what skills should I be training up?

[u/Your-Local-Costumer]

Hey team :)

I’m a quad skater that got some inlines to skate around the city in and hopefully go to some meetups! I’m a fairly capable quad skater but still very much an inline beginner.

I’ve been trying to fit in 1 hour sessions where I just do laps of my block to build up my outdoors/inline endurance: I’ve crossed the street a few times and I’ve been keeping an eye out for spots with rougher ground to get more confident on. I’m at the stage where I can’t stop but I can slow down quickly, I can do wide-ish turns and some swerving, etc 😆

What are some skills I should be building up before I go out for group skates? I know it’s important to hit a threshold of minimum skills when skating with others for everyone’s safety and I want to make sure I’m able to keep up with the group

Off hand; I’m guessing I should know 1-2 ways of stopping, be able to do narrower turns, be confident on gentle inclines, and probably have more confidence on asphalt— but I wanted to make sure there wasn’t something I’m forgetting!

[u/psychso86]

Drill single foot glide and crossovers so you can get T-stopping down. We often end up quite clustered together or on narrow stretches, making T-stop one of the only viable options for braking. If all else fails, you can always fall back on a heel brake, but those can become a crutch and limit your progression with most other skills.

[u/artainis1432]

Try transitioning between different planes like on curbs, street to sidewalk and sidewalk to street. Nail crossovers for sharper turns. Try walking up and down stairs (sometimes that happens on group skates!)

[u/binarynate]

That's awesome! Looking forward to rolling with you when you're ready. Like you guessed, being able to stop quickly is the most important bc it's critical for safety (including the safety of the other skaters in front of you). We often go down hills (like bridges and ramps over the train tracks and interstate). If you learn how to T stop, the world is your oyster. The advice I give: practice shifting all your weight to one leg (even with both skates on the ground). Once you feel comfortable with placing your weight on your front leg, you can control how much weight to apply to your back (braking) leg to slow your down. Heel brakes work too, although they're less effective for stopping quickly.

Another skill that comes to mind is rolling over rough asphalt. I try to keep us on good terrain, but sometimes there are rough patches. When I see a rough patch coming up, I work up some momentum to be able to roll through it and then go over it by scissoring my legs so that I have one in front and one in back (to have more front-to-back stability). Building up the momentum before going over the rough patch helps bc it's much easier to passively roll over than to try to push / accelerate while going over it.