the 90’s is having a shitload of fun. It was fun! Why does everything have to be in terms of cool or not cool?
the idea of "cool" is very frustrating
Because sex.
Yes dude it still is fun. To be honest the negative perspective that people have has kind of died down, but of course there are still some people who will fuckin make fun of you if they see you in a pair hahaha.
Winger would have had one of the biggest albums of that time were it not for Beavis and Butthead. The animated duo made Winger un-cool and their album sales plummeted as a result.
@@surgickalstrike or maybe it was their mildly pedophilic lyrics 🤣
Just to let you know, we didn't carry around shoes when we skated. If we went to a store to get a drink we just took the skate off and wore the boot thing inside the skate lol. Ahh I miss the 90's...😭
I never really thought about how pervasive of a trend it was at the time only to virtually disappear. I was a kid in the 90s and I lived on the side of a mountain in the Appalachians, and even I had a pair of Rollerblades even though the only surface I had to skate on was the front porch.
Well, someone did invent blades with like 9-inch wheels for skating on rough ground. Imagine falling, though?
Interesting video. Just a theory: Roller blades were too durable so there was less money in them. Skateboards wear out and break constantly, so companies selling them can constantly resell the same product. Roller blades? Unless the person who bought them was an extremely hardcore user chances are they'd outlast their interest in using them. Which meant that once those companies had sold roller blades to all the potential users sales were dead, which meant sponsorships were dead, which meant the media frenzy fuelling the whole thing was dead.
Well how about we sell them environmentally friendly and sustainable rollerblades now? You know recycled plastic and all, that's a hip thing to do! Right?
I'm surprised youtube allowed this comment, let alone give it any likes. Wonder how long they'll have the truth up.
@@DzinkyDzink Ha! Good point. Make them out of cardboard and recycled toiletpaper to save the planet.
@@lukesutton4135 I doubt youtube is in bed with big-rollerblade :P
haha facts I recon
“They even had a rollerblading game”. Neglects to show the greatest rollerblading game of all time, Segas Jet Grind Radio.
Nah aggressive inline
@@YoDzOnHalo I was just about to say that
Skitchen was the best
That was that dreamcast game right? I always wanted to play that 1.
@@mikesim6589 still own my Dreamcast and still play it. 🤫
I recently began ice-skating (being someone who once rollerbladed a lot) because I wanted at least one or two winter physical activities I can get into. In the middle of ice-skating, for the first time ever, the question popped in my head "Wait... whatever happened to rollerblading?!" and now I am here...
Yes when I got older , I tried ice skating. Loved it. I thought ice skating is alot easier than roller skating, roller blades or skate boarding
Whatever happened to ICE skating? With the climate getting warmer, plenty of kids are missing out on skating because rivers, lakes, and ponds are no longer freezing like they used to.
@@bruzote In the 1990s Columbus Ohio got a ECHL hockey team before NHL. After that they opened up 3 indoor ice rinks and another in Springfield. Now in Minnesota there's a ice rink in every back yard
X games also dropped climbing
have you tried doing a method grab in ice skates? just kidding
I'm new in the rollerblading world, just 5 months but after going around I can notice there is more people rollerblading than before when I started and also more than skateboarders, youtubers are important on it
Same in nyc
I was in college in CA back then, and what I remember why a lot of regular people (not pros or hard cores) swapped out their blades for skateboards was that when they were out and about, you could jump off your boards and go into a store or whatever, but with blades you were stuck, outside usually, as every public building (CA) had a sign on the front door saying "No Rollerblades." This was a pretty big deal.
Sounds like Covid solved this problem.
Lll all
Yeppp this is what I always have in my mind too.
I remember that funny how they still have that sign up every where
blading is for the most core of skaters. we dont care what ppl think. we do it bc its fun.
Around 1998, our local skatepark was full of BMX'ers. A few friends and I were at the skatepark and saw this blader turn up and absolutely rip up the half pipe as we'd never seen before. Never saw him again but his legacy lived on through us, as I and 5 others instantly went out and got skates. Within a year we were entering local competitions and within 2 years, I and one other friend qualified for a West Midlands regional comp. If only video tech were more accessible back then cause we were a proper little team, tearing up streets, creating little challenges and travelling the country to various venues, sometimes sleeping rough just to make the most of the trip (as we could only go on a Saturday and Sunday due to school). I kick myself often for not documenting everything we did. It was sick, and all I have to show from that time is a pic of me inverted about 6ft above the coping on a 12ft vert ramp (Can't even see my face as I was facing the other way 😂🙈). My girl at the time was a skateboarder (she had a few moves in her locker 😅). We used to go back and forth with the banter but was always cool as we both enjoyed the skatepark scene. Not sure why I'm reminiscing on here, but it was good times and rather wholesome, given that many of our other friends were doing nothing. It felt purposeful. If you're a youngen reading this and and want to try something nobody else is doing, get your skates on, you'll have a blast.
I'm 36 and bought my first rollerblades a week ago. I remember the last time I used to blade was when I was 12 years old. I want to really learn how to do this for real. It looks extremely fun.
Thanks for sharing, I relate to this big time.
My little guy is getting into skateboarding and biking, tbh i forgot about skating, those old 90s-2000s skate videos are ridiculous.
100 likes
its a cool story bro x) its funny how we tend to tell these old grandpa stories on youtube :D anyway i really like it (no sarcasm)
In 2023 no skaters hate rollerbladers being at the park. rollerbladers are always so nice to see..btw really good and informative video..well done new sub ♡
storytime: i was 16 when xgames dropped inlineskating. i remember vividly eurosport had a short segment presenting how dangoures inline-skating actually was - as a goodbye. i was about 10 when i started inlineskating and 2 years later i started to do some royales and ufos. i still have my 2003 roces graal (allblack, zipper cover and laces). what struck me hard and what i will never forget is the hostility i recieved from skateborders - as kid i would just run away. but as i started developing and entering teenagehood i started having my own crew of friends... these meet-ups with skaters bacame str8 up heavy brawls. there was not a skate day without a fight. heavy fights sometimes. scared into my memory is when a guy in inlineskate in full speed jumped, lifted legs up, slamming - wheels first into skaters ribs, dude never got up. and many instances where my friends would fall, and skaters would reck then with boards while the dude is on the ground. i still believe there are still some spots in my hometown where skaters can not come. to this day, i have a bit of a odd feeling when i am surrounded, or passing skaters, an unease, dislikement, nobody understands why rolerblading was dropped from xgames when the pros were in their peak. and their skillsets and atheticism was on pair with skaters, and it was all managed in such a short term. skaters needed 50 years to get where we did in just 10. i recently seen some videos of skaters and inlines doing things together, and to be fair for me... well, it was hard to digest. but the thing is that inlineskateing never died. the fad dropped, so a random joe stopped buying pairs, which is anyhow good. it died in usa and uk. i am often i paris, and there they fucking do tricks for money on street - and it is so impressive what they do. most of the youtube channels we have about rollerblading are french, spanish, portugeese, canadian, with a stuttering skater being a "newcomer" from usa. i just recently seen the usd istambul tour 2015 and even newer vids - and fuck - one can see how the style totally changed from the 2006-7 (when i saw the last demo) and it is way more about having fun, then actually having an attitude, which is great - the chris farmer - the meantime vibes, but better. i stopped skating around 2012 when i moved to a new country, i took them with me - but studying was a priority and then i just forgot to reactivete. i recently replaced the 4x60 frame for a with 4x100. and i am back on them, although i do not do rails no more, i am taking inspiration from the leon the wizard and i am just enjoying a good smooth ride. bye now. p.s. wtf. you just enter the store with rollerblades.
