Inline at Mammoth
up : Just because rollerblading is in its dark ages, it shouldn’t mean we have to ski in it.
From left to right: Franky Morales, Brian Shima, Chris Haffey, and JF Cusson
Words and photos by Jeff King
Chris Haffey, Brian Shima, and Franky Morales are naturally talented athletes who just happen to be learning to ski. They also happen to be three of the best inline skaters ever. For three days at Mammoth Mountain they skied and had a good time, you can’t hate on that…but scroll to the bottom and start flaming if you so desire. Otherwise read on and be enlightened.
Skiing and inline skating (or rollerblading, whichever you prefer) have actually had a longer standing relationship than newschool skiing itself has existed. If you were alive in the early ’90s, cross-training on line skates was fairly common for skiers, and if you still read SKI magazine, it could still be today. There are two vastly different sides to rollerblading: the purely recreational side with its fashion blades, and aggressive street skating. Most of inline street skating’s image issues could be blamed on the generic commercial success of its other side. Being highly accessible sounds great, but anything associated with soccer moms and one-footed slalom is so at odds with a “core” lifestyle, it’s hard to exist separately, let alone be distinctively unique. Newschool skiing doesn’t have to worry so much about these issues—skiing is still skiing to anyone else, and stretch pants were never that warm anyway. Still, street skating goes on regardless of being dropped from the X-games, losing sponsors, and contests disappearing. Remember when the X-games had inline downhill, you probably remember street luge, so let’s not measure a sports relevance by its acceptance in a made for TV spectacle put on by Disney.
Today in 2007, think about skiing 12 years ago, then imagine it eight years from now. Consider what would happen if in eight hypothetical years, skiing went into decline again, like a tech bubble bursting. All the haters who said skiing was lame when the park was dominated by snowboarders, are saying, “See, I told you so.” Would you stop skiing, or even pretend you never did it at all? That’s the path aggressive inline skating has taken the last 20 years. If skiing never quite eclipses snowboarding, you might see something like this happen… not saying it’s probably, but it’s possible. Meteoric rises are usually followed by a steep descent, after all. You could say that newschool skiing is just now taking off after fueling up the last 10 years. Sponsor dollars and the pure number of pro-level events make easy indicators. Ski superpipe went from a non-event to the headline event live on ESPN in only four years, with that event alone probably the reason for Simon Dumont’s major sponsorship with Target. Thankfully, newschool skiing has the huge benefit of a well-established, centuries-old lifestyle image to lean on for support. In contrast, nobody’s parents ever taught them to skateboard or rollerblade.
Read the full article on newschoolers.com
+ photo gallery.
February 16th, 2007 at 4:39 pm
In the 90’s I used to compete freestyle (now known as moguls).
I learned to roll vert and street parks for cross training, it definitely made me a better skiier, and both sports are equally as much fun.
The jumps and rails are much bigger and slightly less technical on the mountain, but ski parks have a lot in common with rolling.
Guys like Haffey, Shima and Morales are natural athletes and definitely could learn quickly and introduce new style into skiing from a rollerbladers perspective. anyone whos a good rollerblader should give skiing a try sometime.
damn i wish i was in mammoth. btw, rollings not in a dark age. just my opinion tho.
February 16th, 2007 at 4:40 pm
maybe these guys will soon be great riders on ski. Shauwn white started skateboard a few years ago and was making 900° on a half-pipe within about 6 month !
snowboard ?
February 16th, 2007 at 5:22 pm
did you see those pics? three days deep and theyre throwing 5’s off good sized kickers. damn theyre gonna school me on the mountain just like the streets :(
February 16th, 2007 at 5:36 pm
Great photography…
I’ll get around to reading it later.
February 16th, 2007 at 7:13 pm
rocksanddirt now u see what i was talking about.. those fucker skying dont look like fagots on skyboards…
THEY ARE STYLISH CUZ THE LEARNED STYLE ON BLADES… and most of the sky guys (probably you too) dont take worry about how stylish a trick can be.
dont hate me but THESE MAMOTH COULD BRING ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE FOR THE SPORT U DO SINCE U WERE 2….
thats what i meant first time i posted on thet other sky post…
later masturberar
February 16th, 2007 at 8:42 pm
Dude i tried sking for the first time at big bear mountian last week and it was pretty dope. I got the cheap lessons and what not but i picked it up pretty quick. Its reallly fun and i get where jeff is coming from becuase like none of my friends wanted to ski they all wanted to snowboard and I kept getn shit from people saying “Well why didnt you snowboard?”
sking and rollerblading are so alike in the sense that they are overshadowed by boarding but that weekend i felt good coming home knowing that i tried it out and enjoyed it. I feel even better now to see those rollers up there in ski’s too.
February 17th, 2007 at 1:02 am
ive skied longer than ive rolled and wow those guys learned that shit fast
its amazing that they were able to learn the mechanics of skiiing so quickly
and Rodrigo Lagoa what the hell did you just say?
February 17th, 2007 at 1:59 am
my english sucks, but in other worlds heheaheahaehaehaeh
February 17th, 2007 at 6:35 am
skiing is sick there shouldnt be flammeing on here from the riders skiing and snowboarding are alot alike and have the same fame , those guys will be sick on skis
February 17th, 2007 at 6:42 am
THIS IS FROM NEWSCHOOLERS.COM
SITE YOUR SOURCES
February 17th, 2007 at 11:24 pm
just got back from chamonix in france. been there skiing for a week, had such a sick time, cant wait to get back up there next year, skiing is def the thing for the winter, and skating boosts your style and ability soooo much
February 18th, 2007 at 5:32 am
I read what some of the skiiers said on that link with the full on pics and stuff. Those guys were so dumb saying they had no style. I was thinking man only if those fuckers knew all the tricks they laces on skates they would keep their mouths shut for good. Because rollerblading envolves more rails and gaps. Not downhill jumps and flat park rails all the time. I dont know people just can be really stupid about things they have no idea about. Like skiiers are just learning things that rollerbladers have been doing for ages. Oh well they’ll just have to learn the hard way i guess right?
February 28th, 2007 at 2:54 am
John you gotta realize that steez(style) translates different from rolling to skiing. Shima and Haffey did NOT have good style on the rails from a ski perspective, that comes with a little more time on skis and for them it would probably come in a matter of days. Their jumps were looking incredibly good looking for their second day and impressive even if it was their second year. And I’m willing to bet that if they did make the transfer to skiing they’d become sponsered by some big names within months (look up Kaya Turski.)
Each sport has their highlights, compared to rolling, ski rails are fucking lame. But ski halfpipe and big air beat the living shit out of rolling’s counterparts and not to mention that at the moment, all the money is in skiing.