Getting Started Roller Skating - Part 2: Tips for Picking Out Your First Roller Skates Part 1 of 2

Today, we continue the Getting Started Roller Skating Series with part 2. This episode is all about tips and questions you need to ask yourself before selecting your first (on next) pair of roller skates. Understanding the answers to these questions and what to consider can help you when deciding what roller skates are best for you.

In today’s episode, I cover:

Understanding where you plan to do most of your roller skating – indoors at a rink, a gym or outdoors?
What kind of surface will you be skating on? Wood, sports court, concrete or asphalt? The surface plays a big roll (pun intended) in knowing what roller skate wheels are best for you.
How good is your balance already? How good your balance is will help dictate how much you need your equipment to help your stability.
Do you already have a roller sport or a specific kind of skating that you want to do? If so, that can also dictate the type of skates you need.
And, finally, if you are doing a kind of roller sport, understand the different types of skates that most people in that sport use regularly. This may help you decide whether you need quads roller skates, rollerblades or aggressive inline skates used for speed skating.

Show Notes

Here are links I discuss in the show.

Yoga Balancing Postures – https://www.yogajournal.com/poses/types/balancing
Balancing Tests – https://www.topendsports.com/testing/tests/balance-one-leg-stand.htm

Episode 19 Transcript

Coming soon…

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Wrapping Up

Thanks again for rollin’ by. If you have a question about the podcast or just want to leave me a note, please comment below.

I hope you will join me every week for a new episode of The Roller Skate Dad podcast.

Please subscribe to the podcast on whichever podcasting platform you listen on. And, don’t forget to join the Roller Skate Dad Club. You can do that easily with just your first name and email address from any page on this website.

Did you like what you heard? Do you want to hear more? Check out these additional episodes:

Want to Learn More About Skating?

Want more reviews on roller skates? Check out my Best Roller Skates page for a list of all of the quad roller skates I recommend. I also have pages for roller skates for men, roller skates for women and roller skates for kids where I recommend the best skates on the market today. Or, check out my roller skates for beginners if you are completely new to roller skating.

Or, if rollerblades or inline skates are more your style, then check out my rollerblades for men, rollerblades for women or rollerblades for kids pages. Or, if you are completely new, check out my rollerblades for beginners page.

4 thoughts on “Getting Started Roller Skating – Part 2: Tips for Picking Out Your First Roller Skates Part 1 of 2 – 019”

Hi. Thanks for making these podcasts. In this episode you talk about aggressive inline skates in the context of speed skating. I am slightly confused by this as I think of aggressive skates as being for ramps and grinding, with manufacturers including USD and Razors. Instead it sounds like you are talking about low cut speed skates by the likes of Bont. Is this use of the term aggressive a cultural thing? Are low cut speed boots called aggressive in the US?

Thanks
Ben

Jeff Stone

May 7, 2019 at 11:36 am

Thanks, Ben, for rolling by and leaving a comment. You raise some interesting points.

There are a lot of skating terms out there floating around. Most people in the industry refer to skates like the VNLA Carbon, Luigino or Bont low cut speed skates as an aggressive inline speed skate. Bont, like a lot of skate manufacturers, make a variety of different skates. Using Bont as an example, one of their “aggressive inline speed skates” would be the Jet. You can see a couple of other examples in this article about beginner skates that I wrote. I show a couple of pairs of aggressive inline speed skates at the bottom of that article.

I have always seen and heard of these lower cut speed skates with the 3 or 4 tall wheel inline skates referred to as aggressive inline skates. I think it’s just the term that I and other skaters use to refer to them based on the industry people and crew that we hang around with. I could certainly see some rollerblades (and shoot even some quad skates) that could be referred to as aggressive based on the type of skating you may do with them. 🙂

I hope that helps and thanks again for popping by.
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