I've been blading since 95 and still do it today. its evolved and gone more underground, big wheel blading seems to be popular in our scene at the minute. there's a group of us that skate every Sunday at our local park. we're all in our 30s and 40s :)
Love hearing this ❤️ I just decided to get back into it, haven’t skated since… 2008 ish
Not following the fashion is a road to happiness, I was rollerblading in 2004 and still sometimes do
@@RmX. I still do it because I love it, makes me feel good. it's also a lovely feeling looking at people skate ramps and remembering when I was a kid thinking "wow, I wish I could do that" and now I can. only thing that does me in now are new tricks and hurting myself, don't recover as quick as I used to!
@@dontstack9270 oh yes the wounds are healing forever now, remember being a kid and hurting myself wasn't a problem cause bruises would go away in 1 or 2 days
This is the way
They'll make a comeback. More and more people are becoming less concerned about what's "cool" and enjoying the things that are fun and make them happy.
They’re already making a comeback! People are going back to doing inline skate tricks and roll bounce dancing
it will grow, but not even half of what it was. without a sports like x games it won't be as it was.
Im 19 now, grew up with rollerblades, and still love them. If you put me on regular quads, I wouldn't have any idea what to do... As of today, I'm going to my local indoor rink and trying quads, but I love blades especially for the ankle support. It'll never fully die
@@SapiaNt0mata It doesn't need the X Games. Kids don't watch TV these days anyway. I envision a fusion of rollerblading slalom and roll bounce. If you take the ice skating team competitions, put them in rollerblades and make them choreograph their way around obstacles in the rink, you get something complex and new. It might not be guys pushing the sport this time. It might be girls.
I ordered mine and they came a week ago
I was a aggressive inline skater in my young years, was a lot of fun, big community and a lot of injury's. Big Halfpipe was my favorite. Later I took a lot of the skills into Freestyle Skiing. Still today I'm on Freestyle Skiing, thanks to this time of Rollerblading
I'm 40 now . And use to roller skate in the 90s . Just ordered new rollerblades .. looking forward ! 🎉
mid-life crisis in full swing.
I love how a sport never completely dies it just goes underground and the people doing it are the hard core enthusiasts that do it purely for the love of it
Soul skaters
Like breaking.
Sport never dies, its only the process of filtering out the people who only do it because of the hype
...and eventually it comes back en vogue, then a bunch of people pretend they've always been into it.
Gen Z: „For the love of it … …. … does this get me likes or is this just a waste of time?“
When I was a teenage in the 90s, the rollerblade scene in NYC was blowing up. Barely any skateboarders. I swear once tony hawk on ps1 dropped, skateboarding took off. I blame tony hawks game lol.
Yes it was that I reckon too The dead Kennedys
*took off **again**
Fruit booters
Yeah this was a big reason. Probably the biggest reason.
Yeah I'm from NYC. I remember starting with skating.. skate key was fire. Then rollerblading took off.. And everyone i know that started skateboarding was after Tony hawk lol . I did have a skateboard as a kid way before the game came out though
I'm only 25, but I remember going to the rink or the park every weekend and you'd see almost every kid from school at one of the two. Now it's 2023 and my coworker laughed when I asked if he wanted to go skating. Oh well, another Sunday alone at the park is fine by me.
i really enjoyed your video bro. i was a skater back in the 90s and this video just make me so happy. Greetings from Hungary
The circle I hung around in the early 2000s we did it all. Skated, bladed, and biked. Do what you like to do and have fun doing it. I never understood the beef. Awesome little documentary.
Same, agreed
I love doing it all as well. I remember road biking clothes with the tight shirts shorts and shoes looked weird to people and now it’s odd when someone is not wearing the gear. Blades are fun but for cruising around town and going into coffee shops or restaurants or bars, skateboard is just so much easier
Yes same here.
I’m on the camp that rollerblades have the fuss of putting on and off. Tried them a few times, didn’t like the inconvenience and I went back to biking
@@ccricers If you are bar hopping along a beach boardwalk, taking the skates on and off can be a real PITA.
Growing up during that period I always felt like rollerblading was a lot more fun as a casual thing, while skateboarding always seemed more like a 'sport'. Especially when snowboarding started to become popular, and they kind of share how to 'feel'.
Yeah, I still have a pair (that almost never get used), I skateboarded too. It's easier to do tricks with skateboarding, you're not trapped/strapped in. Rollerblades are faster than skateboarding, but not even close to a bike. So they're in this kind of middleground where they don't do anything particularly well, and even in this video, other than rail grinding, there's not a lot in the way of doing tricks.
Same, but after seeing those professional rollerblading clips in the beginning, i was blown away! Vert rollerblading looks harder and scarier than vert skating! Like how do they land so well on two separated, skinny and round surfaces? There’s gotta be ankle breaks all over the place!
Remember snowblades? That happened just before snowboarding Little skis LoL
@@eggfart05 To be honest, no I didn't remember those at all. I had to google it, then when I saw them I remembered, oh yeah that was a thing.
The roller blade boot goes to like mid calf and protects the ankle from being broken @@robertseptim3579
You really got a point there when you refer to the fact that things had just changed. In fact I've started rollerblading in the nineties when I was 8 yrs old, and later as a teenager, I went skateboarding. Nowadays I still go skateboarding, but I've recently came back to rollerblading due to the simple fact that I've spotted some videos here on KZhead that really gave the appetite, alongside with the fact that the feeling I had had as kid remained until today. So... Thanks for sharing this video. ;-)
The amount of knowledge you have on this subject and the amount of data you have collected is impressive. Good Video. I love inline skates, hate all you want.
