Freeskating Tricks
Two inline wheels per foot, nothing in between, and the whole thing fits in a bag.
A freeskate is a small platform carrying two inline wheels, one under each foot, with nothing connecting them. No boot, no binding, no board. Each foot steers on its own, which is what makes everything else possible.
You do not push off. You pump: a continuous sine wave carved into the pavement, the two skates tracing opposing arcs while your weight rolls through them. The speed comes out of the motion itself. It is the closest thing I have found to swimming on land.
I think this is the perfect skate. It is the most portable one ever made, small enough to fit in a purse, so it comes with you rather than waiting at home. It fits anywhere a shoe fits. And because each foot is free, the trick vocabulary is enormous and still being invented.
Hardly anyone rides them, which I mostly find puzzling and occasionally a little lonely. So here is my pitch: the tricks below are the fastest way to understand what these things can do that nothing else can. Watch a few. Then go get a pair from JMKRIDE and find me.
Fourteen tricks
Carson J. Bruns, Associate Professor, ATLAS Institute and the Paul M. Rady Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Colorado Boulder.