How to Pick Roller Skates

Series Summary

Roller skating was invented in 1760 by a Belgian man, but did not become popular until an improvement was made on the roller skate in 1863 that allowed the roller skates to turn easily around corners and curves. At first, roller skating was simply a pastime and aerobic workout, but in the early 1990's it became a more competitive sport. Beginning first with roller hockey, skating evolved into other sports including speed skating, figure skating and roller derby.

In this free video series our expert will teach you how to roller skate. This fun and healthy activity can be enjoyable for anyone once you learn the basics. Our expert will show you how to pick out the best roller skates and how to use roller skating safety equipment. You will also learn the basics of roller skating including how to stop on roller skates, how to skate backwards and how to go around corners. If you are interested in this fun and active sport, let our expert show you how to get started with the basics of roller skating.

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Rachel Cook on behalf of Expert Village and today I'm here to talk about picking out roller skates. For the first time skater, what you want you want to do is go to your local skating rink, they offer the most variety of skates that you can actually try on. Often you can buy them direct from them at a deep discount, which is also nice for first time roller skate purchaser. What you're trying to look for in a skate is something that feels right on your foot. This skate right here is called a boot skate, which is a little bit different than the taller, ankle skate, the ankle boot skate. While this doesn't provide as much ankle support, it actually provides you a lot more flexibility in being able to move around while you're on your skates, whether indoor or out. Another thing that you want to look for is a nice stopper, this is going to help you stop and start, making sure that it's not too close to the bottom of the wheels, but that it's also not too high that it impedes you being able to stop. The next thing to worry about is the wheels. There are a variety of wheels, there are very hard, hard, hard wheels, which have a very low millimeter ranking. There's medium wheels which have a 30, 40, 50 millimeter ranking and then there are very soft wheels which are 80 millimeters and higher. The soft wheels are used for outdoor skating primarily because they have the most amount of grip. The medium wheels are great for starter skaters for indoor, like skating rinks, and then if you're really fast, I would go for the harder skating wheel. They're definitely interchangeable, you just need to take out, which a ratchet, the sizes vary so test them out. Take the nuts off with a ratchet; pull the wheel off, being sure to keep the bearings inside. There are two bearing on every single wheel so there are eight bearing total. Keeping the bearings inside the wheels. You can change the bearings out if you need to reuse them, if you're switching from indoor to outdoor wheels, simply popping them out, using the axle. Make sure that your wheels, when you're reattaching them, that they don't wiggle side to side, but they should spin, at least relatively smoothly. They don't have to spin super fast, especially for outdoor or for a first time skater. The slower the wheel means the more confident you can get on the skate. When the wheels can spin very fast and not wiggle that's a good indoor speed, so that you can get speed without having to go too slow or use too much momentum to be able to move forward. These types of skates have an additional support with the Velcro and that just helps keep the skate on your feet, and also prevents blisters, so this is an excellent first time skate. These were my first skates."