I have been skateboarding since 1975, I have skated at hundreds of skate parks all throughout America. With that said, no matter what people think, no matter what people say, I’ll say it, it doesn’t matter what you’re riding on at the skate park, as long as you’re out there having fun doing it!!!
It was the urethane wheels that changed stakeboarding in the early 70's. Those old clay wheels were a bitch.
Anyone riding a horse at the skate park? 🤔🙃
I agree. I loved watching my mates blade. They went hard and took some nasty slams. Respect at the park was earnt and they earnt it.
Say that to my heelies, punk!
Show me something rollerbladers did that they didn’t rip off from skateboarder’s
I LOVED rollerblading in the 90’s. I was out for about 4 hours every night with a group, grinding, making jumps etc. Fantastic time. I still have my blades and go out occasionally (even though I’m 40 and crap these days lol)
Me and my friends did the same. We played a version of ULTIMATE TAG that spanned blocks.
Ditto!
I have fond memories of doing that too, although I was terrible back then. My old K2's have been sitting in my various closets/garages for the past several decades, finally took them out a year ago and found that all the rubbery plastic parts have started to break down. RIP
Age is just a number
Crazy I haven't seen a single person call it aggressive skating. We deliberately didn't use the term rollerblading...
As someone who’s still an avid rollerblader, I hope it comes back. It’s still fun as hell.
Great video! Thanks for putting it together. I was a big inline grinder back in the early '90s, had all The Daily Bread mags, Senate gear and whatnot. Interesting to see your analysis of it's history. Well thought out out and executed 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼 about to buy another pair as it is just a blast to skate. Only problem is where to get some tight neon clothes 😆 and I am in my 50s btw 😜
Essentially blading never got their Tony Hawk or Rodney Mullen, ZBoys etc. That one icon that transcends the sport and keeps pushing it into the mainstream and keeps growing and inspiring the next generation the way skating did.
Brian Shima was going to be that guy but less mainstrem attention meant less sponsors and less money. Shima had a nasty injury and never came back but you're spot on with your comment
That’s all he needed to say not a 20 minute video
@@cartercarter3484 True
@@styrojeff who?
Because there is nothing that innovative you can do with wheels strapped to your feet.
I always thought it would be cool if there were blades you could pop off and on your shoes, for whenever you had to go in a store.
Are you talking about Heelys? Always wanted some of those
There were rollerblades like that, they were called Xsjado. Nowadays USD sells them.
Pretty sure that exists
Check out Powerslide Doop skates!
@@unQuestionable69 Lmao when I was young I was so jealous of anyone who had heelys... remember soap shoes? I wanted those too lol.
This is a great video good pace, good info, great editing. Awesome!
I did the urban skating back in the day and I loved it for the speed, weaving all over while gliding over everything and you have so much control over what your body is doing. You need a strong core, legs,butt and total symmetrical strength.
there's one reason inline skating will never die for real: it feels just as good as it looks. you move on your own two feet, but it's like you're wearing floating 7 mile boots. i have a road bike, the most efficient way to get around without a motor, i have a longboard, and i love taking it for a spin sometimes, but strapping on my blades is what i get giddy about
Ain't it the truth.
So it's roller skating with your knees together like some kind of awkward bird. Got it.
He's talking about inline u wierdo it's dead asf
except a unicycle is literally superior to everything else
@@Blox117 Cross country ballet pointe rules all other sports.
I think the reason it massively overtook skateboard in the 90's was because it's quite a bit easier to become somewhat proficient on skates than a skateboard. Most skayers will tell you it took 8mos, a year sometimes, to have good consistent ollies. Basically jumping with the board. Imagine not being able to jump up onto a 10" curb with roller skates for nearly a year.
Now that you point it out, if that were the case I have to question whether it could take off as well if that were the case. You can always pickup the skateboard for a moment to climb/step over something, with skates a steep staircase becomes an obstacle.
If you enjoy flipping things around with your feet that much, wouldn't a soccer ball or one of those little "hacky sack" things save you a little 💰 over the price of a skateboard?
@@meself349 I think you're replying to the wrong comment thread buddy. That's not at all relevant nor comparable here. Also, a hackysack is way easier to do tricks with and doesn't compare to balancing upon a moving object. Much less doing tricks while traveling.
@@Firesgone It depends on the obstacle. If it is just a curb, it is easier to step onto it with skates rather than pick up the skateboard and then put it down again. If you have an actual staircase or rough terrain skates become a real pain. For casual use, it is those small annoyances that determine which is preferable. When I was a teenager/ young adult, skates or skateboard were not practical for every day usage for me so they were purely a recreational (ie "show off") thing.
Roller blades also were a valid and fun tool to actually move longer distances though. I did not just use them for little tricks but to move between places. That's why i'm surprised they vanished so completely.
For me, the biggest thing about rollerblading is the freedom of movement. You can go as fast or as slow as you like, aggressive or speed style, you have an infinite amount of lines that you can take through the city. Wizard skating is also very fun.
I've been rollerblading since I was a kid and honestly didn't realize that it wasn't a normal thing lol. There's a local skate rink I've been going to for quite a few years thats always packed full of people. It wasn't until I recently invited my dad to come with me that I found out about it being huge in the 90s and kinda dying out like it did.
I remember as a skater crapping on rollerblades and there people in the 90s. We called them fruit boots. Now looking back, I realize they were just as dope as freestyle/BMX, or skating. It’s very entertaining to watch and I wish the best for it’s reemergence.
Yup. I was a fruitbooter. But a also could skate a little and rode BMX bikes. I'll admit that learning a majority of tricks of rollerblades. Tend to be a lot easier than skateboarding. But when you're incorporating handrails and gaps on rollerblades. Some of that stuff been to.be respected.
@@danlyons4602 For sure!
I had friends that would Diss bladers because they rode wood. It was all laughs though
@@danlyons4602 My peer group all started with skateboards. None of us could ollie to save our lives. One guy showed up on blades and cleared a at the library. Next thing you know we all had blades and built a quarter pipe. Then the indoor skate park opened and we were hooked. After 20 years off, I just bought a pair of Roces M12's and am back to skating. I was surprised how much the skills stuck around.
Bladers are still around. And no one hates on us at the parks now a days. I'm almost 40.
