Roller skate

Blading redirects here. For the professional wrestling term, see blading (professional wrestling). Inline roller skater on a slalom course Roller skating is travelling on smooth terrain with roller skates. It is often done for recreation and as a sport, and, more often than ice skating, it can be done as a form of transportation. Skates generally come in two basic varieties: inline skates, and traditional quad skates, though some have experimented with a single-wheeled "quintessence skate" or other variations on the basic skate design. Contents 1 History 2 Quad Skating 3 Inline skating 3.1 Aggressive Skating 3.2 Free skating 4 Competitive Skating 4.1 Speed Skating 4.2 Figure skating 5 Group Skating 6 Skating federations 7 References 8 See also 9 External links History The first recorded use of roller skates was in a London stage performance in 1743. The inventor of this skate is lost to history. The first recorded skate inventor was Jean-Joseph Merlin, who demonstrated a primitive inline skate with metal wheels in 1760. The first patented roller skate design was patented in France by M. Petitbled, in 1819. These early skates were similar to today's inline skates, but they were not very maneuverable; it was very difficult with these skates to do anything but move in a straight line and perhaps make wide sweeping turns. During the rest of the 19th century, inventors continued to work on improving skate design. The four-wheeled turning roller skate, or quad skate, with four wheels set in two side-by-side pairs, was first designed in 1863 in New York City by James Leonard Plimpton in an attempt to improve upon previous designs. The skate contained a pivoting action using a rubber cushion, and this allowed the skater to skate a curve just by leaning to one side. It was a huge success, so much so that the first public skating rink was opened in 1866 in Newport, Rhode Island with the support of Plimpton. The design of the quad skate allowed easier turns and maneuverability, and the quad skate came to dominate the industry for more than a century. Arguably, the most important advance in the realistic use of roller skates as a pleasurable pastime took place in Birmingham, England in 1876 when William Bown patented a design for the wheels of roller skates. Bown's design embodied his effort to keep the two bearing surfaces of an axle, fixed and moving, apart. Bown worked closely with Joseph Henry Hughes, who drew up the patent for a ball or roller bearing race for bicycle and carriage wheels in 1877. Hughes' patent included all the elements of an adjustable system. These two men are thus responsible for modern day roller skate and skateboard wheels, as well as the ball bearing race inclusion in velocipedes -- later to become motorbikes and automobiles. Another improvement came in 1876, when the toe stop was first patented. This provided skaters with the ability to stop promptly upon tipping the skate onto the toe. Toe stops are still used today on most quad skates and on some types of inline skates. Roller skates were being mass produced in America as early as the 1880s, the sport's first of several boom periods. Micajah C. Henley of Richmond, Indiana produced thousands of skates every week during peak sales. Henley skates were the first skate with adjustable tension via a screw, the ancestor of the kingbolt mechanism on modern quad skates. In 1884 Levant M. Richardson received a patent for the use of steel ball bearings in skate wheels so as to reduce friction. This also allowed skaters to increase speed with minimum effort. In 1898, Richardson started the Richardson Ball Bearing and Skate Company, which provided skates to most professional skate racers of the time, including Harley Davidson (no relation to the Harley-Davidson motorcycle brand). (Turner and Zaidman, 1997). The design of the quad skate has remained essentially unchanged since then, and in fact remained as the dominant roller skate design until nearly the end of the 20th century. In 1979 Scott Olson and Brennan Olson of Minneapolis, Minnesota came across a pair of inline skates created in the 1960s by the Chicago Roller Skate Company and, seeing the potential for off-ice hockey training, set about redesigning the skates using modern materials and attaching ice hockey boots. A few years later Scott Olson began heavily promoting the skates and launched the company Rollerblade, Inc.. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Rollerblade-branded skates became so successful that they inspired many other companies to create similar inline skates, and the inline design became more popular than the traditional quads. The Rollerblade skates became synonymous in the minds of many with "inline skates" and skating, so much so that many people came to incorrectly call any form of skating "Rollerblading," though this is a misuse of the company's trademark [1]. For much of the 1980s and into the 1990s, inline skate models typically sold for general public use employed a hard plastic boot, similar to ski boots. In or about 1995, "soft boot" designs were introduced to the market, primarily by the sporting goods firm K2 Inc., and promoted for use as fitness skates. Other companies quickly followed, and by the early 2000s the use of hard shell skates became primarily limited to the aggressive skating discipline. The single-wheel "quintessence skate" [2] was made in 1988 by Miyshael F. Gailson of Caples Lake Resort, California, for the purpose of cross-country ski skating and telemark skiing training. Other skate designs have been experimented with over the years, including two wheeled (heel and toe) inline skates, but the vast majority of skates on the market today are either quad or standard inline design. Quad Skating A pair of quad "disco skates" from the late 1970s Quad skating is roller skating done on quad skates, or "quads." Quads were the default skate design for over a century, and so were typically called simply "roller skates" until inline skates began to gain popularity in the late 20th century. During the late 1970s and into the 1980s, they were very commonly seen in use on paved outdoor skating and biking paths, as well as in skate parks and half pipes. However, quads are now not commonly used outdoors, having been replaced in popularity for that use by inline skates. Quads are still frequently used in roller rinks for recreational and dance skating. Quad skaters can also take part in competitive skating. In artistic roller skating, skaters compete in figures, free skating, team and solo dance, and free dance events, similar to the figure skating competitions held for ice skaters. Competitions are held throughout the world. Though most speed skaters have shifted to inline skates, there are still some competitions held for quad speed skaters. A recent revival of roller derby also features the use of quad skates. Roller skating as a recreational activity has typically been subject to a boom/bust cycle, with skating falling in and out of style. Quad skating became a particular fad in the late 1970s, when the introduction of new, soft urethane wheels made skating more smooth, and made skating outdoors more comfortable. Sneaker-styled skates were introduced for use on sidewalks and bike paths, as well as indoors, where disco skating became a craze. Films were made to cash in on the skating fad, such as Roller Boogie and Skatetown USA. In the early 1980s, the fad collapsed, and many rinks closed. When skating next boomed, it was with inline skates. In the first years of the 21st century, quads began to regain some popularity, with new retro-styled "tennis shoe" quad skates being manufactured, and the release of a movie featuring 1970s quad skating: Roll Bounce. Inline skating Roller skating girl in Rome, Italy (soul grind) Inline skating is roller skating done on inline skates. Inline skates usually have 4 or 5 wheels, arranged in a single line. Most commonly, if they have a stop, it is a heel stop rather than a toe stop. Inline skating is often done on the same surfaces as skateboarding: on the road, sidewalk, various street furnishings like fences and steps, and on special tracks and areas, including skate parks and half-pipes. Inline skaters are also frequently seen in rinks alongside quad skaters. Some inline skaters compete in artistic skating events, though quads are still more typical for that use. Inline skates for artistic use tend to be designed more as an analog of the ice skate or artistic quad skate design, with a toe stop and rockered wheels. The growth of inline skating in the United States was explosive in the early 1990s, but since 1996 sales have dropped as the market became saturated and the sport's trendy status began to fade. Among children, inline skates were supplanted in popularity by new designs of push scooters; meanwhile for adolescents there was a resurgence in the popularity of skateboarding. Today a few inline skaters can be found sharing public and private skateparks with skateboarders in cities around the world. Aggressive Skating See main article: Aggressive skating. In addition to speed, fitness, artistic, or recreational skating, some skaters prefer aggressive skating. Aggressive skating includes a variety of tricks, grinds, jumps, and other advanced skating maneuvers. It is sometimes referred to as "street skating", though there are subtle differences between the two. Aggressive skates are very rigid and heavy compared to speed skates and recreational skates. The wheels are