| Many people seem to think that roller skates are a | | | | you could fix to your feet and move from one place |
| relatively recent invention, and a popular 20th-century | | | | to another with little effort. Although it is rare, some |
| kids' toy. However, roller skates have actually been | | | | people still use them this way today - particularly |
| around for over two centuries, and have many other | | | | teenagers, but also office workers in cities who don't |
| uses apart from child's play. | | | | have too far to go and don't want to take a bike. |
| The most commonly seen kind of roller skates today | | | | Roller-skating is also a popular sport, and it is even |
| are actually roller blades, also known as inline skates. | | | | thought that it might soon be added to the Olympics. |
| They have all the wheels in a line instead of arranged | | | | Skate-parks that have been designed to |
| in the classic car-style formation, which allows you to | | | | accommodate the resurgence of skateboarding can |
| travel much faster at the expense of making it a little | | | | also be easily used for roller-skating, and skaters can |
| more difficult to balance, a similar trade-off to that | | | | pull off similar tricks and manoeuvres to skateboarders |
| made with a two-wheeled bicycle. | | | | this way. Roller skate racing is also quite popular, with |
| In fact, the original purpose of roller skates was as a | | | | people competing to get from one side of an obstacle |
| means of transportation: a kind of 'wheeled shoe' that | | | | course to the other in the fastest time. |