Shows what I know. Never knew rollerblading died. I’ve been doing it for 30 years or so. Never watched the pros and did t realize they took it off the X games. Mind blown.
While it might not have many if any competitions or shows, it’s definitely not dead. A skate park for rollerskates and rollerblades opened up nearby my home around last week and it’s packed full of skaters. Never knew how many people near me skated and how many were legit pros. I love it there because of the variety of skill levels and ages. There were super young kids (below 10, around 7) all the way up to adults that were absolutely showing up the park with their skills; but there were also first-time skaters at the same ages. Such a friendly and humbling place full of people willing to help each other out.
Ffs same for me 😂 keep rolling!!
Been rollerblading almost the same amount of time, learned when I was 4-5 years old still have my fitness and my aggressives and my ice hokey skates as well, I would go to rinks no matter what state I lived in, and I would always find a decent amount of people skating. So to me it never died.
It’s a tragedy that rollerblading died out. Rollerblading is probably the best activity/sport there is for building a nice derrière. Humans evolved their big glutes to balance on one leg as is necessary for walking upright. The glutes are the active part of the system for transferring the weight from the centered spine to a single off-center leg. What activity involves balancing on an off-center leg more than rollerblading? In addition to the glutes, you also need to stabilize the spine during the weight transfer from one leg to the other and as each leg kicks out to the side. So rollerblading also helps to cinch up the waist. Tight waist, built up glutes. Rollerblading makes the world a more aesthetically pleasing place.
😂 Watching this video kinda re-lit a fairly recent thought of grabbing a pair of skates. I've been in need of getting back some hobbies after all this boring adulting. What a perfect paced sport skating around can be. Who knows, you might be able to learn a quick trick or two to throw down, so you catch the eye of that jogger or dog walker you always see at the park. Get out there, and get active. 🤸♂️❤ Have fun
It always boils down to what gets promoted and sponsored. In the 90's everything in "alternative" sports was blowing up. Freestyle skiing was gaining traction and with that snowboarding got popular and before you knew it, X-games was huge, Red-bull was a household name - and neither of them really promoted in-line skating. I think a big part of it also had to do with video games and the fact that Tony Hawk pro skater was epic.
I know deep down you want to be a roller blade champ kid🤣
I agree. Popularity of anything is heavily influenced by money and media and vice versa. I still rollerblade at 36. Just not aggressive skating. It’s a fun and healthy hobby I plan to do into my 60’s.
@@atomic2174 with those epic jumps down stairs you'll be a cool grand parent🤣
Skater culture in the late '90s, promoted by pop punk bands like Blink 182, also played a part I think. Rollerbladers were not included in that culture.
Media for sure, the first time I finally drank the famous Red-Bull I nearly spit it out, I will never understand who would want to drink that sugary piss water.
The craziest thing I remember about rollerblading here in Canada is that there's a national supermarket chain called Superstore and in the 90's all the people who worked there (with the possible exception of the cashiers) wore rollerblades. Yes, people doing price checks and putting things back where they go on shelves would be rollerblading around the store at considerable speeds. I was a small child at the time so didn't think all that much of it, but looking back that was incredibly bizarre, and I would think that the staff must have had really sore feet and legs by the end of the day. The 90's were wild.
That's ripe for lawsuits. "YOU BUMPED INTO ME, AND I ACTED LIKE I WAS RUN OVER BY A TRUCK!" For me, the 90s were bicycles, roller skates and Nintendo 64.
I remember that, I thought it was pretty cool at the time!
The employees at Sonic drive-ins used to wear skates and would skate your food out to your car. I remember being there once as a kid and seeing one of the waitresses trip as she was taking out a big order on a tray - several burgers, fries, and probably four drinks. Poor girl ended up dumping it all over the hood of somebody's car lol.
A lot of supermarkets in Brazil still have employees wearing rollerblades, it's so cool
you can still find restaurants with rollerblading waiters in China
Maybe someone pointed this out already, but Nike is named after the Greek goddess of victory, so it actually rhymes with the name Mikey.
I remember in the 2000’s The was a big warehouse style store in Canada called The Great. Canadian Superstore. And they hired employees who were skilled rollerbladers and they wore rollerblades as they worked to more quickly transverse the expansive square footage of the store.
as a modern rollerblader, and a teen who wasnt aware of this "death," thanks for making this video. its nice to see that we are coming back
cheers.
Fr. I turned 21 this year and picked uo the blades for the first time. Been at it for 6? Months now
I’ve been blading for abt 4 years and it’s the best decision I made. It’s smf all the ramps and rails are so exhilarating and I hope that if it blows up again, people get to feel that same feeling
Legit, same. I had no idea that it used to be a big thing either because it always seems that no one talks about it or know what it is-
roller blades are trash, you need a unicycle
How could they learn to do these tricks without dying is beyond me.
Survivor effect: 90% actually did die but the ones you see are the ones who lived.
@@BramHeerebout it actually makes sense
If you’re born gay, rollerblading comes naturally
@@williamwade3443 it never gets old🤣🤣🤣
@@aeronbern1769 never lmaooo
Tengo 33 años y soy de México. Comencé a patinar por el año 2004 después de practicar hockey y curiosamente, el video dice que era una época en declive, pero la escena en México estaba comenzando a tomar fuerza, con incluso marcas nacionales, revistas, y marcas extranjeras patrocinando a mexicanos. Obviamente siempre fuimos minoría, ya que la industria ya había empujado mucho al skateboard y se volvió estereotipo de adolescente gringo, a partir de videojuego Tony Hawk, miembros de Jackass, Bart Simpson y un largo etc) el Roller me dio una una de las mejores estapas de mi vida y la recuerdo con mucha nostalgia y de alguna manera influyó con lo que ahora soy. Hace poco compre unos Valo para salir y hacer un royal por lo menos, ya que tengo una lesión que me impide exigirme más. Actualmente el skateboard es de lo más común y es interesante cuando comentas que el roller puede tener un segundo respiro. Veamos qué pasa.
I legitimately suffered being the only blader at my skatepark. I wasn't even made fun of, because I sent it so hard without knowing what I was doing, and I've broken 2 wrists, a collar bone, and separated my shoulder. What makes rollerblading actually badass is that you can't bail, you've got wheels on your feet even if it all goes wrong.
The Japanese brothers took the skill level sooooooo high there was nowhere else to go.
The progression has to be to an advanced motorized version of inline skates, allowing all the same control, but with bigger forward thrust ....
@@PlantbasedRunners magnets 🧲 in the soulplates.