small (about 56mm), and the overall speed which this skate allows is relatively slow. Aggressive Skating is related to skateboarding. Free skating Free skating A skating category that lies somewhere between aggressive and recreational skating, free skating includes many tricks such as jumps and slides, but not other tricks such as grinds. The boots on skates suitable for free skating tend to be more rigid for better leg support (like the aggressive skate), while the wheels tend to be larger and faster like the recreational skate. This type of skating is also known as urban skating. Competitive Skating Competitive roller skating includes a variety of events for inline and quad skaters. Competitions are held in roller hockey, speed skating, and figure (artistic) skating, in which skaters compete in figures, team and solo dance, and freestyle events. Inline dancing, especially at locations such as New York City's Central Park, can be especially popular during the summer months. Other sports include roller soccer, roller derby, and inline basketball. Speed Skating See main article: Inline speed skating Roller speed skating has a long history, dating back to the earliest organized roller skating competitions. Originally quad skates were used, but now inline skates are generally used for competitive speed skating. In the early 2000s, event organizers began to promote inline skating marathons to adults, whose use of inline skating for fitness had remained strong. The largest inline racing event in the world is the marathon in Berlin, which had more than 9000 skating participants in 2003. The NorthShore Inline Marathon in Duluth, Minnesota is the largest inline skating event in North America, with over 3000 skaters attending the September event. An inline figure skater Figure skating See main article: Artistic roller skating Similar to figure ice skating, roller figure skaters compete in women's and men's categories in singles and pairs freestyle, figures, and team and solo dance, as well as in large teams ("precision" or "synchronized" skating). Most figure skaters skate in quad skates, but some use inline skates that are designed for artistic use. Group Skating Among skaters not committed to a particular discipline, a popular social activity is the group skate, in which large groups of skaters regularly meet to skate together, usually on city streets. Although such touring existed among quad roller skate clubs in the 1970s and 1980s, it made the jump to inline skates in 1990 with groups in San Francisco, California, Washington, DC, and New York City. In some cases, hundreds of skaters would regularly participate. In the late 1990s, the group skate phenomenon spread to Europe and east Asia. The weekly Friday night skate in Paris, France (called Pari Roller) is believed to be one of the largest repeating group skates in the world. At times, it has had as many as 35,000 skaters participating on a single night. The Sunday Skate Night in Berlin also attracts over 10,000 skaters during the summer, and Munich, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, and Tokyo host other popular events. For some group skates in both North America and Europe, Halloween is the most popular event of the year. Charity skates in Paris have attracted 50,000 participants (the yearly Paris-Versailles skate). Skating federations Wikimedia Commons has media related to: In the United States, the controlling organization is USA Roller Sports, headquartered in Lincoln, Nebraska, also home of the National Roller Skating Museum. Nationals are held each summer with skaters required to qualify through regional competitions. Other groups include: Federation Internationale de Roller-Skating, the international organization for competitive roller sports British Federation of Roller Skating Canadian Skating Association References } |then=} |2=} |then=Turner, James, in collaboration with Zaidman, Michael |else=} |then=, }} }} }} |else=} |then=Turner, James, in collaboration with Zaidman, Michael |else=} |then=, }} }} |then=, |then= () |else=} |then=} |then= ( 1997) |else= (1997) }} }} |then=. |then= "" |then= }} } |then=[ The History of Roller Skating] |else=The History of Roller Skating }}} |then=, |then=, |then=, |then=, } |then=: }}National Museum of Roller Skating |then=. ISBN 0-9658192-0-5 }}. National Museum of Roller Skating: Homework Page See also Human-powered transport External links National Museum of Roller Skating Roller Skating Association International (formerly RSROA), a trade association representing rink operators, skating instructors, and skate and manufacturers and retailers.fa:پالیزه Search Term: "Roller_skating" Categories: Extreme sports | Roller skating

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