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Skate like a Pro
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Inline Skating Lessons

Rollerblade Maintenance Lessons

Rollerblading Trail Guides

Inline Skate Maintenance

“A one stop online shop for all of your inline skating needs.”

Welcome to our maintenance department! This department of our store provides basic and advanced inline skate maintenance lessons to help recreational bladers keep their skates in prime, rolling condition, from week-to-week, and year-to-year.

The first lesson in our two-part, inline skate maintenance series is designed to get you acquainted with the various parts of your rollerblades so you can inspect and clean your wheels and brake, as well as do your own wheel rotations. There is also a special procedure about what to do if your wheels get moist from skating in wet conditions.

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Skate like a Pro

Welcome to the third installment of our three-part skating series that’s designed to take the recreational, inline skater from the schoolyard to the trail within a single season. You’ve spent 10 hours in the schoolyard mastering the basics and 8 days on the trails learning the inline skating techniques from the last lesson named Intermediate Trail Skating. You feel confident and ready to tackle the maneuvers in this advanced inline skating lesson. If so, let’s get going!

In Lesson #3: Advanced Trail Skating, you learn how to take your skating to the ultimate level on trails where the terrain is hilly, the surface conditions are variable, and the distance is between 20 and 25 miles round trip. The goals of this lesson are to improve your abilities on longer, winding, hilly trails, increase your fitness level even further with sprints, and add an element of style and fluidity to your skating.

Why did we set these goals for the lesson?

It is our belief that the advanced inline skater needs to develop a complete set of skills to master all of the terrain on the trail. If the skater has a tool box full of tactics at his or her disposal, he or she can reach in and apply the correct maneuver at the right time on the trail. This is the essence of advanced inline skating! This is also the reason why we set such a lofty set of goals for this lesson. In short, we want the student to become a complete skater!

Lesson #3: Advanced Trail Skating

This is the third and final lesson in our three-part skating series. Five maneuvers are covered in this advanced inline skating lesson.

First, we introduce a new method for stopping, dubbed the T-stop. Second, we look at the Crossover procedure, which you can use to skate around wide bends or sweeping curves in the trails. Third, a new maneuver for controlling your speed on steeper hills is covered, namely, the Short-Radius Parallel Turn. Next, we present a second way to enhance your fitness from trail skating called Sprinting. Finally, we’ve added a maneuver called the Speed Skater’s Stride and Glide, so you know how to conserve your energy on those long trails that never seem to end. This technique can also be used to impart an element of style and rhythm to your skating.

Why these five inline skating techniques?

The reasons have to do with the underlying structure of the three-part series. The lessons were designed as a series of progressive steps. To maintain the progression the advanced inline skating lesson needs to build on the foundation that was established in lessons #1 and #2. What do you mean?

In lesson #1, the beginner learned how to go into a skaters stance, employ the heel stop, make a single, parallel turn, and do short strides and glides. In lesson #2, the intermediate learned how to use the heel stop and staggered stance together in the pump the brake maneuver, make a series of linked, mid-radius, parallel turns, and do longer strides and glides.

The advanced inline skater uses the same basic movements and maneuvers as the intermediate, but modified for skating on harder trails. For instance, the pump the brake stop has now evolved into the t-stop maneuver, for quicker stopping action.

In addition, the mid-radius, parallel turn for speed control on gentle hills has now progressed into a series of smaller, linked, short-radius, parallel turns for speed control on steeper hills. Finally, the longer striding and gliding procedure has changed into the long-track speed skater’s striding and gliding maneuver for efficient and fluid skating over longer distances.

Since there are no drastic changes in movements, just modifications, the advanced skater leverages what he or she learned in the intermediate lesson. This continuity, from lesson-to-lesson, helps to accelerate the student’s understanding of the material, as well as the application of the inline skating techniques.

Ordering the Lesson or Module

To order Lesson #3, click below:

Advanced Trail skating

To order our complete set of inline skating lessons, click the Skating Module link below:

skating Module

About our Rollerblading Lessons

Our inline skating lessons are unique for the following reasons:

Step-wise Instructions

All procedures are written in clear and concise English in a step-wise manner, with feedback where necessary, so the maneuvers are easy to understand. In addition, all of our skating lessons are well illustrated. The numerous photos and drawings serve to clarify the instructions.

Solid Foundation in the First Lesson

The student is free to advance at his or her own pace, but it’s recommended that he or she only moves on after mastering the maneuvers in a particular lesson, which often entails a certain amount of practice and mileage. In this way, the student builds the correct foundation right from the start in lesson #1 and adds more and more skills as he or she progresses from lesson #1 through to lesson #3.

A Progressive Structure

The inline skating lessons are designed to take the beginner from the schoolyard to the trails within a single season. To reach this goal, the lessons are set up as a progression so the beginner can get comfortable with the basic maneuvers in lesson #1 before moving on to the intermediate instructions in lesson #2, and then onto the more in-depth procedures for the advanced inline skater in lesson #3.

In addition, our inline skating lessons teach you everything you need to know to become an advanced inline skater. There is no need to go anywhere else for lessons. Our three-part skating series provides complete coverage of the subject matter.

We have inline skating articles posted on the site. Here are the topics that we’ve covered so far:

To view, print, or use one or more articles on your web site and/or in your newsletter, click the Article Index button:

Article Index

We want to forge partnerships with related sites!

To add your link to our directory in exchange for a link on your site back to us, click Links Directory for instructions:

Links Directory

Visit us often to see what’s new in the world of inline skating. To add our site to your Favorites, click the link below:

Don’t forget to bookmark us! (CTRL-D)

We would really appreciate it if you told other inline skaters about our site. To tell your friends, just click below. Thanks!

Tell a Friend

Are you looking for a place to skate when you’re on vacation? The Inline Skating site at About.com has a category called the Best Places to Skate.

Over the coming months they’re going to feature the best of the best in the US and Canada. You’ll want to bookmark the site and check in before you head out on vacation.

Best Places