@@PlantbasedRunners are you referencing air gear?
@TaketheK I N G D O M blading/skates went from fabiola to chubby hipster chicks in full pads showing up to skateparks in skating rink roller skates trying half handstands on the small quarter pipes
@@PhaseSkater 🤣🤣🤣
I remember us skateboarders being angry at rollerbladers back in the 90ies. Nowadays everybody is kind of happy to see a blader showing up at the skatepark.
Now we're pissed to see a group of scooter kids lol.
True
@@GodofLovers 🤣🤣🤣 about to say the same. 🤣🤣🤣
@@Rollerlife lol fr tho. 😂
Fruit Booters, Fruit Scooters, all the same
you make me cry ...so much nostalgia man... thankyou
Love your vid mate. I just got a quad at age of 46. I used to skate back in the 90s. Obviously not jumping anymore although still temped looking at some decent stairs lol. But! Perfect for fitness for me at my age!
Let me get this straight. They were inspired to create the inline skate, when they found an inline skate in a store.
Haha I didn't notice until I read your comment. And you're absolutely right. 1:35 They, like so many other successful companies, just copied an existing product and marketed the hell out of it as their own.
Just like LEGO.
I understood it to mean that they improved upon something that wasn't successful in its first incarnation. I saw one of these inline skates in a used sporting goods store in the mid 70s, and it looked impossible to use.
@@coleford6197 We rollerbladed back in the 90s as a family. After ice skating for years after that, I wanted to get the inline skates with a curved wheel base, so they don't all touch the ground at once. This better matches an ice skate's slight curvature, allowing for easier swiveling of your foot while on the ground. With normal inline skates you have to lift your foot to turn very much. This is another of these improvements that come after people get experience with them.
The guy in the video kind of glazed over that part. My understanding was the early inline skates took your conventional roller skate style wheels and just put them in a row. So they were a little more clunky and were made for going more in a straight line like cross-country skiing. And the brothers who created rollerblade wanted something that performed better for playing hockey on concrete and so they redesigned the frame that held the wheels and as I understand it trim down the width of the roller skate wheel and rounded it off on the edges so it was more like the wheels on an inline skate we see today. And it made it possible to corner more and be more agile with the skate. And then they ended up getting a connection to I believe it was kryptonic to have wheels made that were more the design they were looking for. Same as using a variation on a ski boot as the basis for their skate because it was simpler to get that produced than the hockey style boots which required a lot of stitching and hand labor. The rollerblade boots as they came out more popular we're a lot of molded components so ease of production. But yeah to the point they basically saw somebody else with a idea of the inline skate and improved upon it
I've still got my Hoax VHSs and my Senate hoodie 🥲
Didn't expect you here. But pleasent none the less.
jfc I forgot about senate lol. Found my K55's and (beat to shit) razor flats during lockdown and took them out
I got rid of my senate hoodies but have been looking for a new one!
Lol, senate hoodie with some big ass public defender shorts and a bitchin wallet chain
Thats cause your a Fruit Booter 😂
Thanks dude, for this story! I feel's like, this coming back, soon again, but with new brands and new names)
Great video man. Really well done. I'd love to see aggressive inline make a comeback.
My buddy rollerbladed in it's hay day and explained that pro level got so ridiculous that you'd nearly need to die to go pro. Once that became unobtainable people lost motivation. You ended up in a body cast before you ended up with a sponsor.
This isn’t true at all. A lot of dudes I skated with in Charlotte were sponsored by razors. I mean the dudes with pro boots were insanely good but some weren’t. The best dudes were superhuman.
All extreme sports are life threatening, they wouldn't be extreme if they didn't. Only people wanting to avoid being hurt lose their motivation when they figure out the real nature of a practice, others are attracted by this same fact because of the thrill risks provide. There's only one reason about rollerblade decline : it was an over exploited economical bubble that broke when money went in the next trend (scooters).
As a suckerblader in CA in the 90’s I can confirm there’s some truth to this. I was at the xgames in San Francisco on the pier when Tony Hawk landed the 900 for the first time. It was amazing. Aggressive in-line didn’t have that magic anymore. The kids were just too good. The idea of working on a really hard trick existed at the individual level, but not at the sport level anymore. At the peak it seemed like all the time you’d hear about (or see) some 12 year old doing some trick combo on in-lines that should only be possible in a THPS game. It might not want to make you stop skating, but it did remove aspirations. I’d need to start a wicked meth habit to even have a shot at doing that one day and by the time I learned it some other kid would have already done something even crazier. By the time they pulled in-line from the xgames it was a bummer, but it kinda felt right. The stuff the pro fruit booters could do was insane, but at some level we knew skateboarding took more skill. It took more talent to make a board do that stuff than having wheels tied to your feet. One is like walking/running with flair, the other is manipulating an object with mostly your feet, often in mid-air, that physics doesn’t want to stay near you.
Your buddy is 100% right. Rollerblading died in the late 2000's after Bittercold Showdown 10. After this event everything chilled out.. because people were literally out there dying. This is basically the damn Woodstock of rollerblading and it's never peaked higher than this. kzhead.info/sun/hZ2Km5Gri4d-jH0/bejne.html
as a kid of the 80s and 90s i do have to say that 90s fashion is definately starting to re-emerge. i haven't changed anything about the clothes i wear, but i would be let into a club now and i wouldn't have been 10 years ago.
For real, my nephew now looks like someone I’d see at my high school.
For me it re-emerged because I now got offspring who's at the age I was in early 90s and it's something we can occasionally do together, I wonder if that's an explanation for a whole broader group of people too... the 25-30 yr gap would make sense.
@@andrewzaborowski9685 it would be a useful piece of anthropological research to check out. might even be able to identify generational trends that follow a pattern that goes back further than modernity.
Dork
Lol what.
I started rollerblading last week. Been doing it every day, can't get enough. It is very liberating for someone who lives in a city. It's faster than walking, but more tiring than cycling but i don't mind. It's good aerobe training.
I miss the days when I would go to a skatepark and the majority were aggressive skaters 🙁😞
"obiously we named it senate becasue we wanted a name that sounded powerful but thats also corrupt" LOVE IT
Fruit Booter
cringe
@@babyduck9217 ok cool.
@@Steezy_Mx wood pusher
MANNNNN this took me back to '99. 10 years old with a pair of k2s depleting my mom's candle collection to try and grind concrete parking blocks and handicap rails.
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. John 3:16, 17
@@spicydramarama852 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. John 8:32
I was 15 and hardcore into skating (skateboarding) in that year. Good memories. I miss my best friend. RIP Josh
Sweeet!!!!
