Story: Blades of Steel
It was the summer of 2019 when I looked out from the 9th floor window of our condo north of the "Big City" and decided I wanted to buy some rollerblades.
I don't know what drove this -- perhaps I had seen someone in rollerblades in a park or video, perhaps I wanted to extend the range on my daily walk to farther flung reaches of our neighbourhood -- whatever it was, I became fixated and rollerblades became inevitable.
Before continuing, I want to make two facts clear which made this decision a slightly not great idea. First, I don't know how to skate. Despite being Canadian all my life I avoided the siren call of the hockey stick, eschewing both ice and street flavours of the sport as a youth. We frequently had "ice rink" gym days in grade school, but I was one of those kids that just goofed around in boots or ate nachos in the stands.
Secondly, I am large. Not large enough to be featured on degrading reality TV shows, but my height draws the common questions of "how tall are you?" and "do you play basketball?" more frequently than not, and I've got enough meat on these long bones that the last time I saw 200lbs was in grade 9.
In fact, until this event I doubted that they even made rollerblades in my size, as most shoe stores don't even have me covered -- but on that fateful summer day I found myself a specialty rollerblade store, and my fate was sealed.
Said store was a 2 hour walk away. I had much saner means to get there at my disposal, but very reasonably decided that a 2 hour walk there would give me a solid hour of rollerblading on my way back, which would give me plenty of time to learn how to rollerblade.
Did I mention people treat me like a fully functioning adult?
And so I made the walk, all the way noting the best possible route for the way back to avoid any difficult terrain. The specialty store did, in fact, have rollerblades that fit my ogre feet, and came with a price-tag just as unreasonably large. I bought some hand-guards while I was there just in case I had a couple wipeouts as I got my wheels under me on the way home. I proudly walked out of the store, crossed the street, then swapped my shoes for my brand new blades. Oh, I didn't bring a backpack, because I knew I could just keep my shoes in the rollerblade box and carry that -- you definitely don't need arms for balance while rollerblading.
So there I was, sun shining, 29 years old and standing nearly a full 7 feet tall now with the addition fresh wheels beneath me, carrying a box of shoes roughly big enough to be a large PC chassis, learning to rollerblade on my long long way home.
If you've never rollerbladed or skated before, I really want you to imagine how horrible it is to suddenly have next to zero friction under your feet. There is no sane mechanism to stop -- if you start rolling you need to know how to stop and that stopping doesn't involve your hands, which is not very intuitive. There's no rails or walls to hold, and so your body kinda panics and you naturally lean back against the direction you're sliding and fall flat on your ass.
I need to rewind to that second fact about being an enormous human being. "The bigger they are the harder they fall" and all that. I fell several times on my attempt to get home. Each of those falls sent my box of shoes flying further as my arms flailed about to get beneath me and catch myself. One time I launched the box into a forest and had to slowly march in clinging onto trees to retrieve them.
I fell so hard that three weeks later my optometrist was convinced I had been either been in a recent car crash or was developing diabetes due to the burst blood vessels inside my eyes. Ultimately I did not skate my way home -- after a mere 15 minutes, a slightly sprained wrist (even with the guards!), scraped knees, and a sore ass, I put my shoes back on and limped home.
I did try again over the next couple months. Occasionally I'd work up the courage to lug my monster wheel-boots out to a parking lot and strap them on only to sheepishly remove them again after smacking into fences, parked cars, and the ground. Eventually they got packed away and collected dust. Life went on.
Until this afternoon! Six years, two moves, and an additional 30lbs later some inspiration once again touched me and I began digging through the old piles of boxes that comprise a city for spiders and ghosts beneath the basement stairs. I found my precious horrible boots and once again strapped them on, determined to take it slow and give it another try.
If you've never rollerbladed or skated before, I really want you to imagine how horrible it is to suddenly have next to zero friction under your feet...
I have been told that a wise person is just a fool that's learned from enough mistakes. It seems I am still a fool. A fool with a perfectly fine bicycle.