Stabilised skates

The wheel speed is stabilised with 3 mechanisms to control and reduce your feet sliding forward or backwards.

First, the wheels on both feet are connected by a mechanical linkage that goes up each leg through a conduit. The linkage makes them spin at the same speed. This helps prevent feet sliding apart in a forward backward direction.

Second, the mechanical linkage also connects to a geared flywheel, to resist rapid changes in wheel speed. This helps prevent both feet suddenly sliding out from under you together, or one sliding out from under you while the other is off the ground.

You can propel yourself forward in two ways: pushing diagonally as with regular skates, or by using a normal walking motion.

Skating sort of takes a bit more effort than normal as the flywheel causes resistance to your increase in speed. On the other hand it also resists decrease in speed.

With the parts so far, a walking motion would not move you as far as walking normally, as the flywheel would allow your foot to slip backward. To prevent this while walking from a standstill, the third mechanism is a ratchet on the flywheel preventing it from turning backwards.

You have to put up with the lesser walking progress when walking from a roll. But you get it on top of the roll movement.

There is a gear change mechanism (safely adjustable only while stationary) to change how much the flywheel resists wheel speed changes. Lower resistance makes skating easier, and deliberate speed changes easier, higher resistance makes you more stable and makes walking from a given roll speed more effective.