@@spicydramarama852 Cope. We're all going to perish.
I think one of the biggest contributing factors is that people like to have a stable surface to stand on. Skis, and snow/skate boards are much more inherently stable than roller blades. Even skates have a fixed, static blade, compared to free-rolling wheels.
I've been skateboarding for 21 years. I remember everyone giving them shit and calling them 'fruit booters' but they were jumping down like 17 stair sets. Ridiculous.
Yeah literally "Fruit booters" was the first thing that came to mind here on the east coast lol.
Fruit booters and bin liners 🤣 I remember those phrases
I was a skater too and the fruit booster phrase did them in rofl. They would always get ragged on but looking back they did some bad ass shit honestly.
skateboard is trash get an euc
I mean its true...
Definitely miss just going for a cruise in my rollerblades just carving with nothing but some music playing on one ear and the subtle traffic on the other. Will definitely be buying a pair soon. 🤙
I can say roller skates and rollerblades are coming back, stronger and better than ever, just watch the next 10 years.
A few huge reasons as i see it: - first time buyers would receive a sub-par experience due to the out of box product....and if your first attempts kind of suck, lots of people just gave up on it. - low grade wheels (mostly spokes, little rubber), which gave a horrific ride...very bumpy. - stock bearings were utter garbage...you had to open them up and do a full WD-40 job on em... very few knew how to do this or that they had to. - lots of brands that were really crap... first experiences can ruin something for most. if you didn't have someone there to show you how to properly set stuff up, odds are, you'd hate it.
Agreed; low grade wheels and bearings are the issue since the good ones were (and still are) prohibitively expensive for lower class folk. I remember when I was young and had a crap pair, I thought the sport was really difficult. Then when I popped on my cousin's pair of Roller Blades, I could suddenly move way better.
This definitely mirrors my experience - I simply couldn’t do the things I wanted to with the cheap skates I had.
fully agree. back when i was younger i tried to rollerskate and it really sucked balls. then i tried it with the 4 wheel one and it wasnt any better and i basically gave up on it. its quite sad honestly as videos of it looked really fun and it would be probably really fun if it werent that hard to learn.
I agree here, too. I was an aggressive rollerblader. My big issue is the wheels have a wear and tear on it. The last time I wore rollerblades, my actual wheels have wear on it so much the "sear" on one side. I also share the pain of carrying them, their "fit," the last time I tried wearing them? It was uncomfortable because my feet is too big for it today. I'm not gonna spend $100 on new sets of them. I love rollerblades. Awesome for what they are. I'm 40, so that's out.
sebastian - wd40 is not a lubricant, its a water displacer and dirt attractant.
It died because xgames back stabbed rollerbladers. It’s like getting dropped by Olympics so the money disappeared and the talent wasn’t shown on tv
You mean because rollerbladers but stabbed each other?
It's sad X games should definitely bring it back.
As a kid in the 90's I always switched between skateboarding, inline skating and even snakeboarding! I was very confident riding around on all of them but it felt tricks on inline skates were limited unless you could backflip, had rails to grind and had ramps nearby and I just didn't have either of those! I also completely agree with the shop statement, and was probably the reason I would cruise/travel about on my board as I got older. Now in my 30's I wanted to revisit either skateboarding or inline... and I have opted for boarding (vlogging my journey if interested). But I might get some aggressive skates soon. I think both are making a comeback with people my age.
I have a pretty good theory about why it died. Towards the end of the 90s and beginning of 2000s, skating rinks closed up. Unlike other similar sports like Skateboarding and Snowboarding, most kids got their exposure to rollerblading at a skating rink. These used to be a popular place for younger GenX and older Millennials to hang out when they were in middle school and early high school. Young kids would go there, play arcade games, do some skating, and see some older kids using rollerblades. When those skating rinks closed up and were torn down, there was no more new blood for rollerblading. Think about it this way, how many kids do you all see in regular roller skates these days? Not many there either.
Literally the only time I see roller skates is at *very few* Sonic drive-ins down here. I think I've seen two around where I live, which is still quite a few. Outside of that, nothing. Hell, almost no one skateboards around here, either.
shockingly, the skating rink I went to as a kid is still around. they did add a huge indoor play center, it took up almost as much space as the rink.
I can find myself in this. The scene was also very acceptant of newbies, just to hang out casually or get more into the hardcore scene. We just hang out in the sun, smoking stuff we shouldn't and enjoy long evenings in the rink. At our rink they did not judge and everyone was welcome, it was simply a nice place to be. Skating or not.
Well, to be frank... You no longer see kids in skates or kids at all. Most kids are usually coped up inside, with skaters of any kind bring rarer and rarer.
@@Estmaraver sadly 😞
Aggressive inline skate is super fun and rewarding. It doesn't have the media, culture and big market support but it is way better like this to be honest. It's only done by passionate people. That's what matter the most really
Fruit Booter
This comment tends to assume that having some sense of media presence will kill the culture. When in reality there will always be a core market to every sport and it only helps the core pay riders enough to do what they love, they don't have to conform...
@@Steezy_Mx and proud💪
Everyday. I'm on my skates everyday.
@Daniel Lorenz hit a second hand store. People always buying skates and never using them. They end up giving them to good will or something. I got new skates for like $10.
I always thought of rollerblading like ice skates, but without the ice. I enjoyed just getting to get my ice skate fix during the summer
i dont follow rollerblading but after seeing these clips i can see how much potential it has becauase of how much style you can posess. It reminds me of that game jet set radio. the way they move is almost like dancing and i think that could set it apart from skateboarding which is kind of limiting in terms of style. and because its easier to not fall it seems like it'd be great for doing long and really cool lines. I saw some of that in a braille video when bladers came by and everyone was so impressed and amazed at how cool they look rolling around the place at fast speeds and flipping around. skateboarding is very 'stop and start' and often doesn't flow well because of how easy it is to fall. So much so that doing a line at all is impressive. and the comments on that video were almost entirely positive which makes me think that there is no beef between the sports anymore. i think rollerblading def has potential to be cool again because of its style and how fast you can go and it seems more 'fun' than skateboarding. i mean skateboarding has cultural stuff like 'my war' and competitiveness in olympics. its very serious and ambitious now and not really about fun. Andy Anderson is both influential and hated because of his approach to skateboarding being about fun and not ambitious which is seen as rebellious
Very well said, I agree with every point you made. You have an eye for style.
