the.com/rollerblade
the socially acceptable way to commit to four wheels and zero brakes
means To skate on inline skates — boots with a single line of wheels down the middle — gliding (and occasionally flailing) along like an ice skater who's lost the ice.
from A genericized brand name: Rollerblade was the trademark of a company founded in the U.S. in the early 1980s, which popularized the inline skate design. The brand became so dominant that 'rollerblade' slid into everyday speech as the verb for the whole activity — much as 'hoover' did for vacuuming. The word itself simply stitches together 'roller' (from roller skate) and 'blade' (for the slim line of wheels resembling a skate blade).
- brand name
- Rollerblade is a trademark; the sport is inline skating
- hockey roots
- two brothers found old skates to train off-ice
- heel brake
- the one brake sits behind, where panic can't reach
- 90s peak
- sold millions before the genre quietly skated away
- speed record
- inline skaters have topped 60 miles per hour downhill
rollerblade brand — trademarked in 1985 by scott and brennan olson, became generic term for inline skates
aggressive inline skating — competitive sport with vert, street, and park disciplines, x games since 1995