Inline Roller Poles

Inline skates are great for workouts and commuting – until you try to navigate down long steep hills. I’ve tried parallel turns, spins, heel brakes, toe brakes, and wheel dragging – but they all fall short (literally) causing pain and humiliation at worst and terror or very slow progress at best.

A variant of an inline ski pole could be constructed where a small (e.g., 4” - 16”?) pneumatic wheel replaces the point. The wheel is ratcheted to rotate forward only and its speed is controlled by a hand brake at the top of the pole. Without weight to enhance traction, the wheel would simply skid upon braking providing little improvement over other skidding methods. Therefore, we use angled sections at the top of the poles that fit tightly (or are strapped) to the forearms. They would look like forearm crutches in reverse – with wheels at the bottom. Body weight and biceps could then be used to apply a firm downward pressure onto the wheels providing friction between wheels and road for controlled speed. The pole length (i.e., distance to trailing wheels) is a tradeoff between balance and the amount of pressure that can be applied. The rotating wheels would shed debris and maintain controlled traction much better than skidding brake systems.

The wheeled poles would also serve as regular ski poles for increased speed on flat and uphill routes. Since a wheel would have less bite than a point for pushing, an arrangement could be made where a point (or flat rubber piece) could be switched into use by pole rotation or other simple mechanical means. (The basic inline pole is thoroughly baked as an inline accessory and was also suggested by [gizmo] as a “Wobble Stop”)