Wait. It's easier to not fall in rollerblading? At least at the beginner level, I think skateboarding is easier. Unless you don't count "falling" off the board and landing on static footwear! Maybe I am not remembering it right. However, with rollerblades, you can't jump off of them. You can't bail out and land on two safe feet and legs! If you lose balance, you are going to fall HARD. Rarely is there another option to falling. Your default recovery base AFTER you fall is still a rolling foot that can shoot out from under you. When I was learning skateboarding, it was easier than roller-blading. At least the basics that I recall decades later.
I used to rollerblade like it was my job in the 90s when I was a kid. It was my favorite thing to do. As I got older, naturally I just moved away from it and now in my late 30s, I can't even remember the last time I strapped on a pair of inline skates. In my early 20s, I remember going on my first ski trip. Because of this obsession with rollerblades as a kid, it lead to me picking up ski blades. Anyone that was good at rollerblading, go snow skiing this winter and rent a pair of ski blades. I bet you will be flying down black diamonds after your first day on them. I'll still shred like I was 16 on those things and it feels so natural. It's like the feeling of those rollerblades never left.
Get you a pair of skates and go to the park bet your ass you won’t be the only old guy there and you won’t regret it
funny I ended up on blades as well and still ride them now at the snow...the only older kook on the hill and the teenagers hoot and yell from the lift like short skiis are outrageous, they are just short skiis, they feel like skiis to me but they are annoying to move through the line. I really believe in a big way that most people just want to fit in quick and not be unique so if they see some stoned snowboarders trip out at a guy with short skiis they are afraid to try it. It's just like right now, everyone is afraid to stand up for logic so they wear masks and take un-tested drugs just cause they say everyone else is doing it, not me baby, I'll wear spandex with blades before I'll adopt this latest fad!
I started on 32. Now I'm 38 and I love it. Age is just a number.
deffo gonna take you up on this. Nice one.
@@whatyoudo9773 short skis 😃
Here in São Paulo, Brazil, every park you go anywhere there are people with rollerblades and there's always people learning. I'd go as far as to say there's more people on rollerblades than on skateboards. It's def not in the media anywhere, but a lot of people are still doing it.
Yeah, I get the feeling this youtuber is basing a lot on what he sees in the UK, which has never really had a strong skate culture of any sort. Places like Canada with a strong ice skating and/or ice hockey culture still have lots of rollerblading in the summer.
Sao Paulo is not a parameter. People ride on some strange longboards there, some unusual stuff. It doesn't mean rollerblade is still a thing. Both roller blade and skateboarding as they were in the 90s are dead. The counterculture, subculture stuff has changed to mums taking their infants to skateboard classes. We try to convince ourselves that this or that time is not dead, but they are... some elements of it might survive and morph into the new context but don't come back as it was
@@XXXX-yc6wv So is that roller blading culture or ice skating culture which has spilled over to the summer? Sounds to me like the latter.
O lance do rollerblade é que vc não precisa se preocupar de cair do skate, o negócio não sai da sua perna a não ser que vc dê um jeito de arrancar o negócio. De uma certa forma, eu me sentia mais seguro, como se o patins fosse parte da perna, então dava mais apoio. Nesse caso eu acho que é mais interessante pras pessoas. Eu sempre quis tentar andar de skateboard, mas nunca consegui convencer meus pais a me arranjar um quando eu era moleque. Tb curtia BMX, mas nunca usei um tb, fiquei só na bicicleta. Eu não era de fazer manobra com nada, eu curtia andar ou fazer corrida. O máximo que eu fiz com rollerblade foi jogar hockey inline no ginásio. Tinha usado um par de blades com roda de silicone. Eu odiei pq grudava nas superfícies e era uma merda pra fazer slides, drifts e curvas. Parecia que as rodas estavam colando no chão, a aderência era boa pra pegar velocidade, mas não dava agilidade alguma. Primeira vez que eu tentei dar uma daquelas paradas de lado. CAPOTEI LINDO, parecia um acrobata de porre. Foi hilário! Mais hilário ainda que eu não me machuquei em nada, só deu susto e fiquei tonto.
Same in my country. There's barely any skaters but you see a few people on rollerblades - not as much as 20+ years ago but still.
Id say rollerblading has just as high a skill ceiling, if not higher that of skateboarding. You have fakie and switch tricks, plus you can incorporate flips and shit. Ive always wanted to see someone proficient at parkour incorporate their skills into street roller blading.
I dont know man, i think its alot harder to flip wooden boards that aren't attach to your feet. Rollerblades are more nimble for sure but I disagree on difficulty level since you never have to worry those things flew off your feet.
Yuto did a nollie 270 heelflip to handrail slide.
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Granted the numbers aren't what they were in the 90's, but having experienced the highs and lows of the past 30+ years I can honestly say that rollerblading culture has never felt stronger.
Are the lows when you fell over?
Wizard skating style is reviving the industry
We are back even Aggressive skating. We ARE THE ZOMBIES. We are back...and can group of zombies in a different places be killed? Probably not...if we spread...we are alive...but if we don't find anyone...even zombies can die......UNTIL........
Be a the ones left are the real ones.
When sports "die" they often just become a lot more core, the passionate riders stay and the trend-followers leave. Lots of respect for you and the riders still doing it
Just want to add that in the late 90s, a lot of roller rinks were getting shut down in the states. So a lot of kids who would have been exposed to it didn't get a chance, I'm a 34yr old skateboarder and use to love going to Hammer Skate. 😭
a lot of rinks wouldnt even allow blades, not unlike ski slopes tried to ban snowboarders at first
Same thing in Belgium for me, most skateparks just closed out so we had to do it in the street, and we'd constantly either get security or cops sent at us or simply adults berating us for destroying property/doing too much noise. There were also a few punk kids who would try to berate us in skateparks, but once they saw you were able to pull out actualy tricks (or even be better than them at skateboarding) they'd go quiet real fast. Around 15-17 years old I eventually got tired of having to struggle so much just to enjoy such an amazing sport, I never understood to this day why no sport center ever had ramps and official skateparks, as small as they would be. Be it BMX, Skateboarding or Roller, those sports are really worth doing and supporting, as they have an endless room for creativity and fun. Had I a Skatepark closeby, I'd still be skating today (I'm 34 now).
most rinks didn't even let us in, they wanted that rental money for their shitty roller skates
@@Teeveepicksures Yup I was a goalie all thru school and the rinks that had wooden floors wouldn't let me skate on them. I'd have to sit out away games because I couldn't skate quads good enough.
All around the world rinks were closing then.
