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What the Heck Happened to Rollerblading? (2017)

entertainment.howstuffworks.com

151–160 of 207 posts

Re: What the Heck Happened to Rollerblading? (2017)

#151
The somewhat fringe downhill rollerblading scene is pretty epic, with 100++kph races [1] and some nice technical descents [2]. What is interesting is that it made a somewhat resurgence in the past 5 years after disappearing from the downhill scene for a few years.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I46SP1Uc7ek [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfAHj04HHQo

Re: What the Heck Happened to Rollerblading? (2017)

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first thing hitting the concrete when falling is your palms, so having a glove with plastic protection will help not losing any skin from your palms. Also wear a helmet.

If you're looking for good gloves for rollerblading I recommend looking at motorbiking gloves. They're a bit expensive but they can be super comfortable and have a ton of protection around the wrist and knuckles.

Motorbike gloves do not include the essential part of wrist protectors, namely the hard plastic backbone which is meant to catch the fall and keep the wrist joint from overextending. If you want to wear them, fine, but make sure to use wrist protectors - with a rigid backbone - as well.

Re: What the Heck Happened to Rollerblading? (2017)

#153

The one time I tried it, I couldn't keep upright. The lack of edges (vs. ice skates) really threw me for a loop. I'm not all that great on ice skates, either, but I can stay blade-side-down on them.

You fall quite a lot when learning, my hands were very sorry.at the end of the day when I first learned. (I was 11 though)

Re: What the Heck Happened to Rollerblading? (2017)

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read, work, speak to people, look out of the window, drink some tea, nothing at all - there are many ways to spend time in a train. The commute would have been just as long (if not longer) by car but that would be time wasted instead of time for myself. Seeing those traffic jams from behind the train window (in the morning, by the time I went home the evening rush was already over) just was the icing on the cake, ima…

If my commute were 3 hours, regardless of mode, I'd either move or find a new job.

I did, eventually, first by going to Canada and Alaska to paddle the Yukon down to the Bering strait, then to Sweden 'cause I met a Swedish girl. Had I not met her I'd have moved to Canada instead, that was my original plan. But... the job was fun, it paid well, I was single, I bought a house which I sold for twice the price after 6 years (before I moved to Sweden) so in that respect everything worked out as intended. I would not do this at this time and place given that I'm not single, I have children, I live on a farm in the woods and I have gigabit fibre which makes it possible to reach the world at the speed of light...

Re: What the Heck Happened to Rollerblading? (2017)

#156

About 10 years ago I read a bunch of former roller bladers and skateboarders talking about the death of rollerblading in the 1990s. It is much easier to do tricks on rollerblades, also it was viewed as a "gay" activity in a much more homophobic time in society. There was a picture of a rollerblader in a skating mag and they photoshopped pink makeup on his face and made his rollerblades purple. Skaters started calling…

What happened is that I moved to the Swedish countryside and as such was confronted with hills and unpaved roads. When I lived in the Netherlands I used skates for transport in lieu of a bicycle because they're far easier to take along on public transport. I skated to the station, skated into the train, skated off it after 1.5 hours and 150 km, skated to my job and repeated this on my way home. I was just as fast as…

When I lived in the Mission in San Francisco 10 years ago, I found rollerblades to be the best way of traveling medium distances in the city (e.g. to the Civic Center). I didn’t have a safe place to store a bike, busses are super slow (and if I’m going longer distances, I can take them off and hop on a muni). I never heard of the homophobia angle either.

Re: What the Heck Happened to Rollerblading? (2017)

#157
post #129

About 10 years ago I read a bunch of former roller bladers and skateboarders talking about the death of rollerblading in the 1990s. It is much easier to do tricks on rollerblades, also it was viewed as a "gay" activity in a much more homophobic time in society. There was a picture of a rollerblader in a skating mag and they photoshopped pink makeup on his face and made his rollerblades purple. Skaters started calling…

> Skaters started calling rollerblades "fruit boots" and that killed it for a lot of people who didn't want to associated with something seen as weak and "gay". Their problem, a lot of fellow queer people rollerblade and they have a hell of a time. It's actually extremely funny how homophobes will stop having fun specifically because something gets coded as queer. Like they're deliberately cutting off their nose to s…

I think people who don’t want to be called gay are homophobes. It seems like you implied that though. It’s very normal to not want to do things that make you unpopular.

Re: What the Heck Happened to Rollerblading? (2017)

#158
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You spent >3 hours a day just commuting? I can't imagine doing that. What did you do on the train?

In Germany you can buy a yearly subscription for your daily commute train and that comes with a reserved seat and table and power plug for charging your laptop. From my observations, people are usually finishing powerpoint slides and answering emails during their commute.

I had a Dutch "OV Jaarkaart", a pass which is valid in all forms of public transport in the whole country, at any time. No reserved seats and no power plugs in the 90's of the last century, laptops were not as common as they are now and I got quite a few looks when I hooked up a Sony mobile brick to mine to remotely dial in to my box in the IT cave we called home. I usually wrote articles and proposals, hacked on random stuff or tried to build software I'd found on freshmeat.net or elsewhere.

Re: What the Heck Happened to Rollerblading? (2017)

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why was rollerblading ever associated with homosexuals to begin with? As one who did not know anyone in the 90s who was both a rollerblader and an out gay person, is it a "yeah, but looks gay" thing? I dunno, seemed like one of those things one says when they can't afford rollerblades, or can afford them but sucks at it and gave up.

There was also a window where "gay" meant "uncool." > 2. (slang, derogatory) Used to express dislike: lame, uncool, stupid. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gay#Adjective

To teenage boys where I grew up the '90s, "don't be gay" was just a standard egg-on challenge, interchangeable with "don't be a pussy." We weren't exactly in touch with our feminine sides. Your supposed masculinity was proven by doing things more idiotically dangerous than your friends. Only danger could lead to teenage glory. (See: Jackass). We had a saying for it: "Balls and stupidity." Teenage boys are like 2-year-old dogs before they get snipped. Rollerblading just wasn't dangerous enough. Especially with a bunch of pads on. Also, older people started doing it. You'd see lawyers rollerblading to work holding a latte. That more than anything probably killed it for teenagers.

After living in Spain and watching teenage boys do mindlessly dangerous moto dirtbike tricks for audiences of girls on the street, I had an insight that this was probably how Bullfighting started... some kid daring another kid to go stab a bull, and him doing it for attention from girls. And that sport is still heavily associated with machismo.

One other thing on the macho side - like, my mom roller skated when she was young, and even she got a pair of roller blades. You can't really be dangerously cool doing something your mom does.

Re: What the Heck Happened to Rollerblading? (2017)

#160
post #157
post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Skaters started calling rollerblades "fruit boots" and that killed it for a lot of people who didn't want to associated with something seen as weak and "gay". Their problem, a lot of fellow queer people rollerblade and they have a hell of a time. It's actually extremely funny how homophobes will stop having fun specifically because something gets coded as queer. Like they're deliberately cutting off their nose to s…

I think people who don’t want to be called gay are homophobes. It seems like you implied that though. It’s very normal to not want to do things that make you unpopular.

Do you mean "I don't think"? The rest of your comment makes it seem like you do.
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