Inline skating hangs on as exercise, hobbyists roll on

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Up in the garage rafters were the in-line skates, all three pairs of them. Dusty and unused in a box marked "Rollerblades," they've been moved — unopened — to five addresses in three states over eight years.

Not once have they been pulled out. It just seems so passe, like the out-of-fashion equivalent of throwing a cassette in your boombox.

Didn't in-line skating go out of circulation with the sitcom "Friends," MC Hammer and Tupperware parties?

Surely, this sport — a great way to burn 500 calories an hour — has succumbed to fickle trendiness.

The answer would be yes — and no. Although abandoned by the hordes who once pursued it, in-line skating hasn't gone away at all.

A group of in-line skating devotees has met in Sacramento, Calif., for its Monday Night Skate for the past 18 years.

"It's not as hard as you think," said event organizer Bernie Scoville of Sacramento. "Tonight, we'll have 10 people show up, probably. But we should have more. This in-line skating is such great exercise."

The all-time high attendance, said Scoville, was in 1994 when 106 skaters showed up. They had to skate through town in clusters.

If you are teetering on the edge of middle age and woefully out of practice, you may think you could never do the 10-mile Monday Night Skate. Then you find out Scoville is 72 years old and skates weekly.

"I'm trying to pass it on," said Scoville, a retired state worker.

The youngest skater on a recent Monday night was 30-year-old Cory Hamma from Sacramento's Land Park neighborhood, who said the group isn't really a good place to find a date.

"If you want to meet women, take up ballroom dancing," said Hamma, who works in IT, has a girlfriend and began in-line skating last month.

Dayle Rodenborn, a social worker from Sacramento, has been in-line skating for 15 years and in the Monday Night Skate group for two.

"The thing I like most about skating is being outside and seeing new places," said Rodenborn, 35. "It's better outdoors. You can go any place that has pavement."

Pavement is something you'll probably get acquainted with if you haven't skated for a while. Maybe you'll fall down and knock the wind out of your sails just after closing the dorky tri-colored latches on your vintage skates and stepping away from the car.