I just dug put my old rollerblades to get back into the swing of things again after a few years. I’m only 24, almost 25 but I still knew like 30 other kids in highschool who had pairs and a bunch of others who only used them at skate rinks when we went on school trips and stuff.
A bunch of us are getting back into/got back into aggressive inline and wizard skating during or just after covid. Nostalgia, more money, need to get outside, etc, all are driving a resurgence of sorts. Still a small community, but tight and stoked.
I was one of those kids in the 90s/early 00s that was BIG into rollerblading. I didn't have the skill to do "aggressive inline" or vert skating, but I was damn fast and leaned into that with an expensive $600 pair of custom fitted 5 wheeled Rollerblades with "micro-bearings". I skitched all over Chicago in those and all up and down the lakefront bike path, either as fast as I could propel myself, or skitching on bicycles and cars in the street. My parents hated that I loved it, but by then I was 16 and working so I was spending my own money on it and they had no recourse to take it away from me.
Exactly the blades became a thing again for us kids during the peak of the early early 2000s pretty much died by 04
I got into the aggressive inline and we used to skate Chicago street. Would take the Metra from the south side. Got hit by a cab on Wacker drive, and almost fell into the lake grinding at Navy Pier. After almost 20 years off I bought new pair of Roces M12s after my 1994 Tarmac CE's frame exploded. I got back into street and vert (with more caution and care) than my 15-17 year old self had back in the 90's.
I'll never forget my first pair of K2 Inlines. The extra boot to bring and that spacer rather a 6th wheel was essential in the explosion.
@@gizzardretizzard I'll admit I was one of those fan bois who thought Rollerblade brand was the only good brand and never even gave K2 a second glance. I should have, cuz I missed out.
@@somedude4805 that spacer in the mid was essential to take the grind game to the next level. Anyone hating just never tried it out cause I could never hate the fun I had on those suckers.
"The skills of these guys in the ninties" *proceeds to show clips from the 01-05 hammer era, when inline was already "dead". The numbers of "participants" are BS too, those numbers include every one that simply tried on a pair of skates in that given year. Rec, fitness, hockey and aggressive. In the 90s, it was very rare for bladers (as in the "aggressive" ones this video is largely about) to out number skateboarders at parks and popular spots, I started skating in 96 in Socal. Still skate, cause you know what, its fun and great exercise if you can avoid breaking your wrists. We didn't quit, we just had to go to college and get jobs.
Very informative
Right. And I think it's absolute fine to include every style of skating into the numbers. As long as its the same with the others. Inline skating is not only agressive. It's recreational, slalom, speed, downhill, wizard, asult(city) etc :) ♥️ But yes, ultimately the sport never really died at all.
fr its like including every single person rode a bike in street bmx
Yeah, skateboarders have always outnumbered rollerbladers like 5:1
Yep, I hear that rubbish about jobs getting in the way of a good time. Urgh.
I grew up... I stopped riding my GT, I stopped skating around my neighborhood and my childhood ended.
I was an avid cyclist during the roller blade craze. If you wanted to ride a multi-use trail, you would see a good number of skaters who knew what they were doing and it was easy to share the paved trail with them. But it was almost inevitable that you would come up behind a novice rollerblader with their arms and legs flailing around making it dangerous to even try to pass them. But then after rollerblading died off, bicycling became ultra-popular so many of us seasoned riders took to the roads because the trails became too crowded to be enjoyable.
The day roller blading died for me... 17, no car, no job, inline skating for fun (pretty shit at it but whatever) but also real big into video games. New games coming out, absolutely hype about it. Preorder and all that. Game gets leaked to some gamestop and EB games stores early, call around and find out one is nearby in town. Parents are at work, its a weekend. Nobodies gonna know. Fuck it, skating down to the gamestop to get my game early. Skate like 5 miles away through traffic and such. Get to the gamestop exhausted, the stores shut down and has a sign that they relocated to a shop inside the mall across the street. Sure as shit not going to skate 5 miles back home to get my shoes. Skate into the mall to rush to the gamestop. Immediately stopped by mall police. Beg and beg and beg for them to just let me buy shoes at the shoe store so i can buy my game and leave. They finally agree. Dickhead mall cop says i can only go to a shoestore on the 1st floor (We're on the 2nd floor) and watches me struggle down a straircase with flat smooth marble stairs in fucking skates. Get to the bottom, mall cop is laughing at me from the top. I see the gamestop is 2 doors down from the shoe store. Book it into the gamestop money in hand and buy my game quickly as possible. Skate tf outta the mall towards the exit with mall cops yelling at me from a distance. Stupid mall cop golf cart chases me through the parking lot until i hit the sidewalk because security guards can't leave property like witches can't cross running water. Skate 5 miles home to play new game after absolute cluster fuck of a day. Ankles were on fire for 3 days. Game turned out to be pretty ass. Never skated again.
What an amazing story.
@@TIJEY-BEG Thank you, im glad it atleast has some entertainment value lol.
@@HouseboundPerspectives I actually specifically remember asking the mall security for this solution and they were just being total dicks. They told me it was even worse to be in my socks or barefoot because of sanitary reasons.
@@RprShadow Because the bottom of our shoes are so much cleaner? lol.
@@Zankaroo They wouldn't be mall cops if they were geniuses.
When grinding started, bladers would take skateboard wheels, shave them down and replace the inside 2 weels with them. This is the "anti-rocker" set up. Around the same time there was a pair of skates that came with a flat metal spanner that fit perfectly between the inside wheels on the outside of the frame. This would become the grind plate. I think it's really cool how early inline skaters would modify their skates in this way to be able to do new tricks.
Yeah as a kid I took out the both middle wheels, so I it looks like I'm one of the cool kids that can grind
Interesting
Remember colored Randy Roadhouse grind wheels? 😎😁
Had some rollerblade lighting blades before 1995, can't remember the year though. Mostly did my paper route on them. Never learned any grinds but remember their names, like the Christ grind, and that's all I remember now that I try.
I wS fortunate to be in the early generation with aggressive inline. We made our own grind plates and even repositioned our frames to have more grind space. I miss the diy days!
I was a teenager back in the 90s, and the weird thing is: I grew up in NJ, just outside of NYC. Our crew was made up of skateboarders, BMXers and Aggressive inline skaters. We all hung out. We all hit up spots together. Hell, I loved skateboarding too. I did both. I even messed around with BMX. It was all fun. The hate never really existed here. Sure we all gave each other a little shit, but it was all in good fun, and at the end of the day we all pushed each other.